Timeline for A +30 question closed as not constructive although there is much agreement it should be kept open?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 2, 2011 at 22:30 | comment | added | Iterator | I smiled when I read "[polls] can never produce statistically valid results". I might disagree, but it's true! Paraphrasing the NRA: Polls don't produce statistically valid results, statisticians produce statistically valid results. :) | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 18:25 | comment | added | Shog9 Mod | @gsk3: again, that's why we're having this discussion. If the question had nothing but lousy answers, who would care? | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 18:16 | comment | added | Ari B. Friedman | @Shog9: Deleting a cogent, useful, focused answer from one of the giants of our community would be a bit of a tragedy. | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 17:59 | comment | added | Shog9 Mod | @gsk3: if there's one thing you should take away from this, it's that these questions are strongly discouraged. They are easy to ask, and hard to answer well - hence the proliferation of duplicates with lousy answers. There are rules and guidelines for asking and answering them, but almost no one reads them - therefore, the knee-jerk reaction is simply, close+delete. | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 17:53 | comment | added | Ari B. Friedman | @Shog9 It's not my favorite question on the topic either. But it's pretty clear from the responses here that even a perfect question wouldn't be allowed. | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 17:49 | comment | added | Shog9 Mod | @matt: the prevailing theory here is simple: don't invite people to post chaff. There's currently one (up-voted) answer that consists solely of a list of tools that make up one person's development environment, with no explanation or justification for any of them. These sorts of responses could easily swamp more valuable answers... If we can discourage them, good... But the original question didn't even try. | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 17:47 | comment | added | Shog9 Mod | @gsk3: and if it hadn't produced content, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The original question was terribly unfocused, and asked for (among other things) answers that were already readily available on existing questions. It got a couple of good answers however, and obviously struck a chord somewhere - therefore, it's worth trying to save. | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 17:39 | comment | added | Ari B. Friedman | @Shog9 I sure have enjoyed a lot of movies on IMDb and Netflix that I watched simply based on a score. "Statistically-valid results" is a meaningless term. What you seem to have meant is that internet polls will never create valid population inferences. As an SO user, I don't care what the general population thinks about something. The fact that members of a community that I trust think highly of something is enough for me to take a look. Moreover your Amazon example proves the point. If anything the question that spurred this discussion was intended to produce content, not votes. | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 17:37 | comment | added | matt wilkie | @shog9, there must be something of value, else the whack-a-mole game wouldn't be happening at this scale or frequency. Or be generating this very discussion. The trick is discovering how to extract the value while leaving the chaff behind. Aside from the idea of putting out corn for the birds in the next paddock, so they leave this one alone, I've no ideas about how to do that. This place is full of people much smarter than me though, so I have hope. ;-) | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 17:25 | comment | added | Shog9 Mod | Your answer is insightful, yet you miss a crucial distinction between chat, blogs, and polls: the former two, while often wastelands of inane chatter, can and do serve a valid purpose; the latter rarely ever produces anything of value. Remember: these can never produce statistically-valid results. You don't buy products on Amazon based on score without reading the reviews, do you? The value, if there's value to be had, comes from the shared experiences of other users. | |
| Aug 2, 2011 at 17:15 | history | answered | matt wilkie | CC BY-SA 3.0 |