Timeline for Closing changes: [on hold], unclear, too broad, opinion-based, off-topic reasons, bye-bye to Too Localized
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
30 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 23, 2017 at 12:36 | history | edited | CommunityBot | replaced http://stackoverflow.com/ with https://stackoverflow.com/ | |
| Mar 20, 2017 at 10:31 | history | edited | CommunityBot | replaced http://meta.stackexchange.com/ with https://meta.stackexchange.com/ | |
| May 10, 2014 at 23:41 | comment | added | WGroleau | A lot of argument on whether off-topic should or shouldn't mean migration. Is there any reason you couldn't say "off-topic' and optionally add "but it's also a bad question so please don't post it somewhere else." (feel free to word it more nicely than I did) | |
| Apr 24, 2014 at 13:50 | history | edited | CommunityBot | Migration of MSO links to MSE links | |
| Jun 24, 2013 at 19:33 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | It's already dead, it just doesn't know it yet. Dead close reason walking. That doesn't preclude a different reason being added at some point in the future, but let's make a clean break - we've been discussing alternate wordings for TL for years now and pretty much come up with nothing great at every turn. If you want to propose an ENTIRELY NEW reason with a specific, well-defined, easy-to-recognize use-case and associated description, then go ahead and do so - just don't damn it by associating it with TL. | |
| Jun 24, 2013 at 19:29 | comment | added | Old Pro | @Shog, if you noticed, I explicitly called for replacing TL with something better, because I agree it was being misused. "Off-topic" has a long history of being misused, too, and I'm afraid without a replacement for TL like I'm suggesting (the answer to this question is unlikely to help anyone else) all we will be doing is converting bad TL closes to bad off-topic closes. That seems to be what Nicol would do. I encourage input into a better description to go along with the Too Narrow (or whatever) reason, but let's work on that instead of killing it altogether. | |
| Jun 24, 2013 at 19:20 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | @Old: because that particular message failed to explain why... This didn't help the asker, but worse yet it didn't help the folks closing - the end result being, folk ended up using it for broadly-applicable questions that simply didn't fall into their personal field of interest. I liked TL for problems that had objective criteria: links to an external/production website, massive code dump with "there's a bug in there somewhere" problem description, etc... But that's never been explicit in the description, nor does "too narrow" clarify it at all. | |
| Jun 24, 2013 at 19:15 | comment | added | Old Pro | @Shog, removing "too localized" and not replacing it with something similar (like "too narrow") is "preventing me from doing that". I want to encourage voters to use stock answers other than "off-topic" for questions that suck generally, in order to avoid the problems we have often experienced from exactly that happening (crappy questions closed as "off-topic") in the past. I really don't understand the resistance to having a close reason that says "even though this appears to be related to the topics we cover, this question as written is not going to generate answers that help anyone else." | |
| Jun 24, 2013 at 17:12 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | @Old: if you want to do that, nothing in these changes prevents it. Indeed, we're hoping to encourage more specific guidance in the close reasons themselves, for those few that will follow them. | |
| Jun 24, 2013 at 9:53 | comment | added | Old Pro | @Shog, read the actual examples cited for the motivations and background. We want to optimize for well-meaning noobs who need guidance as to how to ask a good question and limit the damage done by giving confusing information or seeming rude. If we tell the OP their question is unclear or too narrow and they fix it so that it is then clear and useful, there's a good chance that by then it will be on-topic. If not, well at least it is now a good question we can migrate to another site where it will be welcomed rather than closed again. This creates a positive experience all around. | |
| Jun 24, 2013 at 2:01 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | @OldPro: so what's the alternative? We help someone learn to write a really good networking question and then closing it as off-topic? This doesn't seem like a good use of anyone's time either, and folks on SO are probably less well-equipped to teach someone how to ask a good networking question than the folks on SF would be. Of course, this is all assuming that the asker cares to learn anything, which is already a stretch... We may just be sorting the recycling according to type before it gets dumped together into the incinerator. But let's try to be optimistic for a little while. | |
| Jun 23, 2013 at 21:54 | comment | added | Old Pro | @Nicol, "That tells them more and better info than merely "off-topic", which is what we had before." What are you talking about? The "before" off-topic reason says "Questions on Stack Overflow are expected to relate to programming or software development within the scope defined in the FAQ" with a link to the FAQ. The problem with calling it off-topic is that the OP says "Oh, it's not about programming, it's about networking, so I'll go post it over on ServerFault." Now we've created more work for the OP that creates more work at ServerFault to once again close the question. | |
| Jun 23, 2013 at 21:47 | history | edited | Old Pro | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Elaborate on the dangers of labeling crappy questions as "off-topic" |
| Jun 19, 2013 at 17:55 | history | edited | Old Pro | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Replace one now-dead link with a fresh one |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 20:39 | comment | added | Nicol Bolas | @OldPro: "Closing "What is the max bandwith of LAN and WAN network?" as off-topic doesn't help the OP improve their question." Nobody's suggesting that. They will see it closed as "Questions not about programming are off-topic for SO." That tells them more and better info than merely "off-topic", which is what we had before. So how is this "no useful information"? Also, there's no improvement for the question you suggested. So there's nothing that can "help the OP improve their question". | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 20:27 | comment | added | Old Pro | @Nicol, the whole point of this redesign it to provide more and better information to the OP. Under your scheme, "off-topic" has no more meaning than "rejected" and adds no useful information to the close reason. Closing "What is the max bandwith of LAN and WAN network?" as off-topic doesn't help the OP improve their question. I don't see what you feel the danger is in having a more descriptive separate category of close reasons, but we have plenty of experience with what the danger is in having overly broad close reasons. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 20:11 | comment | added | Nicol Bolas | @OldPro: No it isn't relevant. Marking a question as off-topic does not mean that it magically manifests itself to another site. If the off-topic close reason is not a request for migration, but is instead one of the other off-topic reasons, migration doesn't happen. Whether a question deserves migration is a different matter from declaring it off-topic. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 20:08 | comment | added | Old Pro | @Nicol, whether the question is on-topic for other SE sites is highly relevant to those sites and thus SE as a whole. We have a lot of experience with crappy questions being migrated to other SE sites, much to the dismay of the other sites' moderators, so we want to distinguish between good questions worth migrating and crappy questions that should be prevented from being migrated. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 19:52 | comment | added | Nicol Bolas | @OldPro: "calling a question off-topic is implying that the question would be on-topic elsewhere" It does not imply that. It means exactly what it says: that the question is not on topic for that site. Whether it is on topic elsewhere on the Internet is completely irrelevant. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 19:34 | comment | added | Old Pro | @Nicol, calling a question off-topic is implying that the question would be on-topic elsewhere, but does not fit into the categories of questions answered on this site. However, we get a lot of questions that are not worth answering whether the topic is relevant to the site or not. Calling those questions off-topic points the OP in the direction of of finding someplace else to ask it (potentially another SE site where it has to get closed again) rather than in the direction of improving the question. That's why off-topic should imply "worth migrating" and we should have other close reasons. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 18:24 | comment | added | Nicol Bolas | @OldPro: And my question is why should it imply that? A question that's off topic is by definition bad for that site, regardless of any inherent quality to that question. The point of the various off topic close reasons is to have a place to explain what specifically is wrong with the question. Simply being "too narrow" doesn't explain to the user what the problem is. Saying "We don't accept debugging code-dump questions" does. And such a question is off topic because we have decided not to accept code-dump questions. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 18:13 | comment | added | Old Pro | @Nicol, my point is that "Off Topic" implies (or at least should imply) that the question is worth migrating, even if that only means the OP should find a different web site to ask it on. A bad question about puppies should be closed as a bad question regardless of the topic. We want to encourage the OP to write a better question, not copy-and-paste the question over to dogforums.com | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 18:04 | comment | added | Nicol Bolas | "Off topic" and "to be migrated" are not the same thing, and shouldn't be considered the same thing. After all, we can close questions as OT long after the migration time limit has passed. If someone asks a bad question about puppies, it's still off topic, regardless of the quality of the question. You shouldn't conflate the two concepts. And this way, each site gets to set clear standards for what is and is not on-topic. And each site gets to have explicit close reasons explaining what the question has asked about that isn't on-topic. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 17:48 | comment | added | Old Pro | Thanks, @Andrew. I opened a feature request | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 17:47 | history | edited | Old Pro | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Add link to feature request for "Leave Open" reasons |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 13:42 | comment | added | AndrewC | I like the open reasons idea. Are you going to ask it as a question? | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 13:40 | comment | added | AndrewC | Calling it too narrow and editing the description won't stop the misuse. The new close reasons forces people to think about why they're closing it. This would be interpreted as just a re-branding, and nothing would change. | |
| Jun 15, 2013 at 22:03 | comment | added | user98085 | That's very much what I was trying to say, yes. Off-topic shouldn't be the dump for everything we don't want. | |
| Jun 15, 2013 at 22:03 | comment | added | ɥʇǝS | You might actually create a brand new, shiny feature request about too narrow. I really agree though, we need TL. | |
| Jun 15, 2013 at 21:41 | history | answered | Old Pro | CC BY-SA 3.0 |