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Aug 19, 2022 at 17:42 vote accept Paul Bendevis
Aug 18, 2022 at 21:00 history tweeted twitter.com/StackSoftEng/status/1560370968983470082
Aug 18, 2022 at 17:24 comment added Alexander Arguably, many usages of dictionaries are a form of primitive obsession.
Aug 18, 2022 at 16:08 answer added JimmyJames timeline score: 6
Aug 18, 2022 at 15:26 comment added candied_orange @JimmyJames it is subjective. But it's the best we can do. We have over 2000 questions on meta trying to sort it out. I've been here over 8 years and still haven't read them all. I expect few have. So it's not going to be perfect. Which is annoying. If you have a better way to do it post it on meta. As it stands close votes fall into canned categories to force closers to say something when they close. It's not comprehensive. Sometimes the closers don't even agree (wish they'd list all chosen categories). Since leaving a comment so often starts an argument few do. So here we are.
Aug 18, 2022 at 15:10 comment added JimmyJames @candied_orange It's not personal. What's considered a 'good' question seems pretty subjective to me. For example how is this less focused than 'does GC scan the entire memory'? This isn't stackoverflow. Software Engineering isn't just about 'hard' technical things.
Aug 18, 2022 at 14:44 history edited candied_orange CC BY-SA 4.0
Not every sentence needs to be a question.
Aug 18, 2022 at 14:40 history reopened Doc Brown
JimmyJames
candied_orange
Aug 18, 2022 at 14:37 comment added candied_orange @JimmyJames please try not to take it personally. Closing is a thankless job that doesn't exactly pay well. Those who are willing to do it don't seem to want to delve deep before moving on. Their job isn't to fix the problems. It's to shut things down until the problem is fixed. Figuring out how exactly this is a problem is something they rarely give time to explaining. So that leaves it to us.
Aug 18, 2022 at 14:31 comment added candied_orange @PaulBendevis the close reason given is asking for the question to be more focused. The idea behind that is meant to narrow the question to the point that one good answer can squeeze out others. Otherwise the question receives an endless list of equally correct answers that are rated not on their quality as much as on when they were posted. With that in mind I note that almost all of your sentences end in question marks. Narrow that down and I think your reception will improve.
Aug 18, 2022 at 14:27 comment added JimmyJames @candied_orange I understand all that but it's clear that there are people that frequent this subsite (I won't name them) who are far more concerned with shutting people down than answering questions or helping people.
Aug 18, 2022 at 14:25 comment added Paul Bendevis Is there a better way for me to ask about this topic? Or is the topic off limits entirely?
Aug 18, 2022 at 14:25 comment added candied_orange @JimmyJames the need to close questions comes from a need to have a site about a specific something. Something we're known for and can be trusted to be about. Failing to do that actually hurts the sites popularity. However, Ruthlessly closing rather than editing out problematic issues (thank you Doc) or commenting leaves few people willing to even ask questions. Too much in either direction kills the site.
Aug 18, 2022 at 14:19 comment added JimmyJames @Flater Sorry, my mistake. What's the point of a Q&A site if you close every question?
Aug 18, 2022 at 11:39 comment added Doc Brown @JimmyJames: feel free to cast a reopening vote, if you like.
S Aug 18, 2022 at 11:36 review Reopen votes
Aug 18, 2022 at 14:42
S Aug 18, 2022 at 11:36 history edited Doc Brown CC BY-SA 4.0
deleted 124 characters in body Added to review
Aug 18, 2022 at 11:35 history closed gnat
Flater
Doc Brown
Needs more focus
Aug 18, 2022 at 11:34 comment added Doc Brown @Flater: I agree 100% to you, However, in this case the OP makes the wrong assumption his question would require a discussion. I think it doesn't. IMHO there are again those usual "buzzword closers" at work, who use a term like "discussion" as a justification for a close vote, without further thinking. But I will do the following now: close the question with the 3rd required vote, edit the buzzword out and vote for reopening it. When the question gets reopened, the system will protect it against closage for a certain time. Maybe I write another answer then, though candied_orange's one is fine.
Aug 18, 2022 at 9:44 comment added Flater @JimmyJames: This is not a forum though. It's a Q&A site. A forum implies open discussion, which StackExchange is not set up to do, e.g. there no real back-and-forth opportunity here. Other than an errant comment for clarification, it's a straight "ask question, give answer" flow. This comes with some rigidity as to how questions should be formed. If you want open discussion, and I agree that this has value too, it's better directed at a community with a format more suited to it (e.g. actual forums, a discord group, a reddit-like nested comment format, ...)
Aug 18, 2022 at 6:00 history edited Kilian Foth CC BY-SA 4.0
edited title
Aug 17, 2022 at 21:28 comment added candied_orange @JimmyJames I've been noticing that all day. I had thought that lowering the number of close votes to 3 was a good idea but I'm starting to reconsider. The up side is it only takes 3 to reopen.
Aug 17, 2022 at 21:25 comment added JimmyJames This is a really interesting question. What is the point of a forum if you close every question? It's OK for people to ask questions even if you don't understand why they are asking.
Aug 17, 2022 at 21:21 answer added candied_orange timeline score: 14
Aug 17, 2022 at 21:02 review Close votes
Aug 18, 2022 at 11:40
S Aug 17, 2022 at 20:35 review First questions
Aug 18, 2022 at 1:52
S Aug 17, 2022 at 20:35 history asked Paul Bendevis CC BY-SA 4.0