6
votes

Before I say anything else, let me say Salesforce Stack Exchange is a great resource with some truly amazing contributors.

I've learned a lot from both the answers to my own questions as well as the answers to many other questions. Sometimes I even learn not from actual answers but from the process of trying to phrase an intelligent question.

However, since I'm not a moderator, I don't know what sort of user experience I should be thanking them for what I feel is a heavy handed approach.

I've had a few questions closed as "duplicates" despite there being nuances to my ask which truly made my QUESTIONS unique even if the answers had large degrees of overlap. And someone might have different ideas leading to a completely different answer which might be useful or interesting, perhaps in some instances even a better fit for the actual question at hand.

I've had a few questions -- specifically intended to better understand the platform and be better able to render my own judgements about BEST PRACTICES -- put on hold because they are opinion based. (Never mind that SFDC is a platform infamous for bad [or at least controversial] practices, that more discussion really needs to take place so developers will make good decisions rather than either simply continue bad practices or ignore issues.)

Fortunately, I got some great responses to these questions before the moderators did their dirty work, but I don't know how much more useful ideas of information I might have received if these questions were left open.

Moreover, I don't have any idea of the great dialogues I would not be missing if other questions were allowed to take their course.

Why is it good to cut these conversations short? Are you trying to reduce the load on the servers or the database? Are you trying to game Google?

BTW, I'm at least a user who has realised the value of this platform and have a thick enough skin not to let it get to me (too much) when the people running the show seem to have too little appreciation of my participation. How do you think this might make a new user feel?

As reasonable discourse necessitates an agreement what words mean, allow me to provide standard dictionary definitions of two important terms:

question: A sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information.

answer: A response or reply; something said or done in reaction to a statement or question.

8
  • 2
    I think I'd like to have a conversation with you some time. Feel free to contact me using the contact info on my profile.
    – sfdcfox
    Jun 22, 2018 at 0:28
  • 3
    It's a bit hypocritical to blame us for being close-minded and not completely transforming the site to conform to your desires. Your expectations for this community are way out of line with its stated goals and design. Throughout this thread, you come across as completely close-minded to the core idea behind this very successful platform. It is a Q&A site. That is its raison d'être. Always has been, always will be.
    – Adrian Larson Mod
    Jun 29, 2018 at 19:09
  • I have never suggested that this site should excepted any discussions which are not rooted in questions. I have never suggested any responses should be allowed which are not answers. What I want is the site to be simply more accepting. I am not asking for any drastic transformation. I am not asking for any goal changes. I am not asking for any design changes.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 30, 2018 at 5:09
  • 1
    Yes I am a native English speaker... Are you trying to be deliberately inflammatory? In the very comment where you ask me as much you have a grammatical error/typo.
    – Adrian Larson Mod
    Jun 30, 2018 at 11:45
  • No, I am being reactionary since you are suggesting I am being hypocritical when there is nothing hypocritical about wanting "question" to simply mean any question and "answer" to simply mean any answer. And you've called content duplicates when neither the question or precise answers were duplicates. And there were other points where your use of keywords is baffling. But thank you for recognising that was a typo.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 30, 2018 at 12:02
  • 2
    You need to adjust to life on the stack. Your terms from other situations have a different meaning on this site. We've provided resources (help, tour, meta), offered to directly assist in adjusting your content, and helped clarify what is/isn't on-topic. Youve rebuked all of those offers for help. Youve antagonized me, you've antagonized the users who've tried to help you, and the moderators of the site itself. At this point this post is nothing more than an inflammatory waste of my & everyone else's time. Theres nothing more constructive to say.
    – battery.cord
    Jul 2, 2018 at 13:59
  • I do not live nor want to live on the stack. My life is offline. The stack is a very useful resource, but one which I feel does not live up to its full potential and I hate to see that potential stunted by politics. I do not want my content adjusted, I want it answered. And I want questions from other people to also be received and engaged more liberally. I'm sorry if you feel antagonised, but obviously if the only reaction you can have to a thread like this is "RESIST", there is no way this thread can be constructive. This thread exists then for anyone else.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jul 2, 2018 at 23:41
  • I've locked this because on the whole it seems to be spiralling out of control. You've made some good points, but the reason for being for the entire Stack Exchange network is for concise Q&A, to make it easier for people to find accurate answers to specific questions. The tour page on every site on the network has this right near the top: "This site is all about getting answers. It's not a discussion forum. There's no chit-chat." It can be brutal at times, but please don't blame the mods, we only tend to delete/close things that are 100% off topic, the rest we leave to the community.
    – Matt Lacey Mod
    Jul 3, 2018 at 1:19

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
12
votes

There are only three moderators, and we all have a little diamond by our name whenever we make a post or comment. When we close a question, it can be single-handed and for the most part we try to be careful and not rule with an iron fist.

You seem to be blaming moderators for actions they took no part in, here. If you look at your three questions closed within the last day, none of them were closed by a moderator. Standard users who have enough reputation are also able to vote to collectively close questions, and it takes five users agreeing to actually close a post.

Despite the fact I had nothing to do with these posts being closed, I think the reasons were correct and wouldn't personally vote to reopen. Our reopen votes are also unilateral, so unless I'm clearly on one side of the fence I try to stay out of it.

Here's the crux of the issue. You seem to be seeking discussions, but SFSE is not a discussion board. The format here is specific questions and answers. If you want in depth discussions on these or other topics, you might try:

  • Developer User Groups
  • Salesforce Developer Forum
  • Blogging

I'm sure there are other great options out there I missed. A good indicator that your question is too discussion oriented is if you feel compelled to post follow up in the comments. That shouldn't be a frequent occurrence and you should always assume your comments will be deleted sooner or later.

As for your specific posts:

  1. (Why?) Is it good for Apex classes and methods to be final?

    The very title already strongly indicates you are looking for opinions. Asking what is good or bad is going to get closed quite often for this reason. Also, "why" questions tend to be exceedingly difficult to answer for anyone who did not build out the feature you are asking about.

  2. (Why?) Is it good for Apex methods to be static?

    Same as above.

  3. What deep magic exists in Apex and can we replicate it?

    This question is practically textbook definition of "too broad". There could be hundreds of answers, with no single answer being definitive. In addition, it is quite vague as to what kind of answer even fits your criteria. Of the three, this question is the farthest off topic.

13
  • 1
    I apologise for wrongly blaming moderators. I was not aware others could be responsible. But the general point stands that questions are being closed too aggressively. The format is question and answer. Nothing inherent in that format mandates that format be specific. It is only rules, guidelines, or traditions which might make it so. I want discussions which have both structure and experts. Yes there are other places with discussions, but none seem so suitable: Why is it good to limit SFSE to "specifics" rather than allow any relevant Q & A to have both comments and votes?
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 19, 2018 at 21:57
  • 7
    You seem to have missed my point entirely. Stack Exchange is not a discussion board.
    – Adrian Larson Mod
    Jun 19, 2018 at 22:11
  • 1
    You seem to have missed my point entirely. Stack Exchange SHOULD BE a discussion board.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 19, 2018 at 23:37
  • 1
    That didn't go over my head. You're complaining about the direction of a huge tech stack that's helped millions of people. It might be more productive to understand its principles and try to work within its bounds.
    – Adrian Larson Mod
    Jun 19, 2018 at 23:40
  • 1
    I am not complaining about the tech stack. The tech stack is "perfect". I'm complaining about how its potential is being deliberately limited for no apparently good reason. Yes, it helps many people including me. But creating artificial boundaries towards what can be asked is NOT helpful. If a question doesn't interest someone, they can ignore it. That I've receive quality answers to questions I'm apparently not suppose to ask is proof that Stack Exchange is a suitable medium for the exchange.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 19, 2018 at 23:55
  • 5
    All of the IT Stack Exchange sites have always had the policy of being based on specific Questions and Answers not being discussion boards, so there is no reason for Salesforce Stack Exchange to depart from the core mission of these sites by becoming discussion based.
    – Dave Humm
    Jun 20, 2018 at 16:06
  • @DaveHumm, thank you for acknowledging that this is a policy issue, not a technology issue. Are you saying there is no value in questions that do not have specific answers? If you are not saying that, can you elaborate why you feel they do not provide sufficient reason? Even if you are saying that, can you elaborate on the additional value provided by maintaining the status quo?
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 20, 2018 at 20:59
  • 5
    @BrianKessler There is value in such questions, but they don't belong here. Stack Exchange is as popular and successful as it is because it was built around the mission of being for specific Q&A, not for discussion - changing that incurs risk to the company that they're unlikely to want to take. Given that there are plenty of venues for technical discussion already, and relatively few for focused Q&A, SFSE is better off doing what it does best and leaving the discussion for elsewhere to handle.
    – ArtOfCode
    Jun 20, 2018 at 22:47
  • 1
    @ArtOfCode, We aren't discussing any UI change. We are discussing expanding the acceptable use cases. That means more content and therefore potentially more users as well as more usage by current users. Where do you see risk? Also, are the moderators paid or volunteers? Is simply being more liberal something that really needs approval to happen?
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 20, 2018 at 23:16
  • 3
    @BrianKessler Yes. SE is built for and by people who consider focused Q&A to produce lasting high quality content. Accepting discussions is a paradigm shift that risks alienating that group of people: that's significant risk for SE. I'm well aware that SE software could be used for discussions, but it's been well established over the years and reaffirmed by each new community that it's not a good idea. (As to your other question, moderators are volunteers.)
    – ArtOfCode
    Jun 20, 2018 at 23:43
  • 1
    "Reaffirmed" means tested or assumed? Actively agreed or passively toed the line? True, if we expected the majority of readers to spend time with every question they are presented with then we might think about signal/noise ratio. But, is that really a valid expectation? I would think most users come looking for specific information, which can be found through titles and tags, so already most visitors will ignore most questions. If that isn't enough, up-voting ensures good questions and answers get high visibility.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 21, 2018 at 1:06
  • 4
    All make good points. The crux of the problem as I see it is that the knowledge and key users of the platform can be found here on SFSE. There is really NO good option to have a discussion of the type Brian is speaking of. SFSE cannot have those discussions as the entire model and success of the stack would be in jeopardy. (think minimally about google search results with a bunch of opinions / discussions and not answers) - I would be thrilled if there was a spot, that is as popular and well attended as SFSE, where we could have these types of discussions ....
    – Eric
    Jun 23, 2018 at 23:19
  • Google does a great job of indexing SFSE. True, I don't know its algorithm and having no concrete answer might have some impact, but since none of us know Google's algorithm, we can't really know exactly what the impact would be. On the other hand, it assumes a lot to think Google can recognise an answered question. But we know it can recognise keywords, topics, and links. In which case additional questions provide more surface areas to scan and potentially return, which actually could be a win (I used to do SEM/SEO).
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 30, 2018 at 5:19
5
votes

Yes.

Consider that the greatest value of our model is not only to answer questions, but to as much as possible expose those specific questions and answers as reference of knowledge.

There is no aim to surface popular opinions to the top, but to host answers which are prove-able correct. This requires specific questions, that can be answered factual.

That is a deliberate strategy of the Stackexchange format, which has benefitted many of us and shaped the many subject based stackexchange communities. There are other communities who are more open minded (but possibly, in my opinion, less efficient and reliable).

The above does not mean we should encourage rudeness or hostilities. As a community we should be welcoming and explain the rules of engagement where the help and introduction features do not cover them. In my view downvotes or close-votes should also go along with an encouraging comment to improve the question or answer. The closing of a question is not definite, i may simply mean it needs more work before we want the larger community to spend their time on reading a question that does not meet our expected level of quality.

1
  • 1
    How does surfacing popular opinions preempt exposing more specific questions and answers? Moreover, many opinions may be very well reasoned and these reasons may be explained within the answers, thereby being consistent with being a repository of knowledge.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 22, 2018 at 19:23
5
votes

I was the user who first voted to close both of your questions. I voted to close for exactly the reasons @Adrian stated. He really couldn't have described it better than me. I could try to, but I think its been covered well enough.

I'd like to bring up an experiment SE tried a few years ago.

8 years ago, "Not Programming Related" was created as a "catch-all", with an openness towards discussions, and other questions which didn't fit onto the main SE site.

Short story: it was a disaster. It took them years to recover from that starting point. They've changed their name & scope three times, and are still having trouble defining their scope.

Discussions don't work in the Q&A format. They've tried. It didn't work. Its best for everyone to be accepting of that. I agree with other posters that another niche discussion site would be a better place to ask open ended questions.

Personally, I think chat would be a good alternative, but chat use on SF.SE is fairly low. Theres no rep, no real questions, just a open chat room & a handful of users.

Heres some related reading, all the old meta conversations about Programmers are still around, and can be read to help understand why and what they tried:

7
  • I'm not entirely clear how a combination of unclear purpose and bad branding relates to a question intending to ask why we can't be more liberal about which questions related to SFDC might be asked. And whether a discussion can work depends on the type of question and how the answers are expected to function. Are we not discussing something right now?
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 26, 2018 at 7:06
  • 2
    This is meta, a site designed to discussion the main site. It exists only to remove certain types of conversation from the site, specifically, about the site & its policies. Compared to the main site, its basically un-moderated. It leads to question bloat, excessive commenting, and other moderation headaches. The meta discussion model is not sustainable for a stack, period. I have no interest in discussing this further, everything that needs to be said has been said already, and at this point, it feels like you're arguing for the sake of it.
    – battery.cord
    Jun 26, 2018 at 13:12
  • I'm arguing for the sake of trying to make a good site even better. As an end-user, I don't know if "question bloat" or "excessive commenting" are really meaningful concepts. Maybe there are some additional challenges for moderating, but between being more liberal meaning less would be needed and crowd-sourcing meaning it isn't just up to the official moderators, it doesn't seem like it should be insurmountable.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 26, 2018 at 13:44
  • 2
    It's already not up to the 3 official moderators, as Adrian pointed out. Casting close and reopen votes takes 3000 rep. There are 140 users who can and do cast those votes. Those are the end users. When you hit 3k, you can cast those votes too, but there's no individual person you can argue or persuade into changing how the community interprets policy.
    – David Reed Mod
    Jun 26, 2018 at 14:31
  • If I were trying to persuade an individual, this dialog could be in an IM or PM. I am, however ineffectively, attempting to persuade the community which interprets policy. Of course, I don't know how any of them are bothering to read this or open-minded on the matter, but diffused responsibility is something of a separate topic. Perhaps it is one that needs to be addressed first, but I can't suggested I have any helpful ideas with regard to fixing that.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 27, 2018 at 1:00
  • 2
    Spend some time trying to understand why stack exchange has this setup. Its this way for a reason. Maybe instead of trying to get the sites policies to fit your questions, you could fit your questions to the site, and play to the strengths of the stack, and leave discussions for a better medium. A question with an actionable goal (even with more than one way to accomplish that goal), about the same subject matter, would have been left open, and up-voted. Instead of trying to change policy, you could have asked what you could do to make your question on-topic, and reopened. You didn't.
    – battery.cord
    Jun 27, 2018 at 13:33
  • I asked the questions I wanted to ask. Asking something else would be asking something else which I did not want to ask. And you seem to be missing the point that this isn't just about my questions - where are QUESTIONS (some seem to miss that point) - but everyone's and the lost opportunities for knowledge sharing because such questions are shut down.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 30, 2018 at 5:13
4
votes

My opinion is that more can sometimes be learned from questions that do not have a simple or single answer and the voting system works to draw attention to the more valuable answers. A question and answer about a simple coding error that produces a NullPointerException typically has no lasting value though it perfectly matches the format here.

As our excellent moderators have commented, it is the overall user community that does most of the work. A way of avoiding getting questions closed is to be careful about the question title to avoid a knee-jerk downvote or close click. Then the question has time to attract good answers that make the question/answers combination more likely to gain positive feedback.

6
  • I very much agree with your first paragraph. However, with regard to the second, should users with questions really need to "game the system" in order that everyone can benefit from these discussions? And why does the community have this knee-jerk reaction? What can anyone gain from shutting conversations which are merely disinteresting (not even offensive!) to them?
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 24, 2018 at 11:51
  • Hi @BrianKessler, Just offering a practical approach for today. It is hard to get consistent user behaviour, especially as users are volunteers and so have limited time to make their decisions. Do you have a proposal for some change e.g. here salesforce.stackexchange.com/help that you think would make a difference? Not sure that many users read that...
    – Keith C
    Jun 24, 2018 at 12:02
  • I agree, given the current reality, the advice is practical, though ultimately I'd rather see us fix reality than put a band-aid on it. I'm not sure "Be more liberal" qualifies as a proposal anyone might listen to -- especially without some significant number of people who will stick out their neck to agree there is a problem with the status quo --, but thanks for the link. I'll have a think how I might address this issue to that larger audience...
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 24, 2018 at 18:34
  • 3
    "without some significant number of people who will stick out their neck to agree there is a problem with the status quo". Can we please not rule out that a majority has no problem with how things currently go, or may even have a strong preference for it ?
    – Samuel De Rycke
    Jun 26, 2018 at 12:54
  • 1
    I'm not ruling out anything. I just know a lot of people do not want to attach their names to unpopular or controversial opinions (not just this topic, but any topic). I can acknowledge the defenders of the status quo are more confident to be vocal. But since nobody is forced to read or answer any particular question, I don't see how they would be harmed by allowing there to be more questions and more answers. Nobody is forcing them to read anything.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 30, 2018 at 5:29
  • 1
    @BrianKessler It's a great point that given the large number of questions posted every day, a few that are more controversial/opinion based wouldn't do harm as long as there wasn't a snowballing effect.
    – Keith C
    Jun 30, 2018 at 8:12
3
votes

Let me begin by saying that I understand the reasons behind our rules and support our not allowing questions that are intended to elicit discussions that are opinion based, etc. That's simply not the purpose of this forum. That having been said, I do believe that very often the comments made below questions and answers both add to them and enhance them. While its true they sometimes wander off-topic, I dislike seeing all of them arbitrarily moved to chat for the reasons I've stated.

I agree that many questions are closed prematurely. I've seen many GREAT/AWESOME answers posted in response to questions with 0 to -3 votes that were about to be closed. I always make a point of looking at the answer to a question before deciding whether to vote to close it. There are frequently "jewels" and gems to be found in response to many of these questions; some of which have received 3 or 4 upvotes which you wouldn't know from merely reading the question. Some of our users often have truly great insight into what others are trying to convey in their cryptic questions.

@BrianKessler, I'd strongly encourage you to take up the challenge suggested by @KeithC to propose changes to our rules that you feel would make this forum more friendly and inviting.

3
  • Thanks for the feedback and encouragement. I'm thinking about how to make the proposal. I'll probably draw a lot from this Q&A if/when I finally compose something.
    – Brian Kessler
    Jun 26, 2018 at 13:54
  • 2
    My biggest problem with moving comments to chat is that you lose the votes on the comments. If one person says "You should do A", and it gets 5 votes, and another person says "B would work better", and then get into a shouting match over it, the whole thing gets moved to chat, and I come back in a few hours later to try to make sense of it, well, theres no votes! How am I supposed to tell the community consensus? (Hint: post answers so we can vote on them)
    – battery.cord
    Jun 26, 2018 at 14:15
  • 2
    As I said the last time there was a big meta discussion about questions & closing, I've closed a LOT of questions, but re-opened very few. You bet the second that queue has something to review, I'm there. I want to re-open questions. I want quality content for users to answer. If anyone, an answer-er, you, the OP, makes an edit to increase the quality of the question to match the answer, I'm, there, voting to re-open. I very rarely see this, and I'd like to see a lot more of it. A closed question is not the end of the road, when we have collaborative editing.
    – battery.cord
    Jun 26, 2018 at 14:18
-1
votes

@Brian,

In my opinion, you make more sense. It appears that the moderators have taken on the concept of moderating to the point where it's a religion. Trainhead is way more easy going. I can hear when a user abuse asite or get into trading barbs that we need a final 3rd party's decision to enforce civility. But as a rule, moderators jump on a users neck if the user didn't express themselves based on the stupid rules even if they are trying to get a solution in earnest.

I can also accept that if a user doesn't come across a coherent that one should be contacting them to rephrase.

But I can't tell you how many times I tried asking a question like "I need to accomplish x how to go about it" and the moderators virtually tackle me from all sides because they are peeved that this is too vague but I do not have the same skillset level and I am asking in earnest, how to go about tackling a solution. Why does the question get closed???!!!!???

If you do this a lot because you don't know enough each time, your user gets blocked. What a turn-off!

In short, SE is a great service but it needs to loosen up as long as people who are asking are serious about learning and growing in the specific topic, not just to sound off. I think most users ask in earnest.

22
  • 4
    are you aware most of the moderation is in fact not done by moderators but relies on a participation model to which all active members of the site can contribute ?
    – Samuel De Rycke
    Jun 26, 2018 at 12:57
  • 3
    I'm sorry that you feel this level of negativity from SFSE, but I'm also a little surprised, since you have no closed questions and seem to have received pretty solid responses on several. Regardless, I do think the sense of being piled on is a bad one that we need to avoid. One of the things that does get a lot of hackles up is questions that look like "do my work for me." Sometimes "how to" questions like you describe can get caught up in that. Fleshing out the question and defining what you do know (beyond the bare question) can help with that perception. But I understand your frustration.
    – David Reed Mod
    Jun 26, 2018 at 13:39
  • 3
    @BrianKessler and those questions that get unanswered and left alone really make it tough to find actual answers later on. A side effect of users not marking questions as answered. I challenge you to start up a site that does what you want and get the braintrust of the amazing users here to participate. If that happens you will have something as we are in need of such a site. Unfortunately, to date, it has never been successful. We are left with a web of blogs and choke the developer forums
    – Eric
    Jun 26, 2018 at 19:03
  • 1
    @ David: I have a new user because I was blocked from asking questions. I only ask questions when I need help. I ask them same questions on trailhead and there those who know just answer me. They see that I mean business. Here, they gang up and blast me with stupid rules that don't help stupid people like me. Most of the time I just want to know an simple answer like "Do this, then get that value and then make a list and parse it" and a small snippet to help me . What I almost ALWAYS get is that I have overstepped some rule. But from the context you can see that I NEED HELP in what I am doing.
    – dummyUser
    Jun 27, 2018 at 11:48
  • 1
    Cont'd: If I had the know-how I'd be thrilled to give someone code that I have that does what they want. I just am a mental midget and barely get what I need to , done. But since I need the help, I come back for more as sometimes, after my question is put on hold or whatever, some kind hearted soul actually throws in a useful answer. I bless them, thank them and then want to give the moderators a piece of my mind but I am usually too busy but since Brian opened up a very sore wound, I am spilling my guts. I really appreciate this site but the rules and the enforces are just dead weights.
    – dummyUser
    Jun 27, 2018 at 11:51
  • 1
    @DummyUser, a moderator will never close your question unless it is very, very low quality or blatantly off-topic, and when they do, they'll leave a very polite comment explaining their actions. Read the comments under adrian's answer.
    – battery.cord
    Jun 27, 2018 at 13:26
  • 3
    Honestly, SE isn't the place to learn something from scratch. Your question will get closed as too broad. This is intentional. Q&A doesn't work if the Q is asking for a tutorial and every answer is a blog post. Theres an old blog post from the founder around somewhere which goes into detail a bit.
    – battery.cord
    Jun 27, 2018 at 13:35
  • 3
    Something I've talked about on Meta before is that people really struggle on SFSE when there's a mismatch in expectations between the community and the asker. That seems to have bitten you, and I for one am sorry for that because I appreciate that you ask questions in good faith. If I can say this also in good faith, I think the extension of @battery.cord's good point is that SFSE isn't designed or suited to being the first stop in one's learning. That does not mean that beginners' questions aren't welcome here - just that there are some different expectations attached.
    – David Reed Mod
    Jun 27, 2018 at 14:19
  • 3
    You can shape your questions, regardless of their level, to be answerable by SFSE. And I hope you stick with it - please don't get too discouraged to continue participating! If it helps, a decent sequence of research on a question might be to Google first, check for a Trailhead module, then come to SFSE and say "Here's my objective. I understand THIS, THAT, and THE OTHER THING, but I can't see how to put them together [or I tried THIS and it didn't work for THIS reason]. What do I need to do differently?"
    – David Reed Mod
    Jun 27, 2018 at 14:21
  • 3
    @dummyUser you've stressed exactly why we want questions to have a high quality and clarity. We're all stressed for time and seeking efficiency in the time we spend, including helping out others. Because all of us have limited time, we want to contributors to be able to understand questions rapidly, so they do not waste their time unfolding or interpreting poorly phrased or incomplete questions and reasonings.
    – Samuel De Rycke
    Jun 28, 2018 at 9:13
  • 1
    If SE was marketing as an advanced forum, that they should be very clear about it. I am under the impression that it moved from that original goal. That would seem to me to be, there are exceptionally competent people on this list who have loads of knowledge and there are others..like me, we do not always even know how to get the question out to the level that the rules currently demand and are enforced all too well. What I'd like to see is that the moderators just make sure on doesn't misbehave i.e. no spam, bad language, trading barbs, expletives etc.
    – dummyUser
    Jun 28, 2018 at 10:38
  • 1
    I mean, the SE tour starts with "Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers." and also says "This site is all about getting answers. It's not a discussion forum. There's no chit-chat.". Honestly tho I think most users skip past the tour/help center & just start asking. At some point, you'll need to make peace with questions being closed/moderated (both users & moderators preform moderation actions, such as dealing with spam and editing posts as needed).
    – battery.cord
    Jun 28, 2018 at 15:01
  • 1
    A lot of what I've been talking about on meta the last few months/weeks has been getting questions re-opened, helping users understand what closure is, and that it doesn't have to be a black hole where questions go to die, that they can be re-opened, that we can edit content to make it on topic.
    – battery.cord
    Jun 28, 2018 at 15:04
  • 2
    Please stop blaming the moderators for actions they did not take part in.
    – Adrian Larson Mod
    Jun 28, 2018 at 16:11
  • 1
    @dummyUser - The rules are simple - Ask a question and show that you have attempted some level of basic learning, debugging, or any attempt at solving the issue yourself. Questions that read like you just want someone to do the work for you, give you code or that could be answered with a google search that takes less time than typing the question are not what SFSE is about. If you want that go and hire someone. We love to help you learn, most get paid to do the work for you
    – Eric
    Jun 30, 2018 at 4:45

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .