38
The Golden Rule of migration, of course:
Don't Migrate Crap
25
Yes.
I surveyed the recent close-vote history, and it's clear that there is a good quorum at three votes. Pulling out yesterday's reviews, it's clear that almost all the votes for closing questions ended up in close votes anyway. Additionally, people quickly vote to keep posts open too, and those votes typically end up in questions left open (one was edited, ...
21
There is nothing wrong with leaving some poor-quality questions unanswered. By analogy, 0% unemployment is a worthy ideal, but actually achieving 0% unemployment isn't necessarily a good thing for the economy.
Let's be careful about closing questions mainly for the goal of achieving a 100% answer rate. We should only close questions that are actually off-...
21
If you don't do VBA, you probably don't know this, but most VBA host applications are single-threaded, and when VBA code runs for a long time it's completely normal that the main window's caption says "(not responding)" until the code completes.
THIS IS NOT BROKEN CODE.
So please stop downvoting and voting to close Excel/VBA questions as "broken code" ...
20
If anything, we don't vote to close quickly enough.
An off-topic question can often be fixed. In the meantime, it shouldn't be answered. It helps to close the questions for answers, so they don't get answered anyway. We actively discourage answering off-topic questions[1][2], but new users don't necessarily know this and others don't necessarily comply with ...
17
Yes
I am a comment lover. Comments helps a lot. Especially when it's not crystal clear for everybody that the code is not working as intended.
Sometimes it's even good if two or more users independently considers the code not working as intended and adds a comment about that. (Just to avoid five close votes because "one person says so")
The benefits of a ...
16
We usually VTC questions with titles that don't reflect the goal of the code.
I find this entire premise very, very, very sad and completely contrary to the very welcoming spirit that made this site a success.
A bad title is just that: a bad title. It does not take away anything from the post, it does not make a question off-topic in itself. Code isn't ...
15
I was not a part of this, so this answer is based only on what the OP has shown us. I am afraid that I may catch a lot of flak for this post, but here is how I see things.
Part 1: Embedding Code
Let's go from the beginning:
@RavenHursT broke our rules for not posting the code here.
@rolfl posted a polite response clarifying our rules.
@RavenHursT posted ...
15
The Close-/Reopen system is at least partly predicated on quickly closing questions that are not on topic and quickly reopening those that were edited to be on topic. Let me quote Shog writing on the "purpose of closing":
I would like to propose the following four-part sentence as a summary of purpose for closing - and the larger "close / ...
13
Not enough people that VTC are leaving helpful comments, or even comments that refer to the How do I ask a good question help page. This answer is in support of @vogel612 answer.
When I come upon a question that has one or more votes to close but no comments at all I feel that we are doing the poster and the community an injustice. The first person to VTC ...
12
For migrating to Stack Overflow, there are some good guidelines at What topics can I ask about here?. Quoting, specifically:
Stack Overflow is for professional and enthusiast programmers, people
who write code because they love it. We feel the best Stack Overflow
questions have a bit of source code in them, but if your question
generally covers…
a specific ...
11
IMO the biggest and simplest problem is LCC being used as UCWYA. But why is this happening?
I don't know, but I can guess.
The reason's name "Lacks Concrete Context" makes it sound like any context. Whilst the description of the close reason states explicitly code 5 times, I think most people remember the name. And the name doesn't specify code.
We don't ...
10
Migration checklist
My migration checklist, applicable to all sites:
Is it off-topic here? (Remember that being a better fit elsewhere is not a reason to migrate.)
If it's off-topic, does it have potential to become on-topic? (A closed question can be reopened, but recalling a migrated question is trickier.)
Is it on-topic there?
Is it not crap (i.e. ...
10
I have something to add concerning the "not working" code: we hardly know whether our code is 100% safe or not, and often assume ("know") that some corners cases remain and even if we wrote the best possible code we could, there would still be some obscure errors which would generally not trigger but which could trigger someday. We often feel that there are ...
9
As the moderator involved, I'm obligated to respond.
This specific question
I have to admit, it was a complex decision process for me, with many factors to consider.
Code Review is a place where programmers post their code for feedback…
… subject to a condition that the code must work as intended, to the best of the author's knowledge.
If the question ...
9
Wouldn't it be more efficient to notify the OP (even below 250 rep) directly about close votes,
Yes it would. Feel free to make a feature-request on the site-wide meta.
instead of that constantly generated comment noise?
I don't consider it noise at all. It only becomes noise when the issue the comment addresses is fixed, and then the comment is often ...
8
You cast that close vote on Jan 16 at 0:02, and it 'aged away' on Jan 20 at 3:00.
Close votes expire, and you cannot close-vote twice on the same question.
8
I'm writing this answer from a working mindset at my job, I appreciate this isnt your job and you probably do not need to remain 100% professional for your own livelihood.
I don't think you can ever stop a flamer from flaming, this being said he clearly had a problem with the rules of the site which wasn't helped by the way he was responded to.
I think you ...
8
Agreed. "Questions containing broken code or asking for advice about code not yet written are off-topic, as the code is not ready for review" would have been a more appropriate closure reason.
I'd recommend using one of the standard closure reasons whenever possible, to avoid giving the impression that closure is a capricious decision.
That said, I'm not ...
7
My take on what happened:
Dialog between OP and rolfl
Other users (starting with Mat's Mug) weigh in to defend and back up rolfl
My take on how to prevent it happening:
If you post, do it to inform ("our rules are X", "you can improve your post by adding Y"), but not to criticise ("don't disrepect the community", "don't argue with the moderator"); if you ...
6
Unfortunately I wasn't a part of this, I wish I could have been there to help. I'll make a small note here though: tone is everything. Whenever you are writing something to be read, the it is up to the reader to decide how you will "sound" in their head.
At first I think we handled ourselves pretty well as a community. We (for the most part) were pretty ...
6
The obligatory answer, which is the somewhat documented process:
stay away from the flames. Do not engage with people who are upset, trolling, or abusive
flag the comments/posts that are a problem.
let the moderators moderate things.
References:
Proper Protocol for Handling a Flame War
How should we react to flaming/trolling in comments?
Who are the ...
6
Bobby's comment to the question is:
@tomdemuyt: Please no! This question does belong on SO as much as it does belong on CR. It would just be closed on SO. – Bobby 49 mins ago
The poster clearly says (emphasis mine) "I want that it should reload or stay on same page with reload to same id." This means that there is a problem to be solved, the code does ...
6
Don't migrate questions that are not suitable Stack Overflow questions.
If a question has been formatted to look like a Code Review question, with lots of code, and lots of text, then it is almost certainly not a good Stack Overflow question.
Stack Overflow questions should typically be small, self-contained code examples, or perhaps no code at all, and ...
6
Once a question is closed it does automatically add a notice that the OP can see as to the reason for closure and how to possibly remedy it, for example:
Some of us who regularly help with moderation of new questions have pre-written comments (myself included) to let the OP know what the problem is. Perhaps it's redundant, but I don't think there is any ...
6
I have never liked this as a close reason. I believe it does damage to the site. Community consensus at the time was significant, and I've come to accept it over time as a potentially necessary evil.
There ARE good reasons for LCC, and I have seen a number of instances where I have agreed with using it as a close reason, but it is being applied incorrectly ...
5
IMO bad/unclear/poor questions in the queue should get closevotes no matter if they are zombies or not.
There is no need that such questions will survive no matter how long ago they had been asked.
Related: clarification-as-to-why-a-question-was-closed-as-off-topic
If questions had been on topic at the moment of time they had been asked doesn't mean ...
5
This could be a tough one. That close reason could indicate that the closers themselves do not understand the question, but someone else probably still can. That person may proceed to post an answer, or inform the reviewers in the comments, or both.
This is probably where Code Review is different on closures. In cases where the code is suitable for ...
5
The most common use I have seen for "Unclear what you are asking" is when the OP has provided lots of code but with little or no description about what the code does.
Besides this, I tend to have another rule-of-thumb: If you read the complete question more than three times and have no slightest clue about what the OP is talking about, then you can close as ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible