How many questions on meta have asked, "Why can't I ask this question when that question is open"?

Question

One of the main arguments against keeping old, fun posts in a locked state is that they create broken windows, which serve as an advertisement for the types of questions which are acceptable—notwithstanding the historical notice stating the opposite. I've never found that argument convincing, but I certainly wouldn't want to encourage behavior that makes Stack Overflow worse, so I'd honestly, sincerely, without any trolling like to ask those that do believe this to drop the hammer on me.

If this claim is true, I would expect Meta to be rife with posts from indignant users claiming that their question was closed, while that "weird programming feature" question over there exists. I would think coming up with about two dozen such meta posts from the last 6 months would be trivial; surely this problem is big enough to manifest itself at least once per week.

To be clear, I've seen Meta pages filled with posts containing "why question closed". I know plenty of questions get closed, and plenty of people complain. I'm talking about people specifically complaining that "old junk exists, so my new junk should, too".

Finally, let's not waste time digging through all the closed Stack Overflow questions looking for stuff that seems similar to these purported broken windows. There are tons of junk questions that come into the front door of Stack Overflow every day. This junk comes in many flavors: here's a wall of code, now find my error; here are my program requirements, now someone write it; spam; and, of course, non-constructive crap that might look similar to some of the old favorites. But just because some old junk questions exist, and some new junk questions get asked, doesn't mean the former caused the latter—post hoc ergo propter hoc.

No more rhetoric, no more arguments, no more anger. Just data.

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EDIT

There's been a bit of confusion as to what I'm asking above, and it seems I could have been a bit clearer. A lot of answers and comments below deal with open questions on Stack Overflow and Programmers.SE creating broken windows, with one answer even quoting me to show how keeping questions open and active can create broken windows. The people writing these answers are correct; keeping off-topic questions open and active does indeed cause these problems.

This question is intended to ask whether broken windows would be created by keeping questions like the strangest language feature closed and locked, delisted from "top question" pages, and with a big bright prominent banner proclaiming to all that the question exists for historical purposes only, and is not a good example of an on-topic question.

So the bottom line is, I was wondering just how many meta threads there were asking "why can't I ask X when Y exists" Where Y was locked at the time of asking (which would likely be reflected in the answers).

Answer 1

These arguments you describe have been made on Meta. Questions have been posted following the general form of:

Why was my question (link) deleted? I'm just asking about the coolest hidden features of x, and there are lots of other questions of that form, like (examples).

I know they exist because I have personally answered and/or voted to close them. I could probably go and dig up links, but there seems little purpose in doing so. Most of them have been closed as duplicates, and then later deleted. Only 10k+ users will be able to see them, and it really misses the point how many of those questions get asked.

The fact is, a far greater number of people come to Meta asking why they can no longer post questions of any kind. (Yeah, yeah, you wanted data, but this is plain as day, all you have to do is watch the recent questions page on Meta for a week; anyone who's a regular participant on here knows what I'm saying is true.) This is evidence that our automatic post ban system is working. People who post consistently low-quality content and show no indication of improving are no longer allowed to keep trying. It's the same "broken windows" logic, but applied in a slightly different way. The point is, the overabundance of those questions has not given anyone significant pause about the automatic post ban system. So obviously the real battle is not trying to figure out ways to deter people from asking stupid questions on Meta (and if it is, well, it's time to give up, because that ain't never gonna happen).

No, it seems to me that the point is making it incontrovertibly clear what our standards are on Stack Overflow. It's easy to close the aforementioned questions as duplicates of the canonical Q&A on the subject because it's completely clear what the violation was and what the current situation is. There's a clear guideline, you violated it repeatedly, and you pay the associated penalty. Like all rules, our goal is and should be consistency.

The argument people are making with regard to leaving the old, highly-valued but now off-topic questions on the site is that they are sending an unclear message about what our content standards are. The fact that people might come here to Meta and use them as examples is only a side-effect of the real problem. The real problem is that if we allow some of those questions, regardless of the date, it makes our decision to enforce the standing rules against new questions seem arbitrary and capricious.

The thing I don't understand is why the simple solution to this problem has been rejected by the "deletionists". That is, simply providing indicators that make it exceptionally clear that the viewed content is no longer allowed on Stack Overflow, but is retained only for historical purposes. To me, the beauty of this strategy is that it allows us to retain the content that one group wants to retain, while avoiding the harms cited by their opposition. In other words, it is a balance: exactly what one should be seeking in the case of seemingly deadlocked conflict.

If we provide multiple, exceptionally clear visual indications that an old question no longer meets the content guidelines for SO, then we avoid the problems described above of our enforcement of the rules seeming arbitrary and capricious, and the side-effect of people coming to Meta complaining that their new question (following the same model) was closed.

If and when people do come to Meta complaining that their question was closed and citing the historical exceptions as evidence, we can do what we at Meta do best: leave snarky comments and close their question as a duplicate of the canonical "What are these 'historically significant' questions, and why can't I ask new ones in the same vein?" question. You know, the same one that will be linked on the "historical significance" notice that appears on the page with each of the historically significant questions.

In other words, the people who might hypothetically make this argument if we retain these old questions will simply be wrong. They will have failed to read the guidelines that were clearly provided. We all know that we can't do anything to force people to read, but as long as this is all made clear and consistent, there can be no legitimate argument made and no one can be truly offended by what they perceive as an arbitrary enforcement of the rules.

I just don't understand what the other harms of leaving these questions on the site are. As I've said many times prior in comments: if you don't want to read these questions, you don't have to. They're not hurting your Internet, but they are hurting the Internet of people who might want to read them.

As long as we solved the "mixed signals" problem, we can just leave the questions alone, locked, not as broken windows, but as historical stained glass windows in a cathedral. You can look, but you can't touch.

I think some people, during the course of this discussion, have been either intentionally or inadvertently obscuring the distinction between those old, historically significant questions that actually have something useful to provide to the site, and those that are just garbage.

I see absolutely no point in keeping garbage around, but I think we should do everything within our power to keep potentially useful information alive and accessible on the Internet. I realize that this is incredibly subjective, but I think, like pornography, most people know it when they see it.

For example, there is a big difference, apparent to literally everyone, between The Definitive C++ Book Guide and List and Questions every good .NET developer should be able to answer? versus UNIX man page jokes? and Programmer's food. In other words, there's a glaringly obvious difference between those old potentially-bikeshed questions that actually provide a high volume of useful information, and those that are just purely nonsensical fun. Jeff seems to make the same argument here; I'm not sure how and why that got forgotten in the recent haste to bring the site up to ISO 9000 compliance.

And in the edge cases, we should err on the side of preservation, rather than obliteration. At least until we follow Shog9's advice and have a thorough discussion on the merits of each question here on Meta. Then, depending on the consensus, and only then, should we consider deleting the question for good.

We decided through experience that these types of questions are not generally a good fit for a Q&A site like Stack Overflow. They tend to attract poor quality answers and discussion, which are two things we obviously don't want to encourage. That's why we've modified our guidelines so as to no longer allow them. But these old questions are exceptions. (Or, at least, some of them are—the exceptional ones.) They managed to attract high-quality answers and accumulate lots of useful information from experts. They did this despite the general tendency of this type of question. But that's no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. That information already has been and likely will be useful to others in the future. On balance, taking the risk isn't worth it to allow these types of questions. But the risk has already been taken, so there's just no good reason not to preserve those where the outcome was, despite all odds, positive.

Answer 2

I don't think of the "fun" posts as broken windows. I think of them as the equivalent to Il Colosseo.

Nobody can deny that this structure is broken down and decrepit.
Neither can they deny that it is an important part of history and worth preserving in its current state.

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This is exactly why the "Historical Significance" lock reason says:

This question exists because it has historical significance, but it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site, so please do not use it as evidence that you can ask similar questions here.

Answer 3

I would offer a different take on what is typically being described as "broken windows" with respect to the current discussions surrounding closing old questions. The "broken window" metaphor doesn't really apply; these aren't (largely) eyesores, they aren't the sort of things that cause you to think - what a crappy place to hang out, I certainly want to avoid this place. In large measure they are questions (and answers) that people have found helpful. Note: I'm not principally talking about obvious joke, poorly worded, or improperly formatted questions, but rather questions that were once deemed on topic or acceptable by the community, but are no longer since [take your pick] (a) the scope of acceptable questions has narrowed or (b) we've started enforcing the acceptability standards more stringently.

A better way of thinking of these questions is as building types that no longer fit into the current zoning for the property. For example, high quality residential buildings, but in an business zone. Using this metaphor gives us a much better way of understanding both sides of the issue and, perhaps, of finding a resolution.

When zoning laws change, existing structures are often grandfathered in if they don't fit the new zoning requirements. We don't tear them down, necessarily, but we don't build any new ones. We don't use the presence of a grandfathered structure to argue the permissibility of a new structure of the same type.

There are exceptions to this rule. Sometimes, the current structure is so far outside the new zoning requirements (joke postings), that we do go in and clear them all out. Housing tracts next to a nuclear waste dump, for example, just don't work. But, we give a lot of warning and not just in places where nuclear waste engineers hang out.

Sometimes, we create a new zone where the existing structure would be a better match and encourage the resident/business to move to that zone (i.e., migration to a new site as it's created). Again, we often give a lot of notice and work with the "owners" of the existing structure when we do this.

Sometimes, we just let the existing structure stand. It's "close enough" to the current zoning that it's not too bad a fit and, maybe, there isn't enough demand for that type of zoning to warrant creating a special zone just for it. If people find it useful, though - say like a corner grocery in a residential neighborhood - what's the harm? We protect it to make sure that it doesn't become a hangout for crackheads. We don't build a new supermarket next to it, but we also don't tear it down and throw out the hard work that went into building it - even if it's now slightly outside the norm of buildings we'd build in this neighborhood.

Yes, there are broken windows in buildings. Most of them are in the right kinds of buildings for the zone they're in and they should be cleaned up, if possible, or torn down as necessary. But a different kind of building may or may not have broken windows or feel like it harms the neighborhood. Letting a good business stand in a residential neighborhood is both respectful to the people who built it when the zoning was different and helpful to the people who still find it useful.

Answer 4

Here's a crazy thought: some people want to preserve the ancient "list of X" and such questions, and others want them deleted because they show up at the top of the "Questions by votes" list.

Why not put them at the bottom?

This could be done by setting the upvotes to zero (I don't want to hear whining about losing rep), or, better, by setting the upvotes to the negative of the current upvotes (shut up about losing rep).

Alternatively, a bit could be added that says "ignore the upvotes and pretend they're zero".

This bit would only be settable by moderator action, unless we make it a 10 or 20k privilege to vote to set the bit.

Answer 5

Sounds simple enough:

Example 1:

you misunderstand. I like PSE. I like that there's a place where open-ended questions that call for speculation can thrive. Stuff like that is a joy to read. I just wish you all wouldn't be so self-righteous. It's like you're trying to compensate for how much less serious your content is compared to Stack Overflow.

Example 2:

well, for the question linked above there's this answer which is a joke, and this one which is pure speculation. They sit at +8 and +6 currently. Granted, the top answer is wonderful and has lots and lots of nice data. But speculative / non-serious answers seem to do just fine at PSE. And great. I liked both of those answers, and I thought the joke answer was pretty funny. I just wish you all would relax a bit.

Example 3:

I wish instead of flaming on me, and throwing a tantrum every time something bad gets migrated, you would just explain the criterion that allows for speculation-friendly questions like the above, or this one, but not ever anything SO tries to migrate. Currently that question is at +3, with 8 answers, almost all of which based around anecdotes or speculation.

And then there's the slew of answers on this question, including one from SE's very own Shog9 no less:

I'll say it again: lead by example. When the migrated questions fit with questions already open/popular on the site, you just sound hypocritical criticizing SO users for not reading the FAQ - your own users aren't doing so either!

Answer 6

I can't abide by the restriction that you suggest because us grumpy fun-haters are reasonably successful in getting rid of the junk that comes in, gets promptly closed and just as promptly defended by pointing at those wonderful big lists from early in the site's history.

In other words you ask us to ignore the evidence that we've dealt with.

In the last six months I've been spending more time on physics, sci-fi and other newish sites than Stack Overflow, so I don't have any recent example. I offer an old answer of mine that recently got some upvotes...

My reason for wanting them gone is that people generate new ones in a genuine effort to be good citizens, and then we come running in to stomp them. No fun for anyone.

In principle the "historical significance" banner should be sufficient, but...

Answer 7

A few recent meta questions from people complaining about a closed question when other similar questions remained open:

• Why is this question so hated?
• Why is my question Closed while similar question is open in another tag
• Why are so called "discussion postings" sometimes closed and sometimes not?
• Why are requests for tutorials closed?

Keep in mind that a lot of the evidence is in comments that people have left under questions. “Why did you close my question when X is still open?” Only a trickle of these find their way to Meta.

For a lot more evidence, look at Programmers, where the problem was markedly worse.

Answer 8

A few that I can find.

Lack of consistency

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/96870/do-you-get-irked-by-the-attitude-on-se ("This one's not closed" statement made in a comment.)

Why are some book suggestion posts accepted, but not mine?

Answer 9

Currently, the question of “broken windows”, be they real or perceived, pertains mainly to “bike shed” type questions from the good ole days. (wipes a half tear from eye)

Going forward, it may indeed pertain to “all this crap about dinosaur languages like c#” – “do we really want to project an image of a site about languages that haven’t been used for 20 years” - especially when sorted by votes.

Entropy happens, change happens, can’t stop that.

Personally, I think applying community standards, contemporaneously, is a great thing – nobody wants to see the front page littered with “plz send me teh codez”.

So, thank you to all who give their time and do great work in keeping the site focussed and useful.

Where it becomes a matter of some contention, is extemporaneous application of these standards – people get upset when their efforts, which were acceptable by the standards of the time, are consigned to the great bit bucket of oblivion.

From a personal/business perspective, I have generally encouraged programmers/contractors working for us (a very small company) who found solutions to unanswered questions on SO as part of our work efforts, to post them on SO (providing no trade secrets etc), so that they may be of use to the broader community, but also so they serve our business needs by being recorded somewhere, and don’t need to be solved again.

I would like to think that our company will be such that we will always be using relatively current technologies, and we won’t be needing consult ancient archives of old problems. But I don’t know that, and from a business perspective I need to make a best effort to not lose knowledge that we spent time discovering – if it is going to end up perceived as a no longer relevant eyesore, should I tell my people to just post it in our internal wiki instead? (we try to keep that product specific)

If I instruct people to double work it I will get grief from the suits. Wherever it’s possible I would prefer to share it with the community.

The issue of reputation loss is not a big one to me, but is to many people. (must admit to being briefly affronted, but told myself to get over it)

When I had the time to “play the game”, it was a motivating factor, and I do believe that the reputation system has contributed greatly to the success of the site. People like to be acknowledged, even if it’s just a number.

This is something that needs to be considered in the broader picture of the economics of reputation, especially if SO/SE are still around in 5…10…20…50… years.

Would it be appropriate that I could vote in moderator elections from an aged care facility, whilst lamenting that these young whippersnappers have no idea what they’re talking about?

I don’t think that would be fair.

So, a couple of ideas/discussion points, not bulletproof, but this is not an easy problem to crack – I don’t know if anyone has adequately solved these issues before.

This has been said before – archive.

When something no longer fits – send it to the retirement home – don’t just kill it. Grandpa shouldn't drive or operate heavy machinery - but not a reason to shoot him.

Debating the merits of individual questions from way back when just won’t scale when whole technologies no longer fit.

Chances are, some poor intern somewhere will be tasked with patching a legacy intranet app with IE6 requirements in 20 years’ time – I think the internet would be a better place for him/her if they don’t have to fight that battle all alone, and all the effort that went into that battle was not lost.

Give reputation a half-life or other decay mechanism – sure – keep a historical total and maybe even a hall of fame, but maintain a useable reputation value.

This may help to level out the playing field for newcomers, and not give an undeserved gravitas to my input (crotchety old fart who used to know stuff), compared to the input of someone younger, smarter, and more up to date than I.

If a question passes current standards, stays active for at least x months, and people earn points from asking or answering – let them keep the points even if the question is sent out to pasture– if the points decay over time, then the basis of their usable reputation score should trend towards current standards.

Points accrued on technologies of yore won’t allow me to have a say in a community where I’m no longer relevant.

Anyway, just some thoughts in an effort to be constructive around this issue.