The ones that really get my gripe are the ones that are flagged for being off topic.. Off what topic? This is a place where technical questions are asked and answered and this is a technical question that needs answering - Why is it closed?
I think this is a great reflection of one of the largest problems that Stack Overflow has to solve, and that is user education. The definition of what is on topic for Stack Overflow is much more specific than just being "technical", but most users don't even know that.
This results in many new questions being closed. The community is constantly trying to reword these "closed" messages to be as friendly and helpful as possible, but to the newcomer it just feels like rejection.
In many ways, Stack Overflow has solved all it's "technology" problems, and now is left with a lot of psychology and communication problems. The site could definitely use a professional communications specialist.
(FWIW, for those curious, "on topic" is defined here: http://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic)
I agree 100%. If you were to claim that the "on topic" policy for Stack Overflow is too narrow, I would respectfully disagree.
I personally think the Stack Exchange network is effective because it creates communities that specialize rather than a single generalized community. But new arriving users have a preconceived conception that all content is welcome.
I think a lot of that could be alleviated by binding together the "Stack Exchange Network" into a more cohesive single site though. Kind of how each subreddit can have its own rules, culture, and community, but it's still very clearly part of Reddit TM.
It would be neat if there was a single entry point into the Stack Exchange Network where you could post a question, with a dropdown for selecting which "network" you think is most appropriate.
They do appear to slowly be increasing this sort of cross-syndication between network sites, but it definitely has room for improvement.
This is, unfortunately, an unsolvable problem. They're asking the question precisely because they don't understand what they're asking enough to get a meaningful answer.
So, you're absolutely correct. Demonstrations of the many ways to do so are extremely useful to many people! It is, however, highly likely that few - if any - will be useful to the person asking the question.
You're very right - this is a personality test. Do you try to jump directly to trying to answer an apparently-simple question, or do you cautiously consider if the simple question hides complex depths (deeply nested structures, arrays of variable length, etc.) that make a simple and straightforward answer difficult?
So maybe, just maybe a slightly broad question with a couple answers may be better that an theoretically ideal set of a thousand (question, answer) tuples each trying to fit a very restricted case. Unfortunately some mods seem hell-bent on promoting the latter, possibly in hope of writing bots that solve-by-Google (see stacksort[0]).
The scenario you describe is somewhat different, in which the asker is well aware they have a broad question. Such people are advised to make clear that they know full well it is a broad question and are seeking broad comment on multiple viable approaches.
I think there are two kinds of "broad":
1. There are multiple ways to solve a specific problem with a specific expected outcome. "How do I sort an array?", for example, is a broad question in that it can be solved in many ways, but you can definitively say whether any given solution is correct or not.
2. The problem is not specific, and there is no clear way to determine whether any given answer is actually a "solution". For example, a single question with only the text, "How do you write a game?"
Most "broad" questions fall on some spectrum between these two, but the closer a question is to the latter category, the less likely it is to generate any sort of helpful feedback. The community does sometimes label the former as "too broad", but 95% of the time the given close reasons are correct, and when they are wrong the site provides documentation on how to get your question re-opened.
It's hard to maintain a proper balance between moderating the inundation of terrible questions and avoiding the false-negative closing of legitimate questions.
But hey, it's their site, and I'm just some rando on the internet - they get to make whatever policies they want.
Allowing such questions effectively lowers the percentage of questions that get good answers, thereby training users NOT to expect an answer to a posted question, and leading to decreased engagement.
On the other hand, by disallowing such questions, the questions that do get asked are more likely to be answered, and this encourages repeat visits and increased engagement.
Just thought I'd let you know you haven't been shouting into the wind!
And I do! With lots of swearing! :)
The only time I'm on SO is from a Google search result. They should at least make the danged site noindex itself for that page if it's the question has been closed. You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've been searching for a solution and found a SO link and thought I had the answer coming my way only to see the thing was closed before anyone could answer the question.
In all honesty, I don't give a rats why a question was closed. It was either closed and is now useless or open and has answers.
The solution is to make the closed question not appear in Google search results. If the same question keeps appearing the solution is to let someone answer it.
This is a great idea. Have you considered discussing it on the Meta site?
The solution would definitely have to be more nuanced - sometimes "closed" questions have useful answers on them so you wouldn't want to remove those from Google. But removing "closed" questions that provide no value would probably be an improvement.
I generally consider myself a dumbass and not smart enough to figure out the rules to avoid getting topics closed, so I stick to reddit and HN (and it took years of lurking here before I started posting too!)
I think the last 3 times I've gone to SO to write a question I spend an hour finding the right code samples, explaining what the problem is and why I need to solve it. Why I've chosen this route and after all that has been put down on the page I see what the real issue is and solve it before its even submitted.
It's almost become another tool to use, "How would I structure this problem if I needed help from the community?" It forces you to think through the problem into the route cause, almost like debugging your thoughts and removing the bloat
The problem with this is that there are opinions and preferences and biases (and so on) hiding all throughout even the most (seemingly) objective questions and answers. The SO folks think they're making a more meaningful distinction here than they actually are.
Things like "lib A requires excessive boilerplate compared to lib B, see example", or "lib A can't be installed under the following platforms", etc. What should be voted down on those types of questions isn't the question, but poor answers.
It's really frustrating, because getting the opinion of experts who have tried a bunch of alternatives, and know the pros and cons that matter, is exactly why I go to SO frequently.
Plus some of the best, most interesting questions on there are "community wikis" which often tell you they should have been flagged as opinion based but are preserved for historical significance.
Because of that I really don't see the point in being so dogmatic about closing opinion based questions. Even something like "emacs or vim" I can imaging being a useful question, with a highly upvoted, thought provoking answer arguing each side.
The accepted tick on the answer says that "here's how" might have worked for the question author.
The most upvoted/popular answer works as a rule (there are exceptions). Popularity contest is not the best way to get the truth on a technical subject but it works more often than not (you can read the answer in the chronological order if you like).