How can we remove the "Not a real question" close reason from SO? [duplicate]

Question

Somebody has to stop this, now.

I've been seeing questions getting closed for this nonsense reason. They aren't my questions but it bothers me a lot.

I searched MSO on the matter. The explanation given by the community so far is "vagueness". I saw some examples where people said "your question was too vague to be answered". Somebody on MSO even used the word "unanswerable".

First I find these arguments ridiculous. If a question is vague, the answers would naturally be vague, or none. The question would get downvotes, critical comments and would evolve into a better question over time, or simply be ignored, this is a Wiki after all, or isn't it?

Second, the application of this rule has been extremely biased. Take the famous "what's your most controversial programming opinion?" and "what's the funniest programming joke have you heard?". They are still open as wide as possible. Oh I hear you're saying "they are specific because they didn't omit to add first person in the sentence". So you're closing questions because it doesn't start with "What's your opinion on..." ? What kind of Gulliver's land are you from?

Third, I don't think the learning process is simply a matter of a question and the right answer. You can learn from opinions, incorrect answers and build your experience upon them. In the end you gain better knowledge on the matter or society itself. Such an open community is supposed to evolve, supposed to be open to opinions on the matter rather than specific answers.

I think the reasoning behind that rule is "to keep helpful content only and remove noise in site traffic". I already explained it's not noise, it's helpful. And I already explained it can simply be ignored by community if it's not found worthwhile.

The only justification I can give credit for is "insufficient server resources to hold vague questions in" and I don't believe in such nonsense either. I don't think "vague questions" would grow faster than specific questions.

One might argue that one can always reopen a question and correct the wrong. That's presenting release after a day as a solution to an wrongful arrest. "Correctability of wrong" doesn't make wrong less-wrong.

Currently the moderation is being hypocrite by applying rules inconsistently. It's not their fault, it's the fault of the rule itself. It prevents valuable information to be shared and synthesized by allowing blocks to be put on the flow of information. That's incredibly discomforting.

Here is my specific question: I see an unjust process in SO that I believe hurts the community and the future of SO. How can I convince "The SO guy" at the top to stop this besides yelling, or throwing in a single Meta Stack Overflow request among thousands? Because I think this has high priority, I think this has been doing serious damage.

Answer 1

From Describing Close Reasons:

not a real question

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous and vague, and cannot be answered in its current form.

And, from the SO site FAQ:

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!

Those two quotes pretty much sum it up: if you don't know what you want to ask, then you need to figure that out before asking on SO. You can ask multiple questions in your search for an answer, describe the problems you're having, etc... But each question by itself has to be clear, specific, and answerable. If you want a forum where a tutor will go back and forth with you trying to draw out what you actually want and/or need, then go find one - SO is not the place for this.

That might sound harsh, but trust me - in the end, it saves everyone a lot of time and frustration. And sooner or later, every new programmer will need to learn how to sit down and think through his problem to the point where he has a concrete question that needs answering... encouraging this can only be a good thing.

And FWIW, the newbie questions I see closed as NaRQ usually get comments asking for clarification first - it's when the author doesn't respond that the close votes catch up.

Answer 2

Many of the subjective questions have one of two things in common. They are from back in the day when the community was smaller and a lot more lax on things like this, or they have gained momentum due to their popularity.

We should always try to enforce an unbiased rule to what should be allowed and what should not be.

Unfortunately there are questions that get by and gain momentum. As jeff stated a while back, it's ok to have fun once in a while.

Answer 3

Thanks to anyone who cared to comment. I know your time is precious, I appreciate your effort to fill me in on the matters which I wasn't aware of. I'm a relatively newbie in SO. And I apologize for not doing my research exhaustively. I would like to sum up the answers here that match my arguments. I'm using this area because it feels awkward to track multiple comment chains. I'm not sure how SO rules map to MSO, so since this is a discussion I think it's ok.

• The examples I gave ('what's your most controversial programming opinion?' and 'what's your best programmer joke?') for unjust applications:

  • Shag9 said since the site was community driven, exceptions to rules were unavoidable.
  • Olaf said they were relatively old and community was getting more strict and controlled over new threads over time.
  • tvanfosson said exceptions weren't good enough reasons to remove the rule and sometimes they were just approximations.

• My argument of "even vague, unanswerable questions are helpful":

  • Shag9 quoted FAQ saying: "...is not a discussion board".

---

First I think the words "...is community-driven" and "...because FAQ says so" are contradictory. I saw no [edit] button next to FAQ. So it's not community-driven (or tell me how it is). The community's driving powers are only inside the limits of FAQ.

Of course it's perfectly acceptable for someone who builds a web site to limit the scope based on his/her vision. I'm not saying we should remove the FAQ, I'm saying the excuse "community did it" is unacceptable. Because there is always "The-FAQ-Guy" who can correct the mistakes of a community. This is pretty much like a Sheriff who can prevent a lynch. A lynch cannot be excused because "hey the town is community driven and we don't take kindly robbers here, you should have read the FAQ".

About my examples Olaf, the programming joke question was opened on Oct 22. Your argument of "they were old and now community is getting better at handling those" is not correct. Community is just forced to hold on to what it likes only when moderation doesn't get in the way, randomly.

Shag9, you said removal of the rule would open floodgates. What data do you base that assumption on? Only intuition?

tvanfosson, I recommended removal of the rule because I think the lost value is much more than the damage that assumed-floodgates would cause when they are open.

SO community must first acknowledge the lost value in closed questions based on this reason. "You can always open them back, or discuss in comments" doesn't bring back the immediate value I could contribute just before the question was closed. I never visit that question again, it's almost guaranteed that the potential is lost forever if the user isn't very popular, or doesn't get very popular over time. tvanfosson, as you can see, your recommendation of doing civic duty doesn't help the case here.

How does Wikipedia handle this as a real community driven web site? I don't like it either for different reasons by the way. But I think it does a better job than SO in handling such cases. First there is a specific "notability" criteria to remove articles. Unless it's met no one can delete or ask for deletion of an article.

I know most of you regard SO as an oasis on the web, and so do I. I think it has a great potential (not in terms of traffic or money, but in terms of taking the web forward). I know many of you are offended of criticism when it's not put in polite-enough words with no bow first (hence you call it "rant"), but I only have been trying to emphasize the long term degrading affects of injustice and lack of appreciation of inherent value.

Answer 4

Because the set of options for closing questions is not exhaustive (or freeform), sometimes you're forced to choose a reason that is closest to, but not exactly why you would close a question. Often, the reasons are misapplied -- at least according to the rules I would use.

The fact that you and I would disagree on whether the "not a real question" was the best approximation or not applied correctly isn't a reason to eliminate it as a reason. Sometimes -- as in the case of a blog post or rant disguised as a question -- "not a real question" is the absolute best reason to choose. The same would apply if the question is so poorly written that it can't be rescued even by the best editor.

That said, decisions on which questions remain open or get closed are community issues. Ultimately the community decides and, if the community is inconsistent, then it's only a product of the large and diverse community that has grown up around SO. The only way to improve this situation, having a small group of individuals who make the decisions, isn't really an improvement.

Because the reason has valid application and, despite the inconsistent application of that particular reason, I see no need to remove it.