[edit] yep, locked. Thanks NullUserException! Now another quick bet with myself that someone will reply to this comment defending S.O.s repeated closure of interesting questions.
The historical lock is an appeasement for those who like to binge on candy all day long and not realise a site built on 90% candy is no place for quality.
You're laying bets all over the place. How about putting forth a cogent argument why these type of questions need to reside on Stack Overflow and not on reddit or Hacker News?
Does the fact that this question is locked diminish its value or the value of Stack Overflow in any way?
Of course, Stack Overflow is not made for interesting questions. Notice that I am not defending this descision, I am merely stating it. You know this, which is why you were accurately able to predict that this question would be closed. Why is this interesting enough to warrant commenting that this is the case also today?
The message that sends to me is "Your question isn't worthy of our site. Go away."
So, yeah, it does make using the site less pleasant, and thus reduces its value to me.
It's a classic example of cart-before-the-horse product thinking. Users aren't there to follow your orders; they're people with actual needs that you're trying to serve. I get that they don't want the site to be overrun with goofy content, because that prevents you from serving other actual needs. But there are better solutions than tasking a large number of people with running around and jerkily stomping out anything that doesn't fit the owners' precise vision.
I think this is the exact mistake that Friendster made. And really, the same one Google Plus made. Neither of those products were built for the users; they were built to serve the owners' desires.
It seems like 9/10 of the useful questions are closed by mods, though the answer is usually there anyway. I'm not sure what to make of that, but the quality there is still high.
Surely you can make a good case for it on meta.stackoverflow.com?
Interestingly, this HN submission is illustrating the original reason Jeff Atwood locked the post in 2009 - nobody can be bothered to even read the first page before posting their own joke.
Yes, it's locked too, and it too was deleted for a year or so before the current crop of moderators undeleted and locked it.
If they don't get those mods on a leash pretty soon, someone else will come along and drink their milkshake and I won't have to do anything.
In other words, the site is not interesting to you, yet you choose to rant about it; very strange. Does the very existence of StackOverflow bother you?
(There are other sites on the Internet, y'know. It's not like SO is preventing you from visiting /r/ProgrammerJokes instead.)
Other than that, great point.
"Does the very existence of StackOverflow bother you?"
No, but the existence of abusive moderators does.
When I run across locked threads on SO, I'm not searching for "jokes". These are actual programming-related questions.
Please don't imply that I said things that I didn't. Thanks.
If you're unhappy about a question being closed (the community can and does make mistakes) then bring it up on meta-SO. If the question was closed by mistake then more often than not it'll be re-opened if you explain why.
Also, if you are betting with yourself, doesn't it mean that you lose when you win?