Timeline for Would my question be on topic for Programmers?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 12, 2017 at 7:31 | history | edited | CommunityBot | replaced http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ with https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/ | |
| Sep 14, 2013 at 2:00 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| Sep 13, 2013 at 22:16 | answer | added | gnat | timeline score: 2 | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 17:43 | comment | added | AnonJr | @gnat I did miss the latter part of that series of comments. And while I'm more ok with the duplication part, I still have deep reservations about posting a question that is known to be a bad fit and then relying on the edit/re-open cycle of improvement. I think it would be better to see something like this with instruction that could help future questioners see the process of improving a question before it hits the main site. But that's just one person's opinion, and maybe better discussed as a separate meta question. | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 16:57 | comment | added | gnat | @AnonJr I think you miss the part about the duplicates, these are 100% OK in my view, and I think I even can prove that. Another part you likely didn't notice is that even as-is, drafted question has a fairly strong point of accurate and easy to understand description of the situation - that sort of makes it stand out and deserve softer treatment in my view | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 16:54 | comment | added | gnat | ...Hmm let's see, you could get answers helping to find way out, positive rep balance plus respectable dupe closure... not bad isn't it | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 16:53 | comment | added | gnat | @mehow a safer, though a bit slower way would be, as you wrote above to analyze your options and ask after that. That way, there would still be a risk of downvotes, since the question as you drafter is still rather poor, but demonstrated effor makes this risk lower and, which is even more important, increases chance for upvotes. That way, you'd likely even end up with positive rep balance... | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 15:09 | comment | added | AnonJr | @gnat I don't feel comfortable with the idea of even suggesting that someone post a question known to be off-topic and possibly even a duplicate. Part of what happened here was teaching/learning how to take a question known to be a bad fit and working it into something that is a good (or at least better) fit. As happens many times, the process of properly framing the question resulted in finding an answer without having to post. I've lost track of how many times the answer came to me by working the question into a stack-friendly format... leaving nothing left but to close the window. | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 12:42 | comment | added | gnat | paradoxically, the simple "shortcut" to get to the answer in your case seems to be just to shoot your question as-is and hang around waiting it to be closed as a duplicate, ideally as a dupe of two questions I mentioned. That way, you'd risk getting couple downvotes because the part I mentioned in #2 is really weak, but hopefully, strong and accurate intro that preceeds it would encourage someone to upvote and offset that rep loss | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 11:41 | comment | added | user96226 | This meta question went a bit off topic, but thanks to your very helpful comments and links I was able to come up with a solution to my original problem. Feel free to post an answer even if it's just your last comment @gnat I think any future visitor will be happy to screen through your comments and see how to identify the correctness of their question. | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 11:40 | comment | added | user96226 | reading through the links I came up with an idea of what to do in my case. I am going to put something like a cover note together and make people aware of what I will be doing with the project and what will be required from them in order for me to proceed with the rebuild. I will put some questions together and then divide people into logical groups for my resources. I need to think it all over but it seems like a good starting point. | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 11:20 | comment | added | gnat | ...I think these two are worth checking and probably even referring in your question: Dealing with bad/incomplete/unclear specifications? (that one has quite an interesting collection listed in "Linked" section) and When do you rebuild an application or keep on fixing the existing one | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 11:20 | comment | added | gnat | ...one thing worth trying is to load draft of your text into "Ask question" box and check similar questions that get loaded to the right. This trick often works better than plain search. I actually tested it with your text but it seems missed this time, none of the questions loaded by the system looked like helpful... though I may have missed something, you better check yourself. By the way, regarding questions that are indeed similar... | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 11:19 | comment | added | gnat | hard to tell, maybe it's just because you jump at it too early, trying to proceed to #3 while #2 is not yet completed. Do your research, ponder about these approaches yourself, try to find the way out and pay attention to questions that flow in your mind while you investigate. That's the way that works to me, while I am trying to find the solution, question to ask eventually pops up. Good questions from others I've seen, also often carry that trait: I can see asker going through their research that somehow naturally leads them to the question asked. Speaking of research... | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 9:35 | comment | added | user96226 | thanks for your suggestion @gnat. I agree with no 1 and no 2. The hardest part for me is putting a question together. I just can't think of what the actual question should be. Maybe: I'd like to get an answer explaining why should I go with the 1st or 2nd way of solving the problem - would this be a better question? | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 9:13 | comment | added | gnat | I would suggest to 1) wipe out everything after "So, in terms of making..."; 2) expand "try to convenience them to start from scratch" and "get on with the current design" with your own considerations on pros and cons of these approaches; then 3) work out the question you need to ask | |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 9:11 | history | edited | user96226 | CC BY-SA 3.0 | added 9 characters in body |
| Sep 13, 2013 at 8:45 | history | asked | user96226 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |