Outside of "how do I do X in JQuery again?", most times google directs me to StackOverflow it is to a question that got closed for some reason or other. I just can assume there are people for which it works better that way, but for me StackOverflow is useless in most cases where I'd hope it could help me. (EDIT: to add, the case mentioned by jrcii of "question is closed, but has a useful answer" also happens)
IMO, one thing that'd help would be requiring more close/delete votes for questions with lots of upvotes (and lots of heavily upvoted answers) like this one had.<p>That said, the <i>question</i> - "Of course the Unsafe class is undocumented, but how can I use it in a real world scenario" - is pretty much the definition of "too broad".<p><i>That</i> said, I voted to undelete and reopen, which appears to have succeeded.
Totally agree. Recently I asked a specific question on ServerFault, mentioning only that I run a SaaS monitoring service to give context. My question was closed, and I was accused spam. My question didn't include a link nor even the name of the business. I was offended but mostly just disappointed I couldn't find the help I needed.
After seeing a couple of posts like this, I'd like to provide an alternative perspective:<p>I no longer actively answer questions on StackOverflow, because it is too hard to find worthwhile questions between all the noise. If someone specifically asks me to answer something, I will do it, but trying to find interesting questions on StackOverflow has become impossible due to the high influx of very low quality material.<p>There was a period where I'd try to help moderation by closing an deleting questions, but at some point you just realize it's a loosing battle and give up.
The link to his question seems now thoroughly deleted as opposed to just hidden from all but direct links.<p>EDIT:<p>Also reading that question (thanks for the archive link!) that looks like the kind of question I would like to see more of actually. Sure it's somewhat subjective since it'll be experientially dependent but it certainly moves the ball forward in terms of helping someone understand a technology, language or language feature.
StackOverflow took on a tough challenge in getting its members to self-curate the body of questions on the site. They were smart to recognize that "more isn't always better", and thus gave moderators an incentive to identify and close off-topic questions.<p>There's nothing wrong with that idea, they just have a bug in the implementation. Somehow they've incentivized the closing of <i>good</i> questions that are frequently <i>on-topic</i>.<p>Here's an example of a plainly on-topic-yet-closed question that annoyed me recently:
<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2847655/find-threads-running-for-a-particular-process-in-linux" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2847655/find-threads-runn...</a>
As I read this, I was thinking, "man, it would be great if StackOverflow could serve as sort of a wiki platform so information like this has a place to live even though it doesn't meet SO's 'question and answer' criteria."<p>Of course, it does [1] (as an aside, read the comments on the answer there, most of them are people bitching that they can't earn rep on community wiki posts). The first link in the answer there points to an old blog post about "The Future Of Community Wiki" [2], which I highly recommend to anyone interested in this controversy as food for thought.<p>I see a <i>lot</i> of parallels between this problem and the problem that Reddit is having right now. It all stems from the question of how much these sites should be considered "communities." To what extent is StackOverflow really a "place"? Do fun, off-topic or poorly-formatted questions really ruin the reputation and mission of StackOverflow if they are but a subset of pages that happen to be hosted side-by-side with other pages that include content that can be found with a search and that many people will find invaluable?<p>[1] <a href="http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11740/what-are-community-wiki-posts" rel="nofollow">http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11740/what-are-commu...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://blog.stackexchange.com/2011/08/the-future-of-community-wiki/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.stackexchange.com/2011/08/the-future-of-communi...</a>
This question is basically the textbook example of "too broad" – is it any surprise that it was deleted?<p>Perhaps you can take issue with the fact that StackOverflow doesn't allow overly broad questions, but personally I find it helpful. When I find something on StackOverflow (or more commonly Cross Validated), it's almost always someone solving or pointing to a way to solve a problem very similar to what I encountered. Allowing extremely broad questions would diminish the likelihood that these results can be easily accessed.
archive.org link since the question appears to have been deleted (?):<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150404191857/http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5574241/using-sun-misc-unsafe-in-real-world" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20150404191857/http://stackoverf...</a>
I'm on my second account on SO. A few years back I was fed up with the "SO police" and asked Jeff Atwood to close the account for me. I've been back for almost 2 years now but I'm not an active member by any means.<p>Having said that, SO has been nothing short of amazing when you look at the vast amounts of information it provides. However, I never really had a good experience receiving responses on anything I've ever asked. I'd typically get a comment or two but answers are rare.
undeleted because of OP article and it received 10 votes to undelete <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5574241/using-sun-misc-unsafe-in-real-world" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5574241/using-sun-misc-un...</a><p>Funny that <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GDm_cAxYInmoHMor-AkStzWvwE9pw6tnz_CebJQxuUE/preview?pli=1&sle=true" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GDm_cAxYInmoHMor-AkStzWv...</a> is top post too.
Stack Overflow incentivizes bad behavior by its users. For instance, I've had questions marked as duplicates with links to entirely other questions... but the person who had the right answer for that other question, along with others on the point gravy train for it were the ones who voted to close my question.<p>Appealing after adding additional info showing how the questions were different didn't improve anything as the "reviewers" got points by "Reviwing" the appeal-- and denying it, of course.<p>That was the last time I used Stack Overflow.<p>You cannot have a community generated content site with community moderation where bad behavior is incentivized and rewarded. (Something that was a serious problem on HN in the past.)
I mean, I have some sympathy, but that wasn't a question, it didn't have a definitive answer, so it clearly was in violation.<p>Put the information up in a blog post, or anywhere else. It doesn't have to live on SO to be useful to everyone. SO is really terrified of turning into a reddit or a forum full of "What's the top ten coolest ...?" type questions.
My experience w/ SO has been mixed. Some of the moderators act like quality police and shut down genuine, but potentially basic questions. Yes, amazingly some of the answers are so deep! So mixed opinion for me.
I find myself from time to time having questions that I know would be immediately closed at SO by hyperactive mods, though probably many users, potential googlers etc. would like to find the answer to the same question.<p>What is a good place to pose such questions? I don't believe Ask HN is one, since time-on-frontpage is very short, and if thread does not get upvotes quickly, it goes into oblivion, and also, while too broad for SO, they're probably too specific for HN :)<p>Any recommendations?<p>Maybe there's a business case for a portal "TooBroadForStack.com" or sth like that ;)
Seems like it would be much better to move the content to a blog post then. The thing with sites like StackOverflow, Facebook, and Youtube is they can change and you have little to no control over it. If you write a blog post on it and then maybe just briefly answer the question on StackOverflow with a link to your blog then you get to control the content.
> This question does not appear to be about programming within the scope defined in the help center.<p>After reading through the help center info linked, it seems like this question would fit all the requirements in its current form. It's hard to look at past versions since the page doesn't exist on SO anymore, but how was the question originally stated?
Mods were never involved with this question; it was closed by regular users (<a href="https://stackoverflow.com/posts/5574241/revisions" rel="nofollow">https://stackoverflow.com/posts/5574241/revisions</a>). It was also never locked – locking is significantly different from closure.
I wish that StackOverflow rewarded unanswered questions. Most of my questions are open-ended without satisfactory answers because they hint at oversights or weaknesses in methodologies. I've had people comment that they refuse to answer my new questions because my answer selection rate is so low.
It's very difficult to maintain a site like SO after it has become successful. HN has the same problem. Basically you need to keep out troublemakers and boring repeaters and but at the same time you want to preserve broad and lively discussions.
<i>Update 2: Thanks to the Hacker News community, the post has now been reopened!</i><p>Anecdote is not data. StackOverflow is pretty well designed in regard to the sort of problem the author of the linked article encountered.
I have a question on SO with nearly 80000 views and it has been closed and reopened at least six times.
Occasionally I check if it is still there.<p>I'm still convinced that the answers are interesting and useful. At the moment it's locked because of "historical significance" which makes me little proud even.<p>[1] <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/961942/what-is-the-worst-programming-language-you-ever-worked-with" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/961942/what-is-the-worst-...</a>
By definition, this question <i>is</i> off-topic. That said, there are exceptional cases where SO community appreciates the valuable information provided by the answers and marks a question as protected. For example:
<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-m...</a><p>This is one of these rare cases. I'm glad that this question was re-opened and got protected - I think that was the right thing to do.<p>All that said, I'm sick and tired of all the winning I hear about SO lately, so many complaints, yet, everyone keeps using it.<p>I do not encourage a vicious behavior as sometimes seen in SO but I also don't like to watch people post again and again the same questions that have been answered multiple times and could be found in a simple google search (and which probably show on the right bar when they compose the question).<p>I'm also tired of people complaining about closing questions - dudes, if you don't want your question to get closed pretty please put some effort in it! do your research, post what you're tried, compose a minimal working example that reproduces the error, post a FULL stacktrace and show which line triggered it. But no, people don't like to "work hard" so they put all the burden on the people that are here to help them. This is NOT cool. So yes, fuck yes - I will keep voting to close poor questions, and even (potentially) good questions that the author didn't bother to give a fuck about making it clear, readable & reproducable (but please do not <i>dump</i> all your code and expect me to read it if only one small method is relevant) and no - this is almost always NOT a language/culture issue - regardless of what some people say.<p>Bottom line: they say "in rome act like romans" - well when you join a community you should follow the community rules. Take a few minutes to go through the help center, see if what you're asking is on-topic. Learn how to post a new (good) question. Hell, even ask someone you know to read what you've written and give you the feedback if it's clear and if it makes sense. You want help? so put the time and effort so that <i>we</i> won't waste <i>our</i> time & effort when we try to help you!<p>Have a nice weekend!<p>P.S.
Those who know me, know that I like to help people regardless of what I just wrote (example):
<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31358932/is-there-a-payment-processing-company-that-i-could-use-for-a-0-25-average-trans#comment50699206_31358932" rel="nofollow">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31358932/is-there-a-payme...</a><p>but I really <i>am</i> tired of hearing all the criticism. It bothers me especially when I recognize that it comes from intelligent people that I'm not sure if they're just "playing dumb" or being a "smartass".<p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<p>Help us help you!
I think that there is an opportunity for a different exchange like when SO started, without so many mods. I used to post on SO because it was new, exciting and there were lots of answers and comments, and most of all: activity.
Why not have a 'request move' flag on SO posts? Keeping a discussion alive and having it moved to the right place seems more useful and friendly than just shutting it down.
The community of moderators are extremely toxic, heading over to SO's chatrooms gives you a glimpse at the type of people responsible for moderating the content. Hazing new comers when they just have a need to fulfill their curiosity is shut down.<p>All in all, I've moved onto just reading the documentation and figuring things out occassionaly asking a very narrow question on SO.<p>If anyone is thinking of disrupting SO's space now is a perfect time. Ironic that people are now searching for stackoverflow alternatives.