How can I turn a not-constructive question in a constructive one?

Question

Today, one of the question I asked has been closed as not constructive, but I can't really understand why, since it doesn't ask for opinions, lists and the like. Moreover it's very unlikely to be debated, since it's a very specific and quite hard question.

Thus, I suspect that it's poorly formed, but I can't guess how to improve it: can anybody help me to make it better? I mean, something like this one, that proved to be constructive enough.

edit
The question, in the meantime has been reopened and closed again. To me such question "Are there any documented anti-patterns for functional programming?" looks looks strictly boolean, devoted to intentional learning and objective (since it ask about documented anti-pattern existance), but even if considered as subjective, it should be a good subjective one.

I can't really understand moderator's decision.

Moreover it has been wikified.

edit 2
After this comment from George Stocker I realized that I didn't explained the actual problem well, so I'd try to make the question better replacing the first two lines with

Next month I'm going to work on a new R&D project that will adopt a functional programming language (I voted for Haskell, but right now F# got more consensus). Now, I've played with such languages for a while and developed a few command line tools with them, but this is a quite bigger project and I'm trying to improve my functional programming knowledge and technique. I've also read a lot on the topic: I can use Monads, MonadTransformers, CPS and a few mind-changing other tools, but I can't find any books or resources that document anti-patterns in the functional programming world.

Now, learning about anti-patterns means learning about other smart people failures: in OOP I know a few of them, and I'm experienced enough to choose wisely when something that generally is an anti-pattern, perfectly fit my need. But I can choose this because I know the lesson learned by other smart guys.

Thus, my question is: are there any documented anti-patterns in functional programming? Till now, all of my collegues told me that they do not know any, but they can't state why.

• If yes, please include one single link to an authoritative source (a catalogue, an Oleg's essay, a book or equivalent).
• If no, please support your answer by a proper theorem.

Please don't turn this question in a list: it is a boolean question that just requires a proof to evaluate the answer. For example, if you are Oleg Kiselyov, "Yes" is enough, since everybody will be able to find your essay on the topic. Still, please be generous.

Note that I am looking for formal anti-patterns, not simple bad habits or bad practices...

with the rest like the Rachel's edit.

However since the question is locked I can't do such edit by myself.

I'm quite quite sure that, with such carefully crafted and specific answer, no one that cares about the topic (and knows even just a bit functional programming) will ever turn it into neither a list nor a debate.

Thus, again, I ask to open it again and unwikify it so that every one that is able to answer will be incetivated to.

edit 3 Since somebody unlocked the question, I did the edit previously described in edit 2.

I hope that now the question is constructive, because

• it describes my problem
• it explicitly states that no list is allowed
• it describe how to answer yes or no
• it define the term "anti-pattern"
• it define the term "documented".

If I'm still wrong, and the question still violates any SO rule, I'd like to know precisely which one and how I can fix it. Otherwise, I would like to see it reopen and with community flag removed, so that anyone that can answer, is incentivated to.

Answer 1

Those kinds of questions are tough, but I've occasionally had success by being very specific and clear about the type of answer I want.

The reason why questions asking for a list of answers are frowned upon is because the ultimate result usually ends up being a long list of answers each saying "here's part of your answer", and all the answers are equally correct with no way to definitively answer the question unless you read every single post.

SE's goal is to make it easy to find definitive answers to questions within a topic, and having to read through pages of posts to understand the full answer is considered "not constructive" towards their goal. So questions that ultimately ask "List me all the X" are usually closed quickly as Not-Constructive.

However that's not the same as questions which elicit a single answer which says "Yes, and here's the list" or "No, and here's why", where it is easy to find the "correct" answer. Depending on the scope of your question, it is possible to rephrase the question to make it clear that you want one of those two answers only.

I think your question has a narrow enough scope for this, and is detailed enough about exactly what you are trying to find, so I've made an edit to your post to try and do just that:

• I added "If Yes/No" bullet points below the question, which usually steers the answers towards being "Yes/No, and here's why" instead of a lot of answers each containing "here's one: xxx"

  Are there any documented anti-patterns in functional programming?

  • If yes, please try to include a complete list of documented functional anti-patterns in your answer, with links to their documentation if possible.

  • If no, please support your answer by a proper theorem.

• I tried to improve the clarity of exactly what you're looking for by pulling the relevant information about formal anti patterns out of the block quote. Sometimes eyes will glaze over when reading through a block of text, so its important to try and highlight the main points early on instead of expecting people to read a block of text and determine the main point for themselves.

  Note that I am looking for formal anti-patterns, not simple bad habits or bad practices.

  From the linked wikipedia article on Anti-Patterns:

  ... there must be at least two key elements present to formally distinguish an actual anti-pattern from a simple bad habit, bad practice, or bad idea:

  1. some repeated pattern of action, process or structure that initially appears to be beneficial, but ultimately produces more bad consequences than beneficial results, and
  2. an alternative solution exists that is clearly documented, proven in actual practice and repeatable.

• I removed the extra information from the bottom that was about the Stack Overflow question itself, and not about the question you were trying to find an answer for. That kind of thing is usually best left in a comment or kept extremely short since it's not actually about the question you're seeking an answer for.

It's currently deleted by 4 community members, but as of right now it has 2 undelete votes and I have flagged it to see if a moderator can help us get it undeleted.

It also has 2 reopen votes, and I hope it gets reopened. I think it is a good question after all the edits, and it does a nice job at being clear about the exact definition of what you are looking for, and the exact type of answer you want.

Update:

George has updated his answer to say he deleted the question, which I strongly disagree with, and he's encouraged me to post a copy of my comments in my answer.

Per George:

The question has been closed 4 times, re-opened 3 times, deleted 3 times, undeleted twice.

It's fair to say this is a contentious question. I've gone ahead and moderator-deleted it (a moderator's deletion can't be undone except by other moderators or the SE team) so that it will not continue to yo-yo and divert resources from more productive uses.

And my response:

The deletion does bother me. Two of the deletions were initiated by the same user and the 3rd was you. The question was originally closed as a duplicate. It got edited to explain why it was not a duplicate, and got re-closed as not constructive. It got edited again, then closed two more times with a moderator shortcutting the process by casting the final close vote both times. It's only been around 4 days (deleted for part of that), has received 30 upvotes, and has community members actively trying to get it reopened. It's not a bad question,and I don't think it warrants deletion.

As for if it should be Closed or Open or not, that's a different story. Personally I don't think it should be closed, as I see the current version of the question as clear and detailed enough to avoid becoming a long list of semi-complete answers, which StackExchange considers "not constructive" towards their goal. That is why list questions are usually frowned upon, not because they hate lists. I do not see that question degrading into a forum post full of "here's a bad practice you forgot!" answers.

In fact, the question it was closed as a duplicate originally asked something very similar, and the answer was "No, although there are two exceptions", which leads me to believe the most likely answer to this question will be a "No and here's why I say that" answer. (Also, I don't think that question should have been deleted either. It has 3 reopen votes, and provides some very useful information). But that's just me. If the community thinks it should stay closed, so be it.

But I think deleting a +30/-10 post within a few days of it being posted just because you don't want to deal with the discussion it creates does the community more harm than good, especially when there are users actively trying to understand why it got closed so they can fix the problem and get it reopened.

So regardless of if the question gets reopened or stays closed, it should not be deleted so quickly. It's only a few days old, has 30 upvotes, and the person asking the question is actively working to try and understand and fix the problem, and get the question reopened.

Answer 2

Your question still looks like a vague, open-ended list question to me, even if you phrased it in terms of "is this vague, open-ended list empty or not?"

(Would you really have been happy if the only answer had been "Yes, there are some, here's one. I know several more, but I won't mention them since you only asked whether there are any."? If you really just wanted to know whether the set you asked about was empty or not, such an answer should've been more than sufficient.)

In particular, the thing about "documented anti-patterns" is that anyone can take anything they don't like and call it an anti-pattern, and if they write about it on their blog then it's documented too. Sure, others can (and nearly always will) then disagree about whether it's really an anti-pattern or not, but that debate quickly gets subjective, and not in a good way.

So asking "are there any anti-patterns about functional programming?" is a bit like asking "are there any jokes about lawnmowers?" There almost certainly are, and even if there weren't when you asked, it's very likely that someone can think up some.

If you wanted to turn your question into something objectively answerable, I think the most important change you'd need to make would be to make it less open-ended by, say, restricting it to anti-patterns documented in some well known catalogue of design patterns. That would make it possible, in principle at least, for someone to go through the entire catalogue and provide a definitive answer like "Yes, the anti-patterns FOO and BAR are specific to functional programming, and XYZZY is mostly about it too." or, just possibly, "Well, what do you know, it looks like there really aren't any!"

Answer 3

The question itself is out of bounds for Stack Overflow, for a few reasons:

1. It essentially asks for a list of anti-patterns. How do we determine what the 'right' answer is? We don't, because there isn't a single right answer.

2. One person's anti-pattern is another person's "go to" (pun intended) statement.

3. It doesn't actually have a problem the user faces. It's purely a curiosity question.

From the FAQ:

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

It is an interesting question, but it's not a good fit for Stack Overflow.

Update:

The question has been closed 4 times, re-opened 3 times, deleted 3 times, undeleted twice.

It's fair to say this is a contentious question. I've gone ahead and moderator-deleted it (a moderator's deletion can't be undone except by other moderators or the SE team) lock it so that it will not continue to yo-yo and divert resources from more productive uses.

If this rubs you the wrong way, please bring up your objections in the comments or in an answer.

Answer 4

I agree that the original question was hard to answer (or even to understand what it was all about), after closing it was edited and reopened; it is now a precise question, giving a lot of needed background. It has even be upvoted to 16 in the meantime.

I'd say this is the process as it should work at its very best.

Answer 5

The fact that you're using a plural term in your title immediately implies that you're asking for a list of things, rather than a single answer. The fact that you're only asking for documented anti-patterns doesn't really bear on that matter (although it may constrict the set a little).

In fact, asking for only documented examples can be viewed as problematic, because it elicits discussion over what is or isn't a 'real' anti-pattern - according to the definition provided on Wikipedia, consistent bad habits could very well fit. Also, what counts as documentation? Does it have to be in a book, or can it just be a blog post?

So, not only are you asking for a list of things, but the inclusion of any particular item is also up for discussion. For those two reasons, it's not a constructive question for Stack Overflow as it stands.

Answer 6

"Any documented anti-patterns" is "non constructive" because it is considered "too broad." In your shoes, I would "narrow" the question by asking about ONE anti-pattern and build the question around that.

Answer 7

You can't.

Whenever a question has been closed once, it will be closed again and again (and eventually deleted) by members of the community with sufficient reputation to vote to delete.

This despite what you do to make it constructive and conformant to the stackoverflow's rules and rationale.

There's probably something wrong with the question, even if it conforms to the rules both in the letter and in the matter. So don't lose your time into trying to improve it after suggestions from meta.