I recently asked a history question. The question was regarding popularity and was data-backed. There is a tag for history and there is a tag for popularity. But the question was closed as non-constructive. In one sense of the word constructive, no history question will ever be constructive. Why do we even have these two tags?
3 Answers
Please don't use the existence of tags to justify asking questions that are clearly subjective or off-topic. Look at how the tags are actually used. Just glancing through the questions with those tags, it looks like one legitimate use of history is for questions that have to do with browser (or other application) history. The popularity tag doesn't have a tag wiki, but you can look and see that questions of the form "What's the most popular X" are frequently closed. Questions about popularity algorithms fare a little better.
answered Nov 30, 2012 at 16:18
The tag wiki for 'history' says, 'Do not use.' That seems pretty clear to me.
Other than that, this isn't a 'practical programming problem'.
answered Nov 30, 2012 at 15:36
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3I was just changed after this discussion. (See comments.) That was the whole point of this question. If it is not supposed to be used we should get rid of it and looks like we just did. ;)– 101Nov 30, 2012 at 15:37
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4Very interesting how you get three up votes with no one even reading what happened. Herds I tell you!– 101Nov 30, 2012 at 15:38
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@101 - how do you know they came from people who didn't read what happened? :S– RenNov 30, 2012 at 15:39
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1@Ren Because the answer says "Hey it is not supposed to be used" and that's exactly what the outcome of this discussion was, so it can't be an answer to it.– 101Nov 30, 2012 at 15:41
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1@101 - but it is the correct answer now as a result of the changes brought about by the discussion ;)– RenNov 30, 2012 at 15:42
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QUestions and answers on stack overflow are supposed to have last. Some future reader of the question and answer will end up informed about how to use the sites, which is the goal here. Nov 30, 2012 at 15:45
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3You deserve a fat -1 for giving a totally wrong and even somewhat insulting answer. This answer is totally not applicable at the moment the question was asked and even then, you should have taken the new tag wiki change into account in the answer. E.g. "The history tag shouldn't have been used in first place. This was initially also mentioned in the tag wiki, but someone has removed it. It's now fixed, you are not supposed to actually use this tag" or something more realistic.– user138231Nov 30, 2012 at 16:08
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2@Chichiray Vote as you will. This is not a real-time system. I read the question when I saw it, I did the obvious research, and I posted based on what I read. I'm not interested in doing archeology. Nov 30, 2012 at 16:12
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4The "DO NOT USE" verbiage was on the original Tag Wiki description until Gilles made his suggested edit. Look at the revision history– user102937Nov 30, 2012 at 18:19
The question did find a home on Programmers, however it still feels like a not constructive question. Although programming history questions are on topic on Programmers1, your question is based on a flawed assumption, which Thomas describes in detail in his comment:
Are you curious about the overall popularity of Git or the installation of Git on Debian? Your data only provides information about one Linux distribution, ignoring every other Linux distribution, along with BSD, Mac, and Windows operating systems, yet you're asking a generic question about the rise in use of a tool. Based on some of the answers, there is a Debian-specific explanation, but there's insufficient data to speak to the popularity of Git versus the popularity of Mercurial across all potential users. It seems like the question as presented is based on faulty assumptions. – Thomas Owens ♦
There's no question that git is popular, however the data you present only speak about git installations on Debian. I'd strongly suggest you follow Thomas' advice and update your question accordingly. Even though it is on topic, it's already in trouble:
- 3 close votes,
- 4 deleted answers (all of them completely missed the point of the question),
- Lots and lots of discussion.
We've protected the question and added a post notice for long answers that provide some explanation and context on it, but you got to help us out a bit by making it a bit more concrete. There are two discussions in The Whiteboard (our main chat room) you might want to check out:
If the question gets closed, it will be automatically locked as a rejected migration, which means that you won't be able to edit it, so... if you are going to update it please do it now.
1 We even had a history week during our contest.
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for the sake of completeness, besides a new home, the question has recently gotten a new title: "Why is the sudden increase in number of Git submitters on Debian popcorn graph in 2010-01?" (revision 6)– gnatNov 30, 2012 at 18:09
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2When it comes to cult followers like Git-roids, they simply can't help themselves but to proclaim their faith based beliefs loudly and as simply as possible, through any medium possible, rules, FAQ's and terms of service be damned. Certain topics can't help but attract terrible answers. Nov 30, 2012 at 18:13
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"There is only one reason. Linus Torvalds. blah blah"... "my guess is fairly prosaic. Git is brilliant blah blah"...– gnatNov 30, 2012 at 18:20
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...oh and the winner is (drums!) "...it was a good product that came along at the right time..." high voted, at +17 (seventeeen) sure this is a great answer to "Why is the sudden increase in number of Git submitters on Debian popcorn graph in 2010-01?"... well from droids perspective anyway– gnatNov 30, 2012 at 18:31
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historyas a concept can apply to programming problems? "How do I add a URL to my browser history from JavaScript"?Use this tag for questions about the history of a programming concept or feature.