Locked. I honestly don't know why anyone would bother contributing to Stack Overflow at this point. It seems to basically be the hosting ground for answers to hard factual questions answered in most documentation/materials elsewhere, and a virtual wasteland of locked/deleted questions that are actually of use in the non-black and white world we live and work in. This real world ambiguity seems like it is completely intolerable to the mods at SO.
Not sure how the rest of you feel but in my mind if the answer is black and white, the question was probably bad.
> "It seems to basically be the hosting ground for answers to hard factual questions answered in most documentation/materials elsewhere"
That's exactly what StackOverflow is meant to be.
I feel like I'm the only one who appreciates what StackOverflow is trying to achieve here - to be the place to document hard, solid facts - nothing more. If I wanted to read commentary and opinions on programming, there's always HN or Slashdot.
Maybe you are the only one who appreciates it. I sure don't.
I'll have a question, I'll google it, be excited to when Google finds that someone else has asked the exact same thing, and then disappointed to find that it was asked on StackOverflow, where the Red Guards will inevitably have discovered an interesting question and taken steps to make sure it isn't answered. Hint to SO mods: it's not the question that is "unhelpful", it's you.
While Google manages to sort through the unbelievable chaos of the entire open Web to bring up the most relevant answer to any question on any topic in a fraction of a second using the latest 21st Century search algorithms, SO goes at it from the other direction, making sure so few questions are answered that what remains won't overwhelm its 1980s-era MS-DOS search technology.
I appreciate Joel's letting us use his vintage '486 to gather the world's biggest collection of code snippets, but I'm hoping someone with less primitive technology will replace SO with a system focused more on providing answers than on preventing questions.
I'm not sure what kind of questions you normally have, but I didn't really have much trouble getting answers from StackOverflow. It's no accident that when Google "sorts through the unbelievable chaos of the entire open Web to bring up the most relevant answer to any question on any topic in a fraction of a second using the latest 21st Century search algorithms", the first link is almost always StackOverflow ;)
Also I think it's pretty impressive that Joel managed to make the website run smoothly on a vintage 486.
The chief problem is that once you have a question going and are getting answers, if it's deemed "not suited for SO", you're SOL. That question can't be moved to some "off-topic" forum, because there is no off-topic forum, because the entire platform is not a forum. I feel this situation can be resolved simply by making an unsuitedfor.stackexchange.com, declaring it not part of the official model (i.e. basically a gimped forum) and moving all non-factual questions there.
I'd much rather those questions be documented in the documentation. I don't know how I'd have learned much of what I know now if StackOverflow had been the top 8 search results instead of various manpages and TLDP references that were deeply useful.
It's also very annoying when the top Google result for a query is a StackOverflow thread that has been closed as a duplicate. They should put up a <link rel="canonical"> or something so Google doesn't lead people to the dirty, dirty duplicate.
While the griping's good, let me throw a jab at discussion forums that lock old, unanswered threads. These old, unanswered threads are very frequently in the top 10 Google results for something I'm trying to learn. It's incredibly frustrating to read through a dozen "me too" posts to find that the last one says, "This thread has been closed. If you want to ask a question, start a new thread." AAAARRRGH! New rule: if you close an unanswered thread, delete it from Google. Better yet, understand the part your forum is playing in the information world and let someone who knows the answer to an ancient question post that answer.
It is off-topic, though, for StackOverflow. By rights, the question should be on the Programmers StackExchange site, where it would actually have relevance. (On the other hand, ProgrammersSE isn't exactly a hospitable environment itself, so migration might not be such a great idea. Which may, in fact, explain the fact that it was locked rather than migrated when ProgrammersSE came out of beta. It was supposed, originally, to be more about the programmer than the programming, but it seems to have lost its way.)
It was locked fifteen months after the question was asked...I think its prudent to protect a significant discussion from the noise that it will inevitably generate as people discover it via long tail in years to come
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.
Exactly. I've desperately needed answers to a handful of questions in the last 2 weeks alone that were all locked. I think unless you can quote an error message there's a good chance it will be locked. Didn't know server hard drive space came at such a premium. Honestly what good does it do to lock a question? I can see wikipedia wanting to groom their site to maintain some credibility and focus to achieve high overall quality with limited editing resources. But Stack Overflow? Give up the power trip already. How has Joel not created Subjective Overflow already?
Locked means you can't add information, you can still read it. If you needed answers, ask a new question. You're not supposed to ask your own questions within someone elses question, and that is exactly why some of these questions are locked.
Why not post to one of the other stackexchange.com sites like
http://programmers.stackexchange.com, there is a wide variety now one probably fits the kind of questions you want to ask.
My experience with SO is this: Google for something, see a relevant SO link, click it. Page loads, question covers exactly what I'm looking for. First 3 comments on the question are about how the question doesn't belong on SO, or is too broad, or wrong, or whatever. The first answer contains the information I need.
I don't really contribute to SO for the same reason I don't really contribute to Wikipedia - the editors seem so hellbent on enforcing standards and rules that they throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Stackoverflow has always been that way, this kind of questions were just more tolerated at the beggining.
But I don't get why is this a problem? Stackoverflow is for pragmatic questions and is great a it. If you want discussion there are other communities in stackexchange, such as 'programmers'.
It should be easier to mark a question as duplicate or incorrectly tagged with version of language or framework, but aside from that, I don't agree. Without that site, I'd be lost.
Not sure how the rest of you feel but in my mind if the answer is black and white, the question was probably bad.