Timeline for Introduce a "general reference" close reason
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
66 events
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| Jun 5, 2017 at 6:20 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jun 5, 2017 at 15:20 | |||||
| May 23, 2017 at 12:35 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://stackoverflow.com/ with https://stackoverflow.com/
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| Mar 16, 2017 at 16:38 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.scifi.stackexchange.com/ with https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/
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| Jan 27, 2013 at 8:35 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | @TimPost: I guess I mean, trust us to find that concensus. We tend to do pretty well on that with all the various votes we cast every day! I dunno. | |
| Jan 27, 2013 at 8:32 | comment | added | user50049 | @LightnessRacesinOrbit I'm not quite able to understand what you mean by trust, it's really not a matter of that? We trust our high reputation to do what they feel is in the best interests of the site, that's not in question. It just comes back to that subjective consensus of 'best' in the context of 'is the site still achieving its goals?'. I might be completely misunderstanding you, If I am I'm sorry about that. I'd offer to pick this up in chat but I'm about to go spend an absurd amount of money at the DIY center. | |
| Jan 27, 2013 at 7:57 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | @TimPost: I understand. It's not an easy one. I'd ask, though, whether y'all could perhaps consider trusting the high-rep users a little more. I think we deserve your faith! | |
| Jan 27, 2013 at 5:43 | comment | added | user50049 | @LightnessRacesinOrbit I completely agree, the problem is the distance between basic and 'too basic' is really subjective, and then you have the wisdom of the crowd . It's something were proactively examining, all of us are working with SE to try and come up with a flow that doesn't alienate beginners like we have been, but still keeps the signal to noise ratio high. What we have definitely has to improve. | |
| Jan 27, 2013 at 3:05 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | @Tim: IMO people need to stop confusing "this is a reference question" with "this is a basic question". They are not the same thing. I would not suggest a close reason for "this is too basic/simple" but that's not what we're talking about here. | |
| Jan 27, 2013 at 2:48 | comment | added | user50049 | @LightnessRacesinOrbit The other close reasons are a bit more specific than 'this can be easily found somewhere on the Internet'. If there's something wrong with a question other than the fact that it's perceived to be too basic (it's a duplicate, it's unintelligible, it's just too broad in scope for a single question, etc) then one of those reasons should fit. The exception to this is 'too localized' which I'm seeing used as a catch all when nothing else really applies a little too often. | |
| Jan 26, 2013 at 19:18 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | @TimPost: Then people will use those other close reasons. If they already exist, then you obviously have no problem with the question being closed in the first place, so what's really going on here? | |
| Mar 9, 2012 at 5:20 | answer | added | Kevin | timeline score: 7 | |
| Mar 9, 2012 at 4:00 | answer | added | sarnold | timeline score: 0 | |
| Mar 6, 2012 at 11:31 | comment | added | vulkanino | don't you think this question should be closed? stackoverflow.com/questions/9582544/… I think so. It can't be useful to others, it's just too basic. | |
| Jan 8, 2012 at 18:27 | history | edited | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' |
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| Jan 4, 2012 at 13:12 | comment | added | user50049 | @JeffAtwood Nah. The more I looked into cases where it could be implemented .. the more wary I got of seeing it put to work. I just don't see a way of introducing it in a way that it would be used sparingly. I think a lot of times, people would use it to mean 'get this noob crap off my screen', and we have plenty of other close reasons for that. | |
| Jan 4, 2012 at 13:03 | comment | added | Jeff Atwood | @tim I am now declining this based on the podcast discussion. While I think the close reason has some merit, I believe the downsides outweigh those potential merits. If you'd like to add anything in an answer, please do. | |
| Jan 4, 2012 at 13:02 | history | edited | Jeff Atwood |
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| Dec 25, 2011 at 22:26 | comment | added | HaskellElephant | Here is a question I think fits this close reason perfectly, and it has been open since Dec 4, 2010. | |
| Aug 10, 2011 at 22:26 | answer | added | Tomas | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 10, 2011 at 21:37 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Aug 6, 2011 at 18:59 | answer | added | Troyen | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 6, 2011 at 14:58 | answer | added | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | timeline score: 17 | |
| Aug 5, 2011 at 9:57 | comment | added | Pekka | @Catskul re "what does it hurt" - the hurt is that those questions duplicate information that is directly available in reference manuals. They are always in danger of being outdated, or incomplete. It doesn't make sense. The 90% of questions that may technically be RTFM questions are not what this proposal is about. It is only about questions that are completely answered by a manual link. I'm not against giving the asker an answer, mind - it's just the long-term storage in the question base, their popping up in search results etc. that I think is counter-productive. | |
| Aug 5, 2011 at 5:13 | comment | added | Catskul | I have to weigh in with Lance here. General reference means something different to quite a few people. Technically speaking 90% of questions can probably be answered by RTFM, but that ignores the whole point of SE which is to take linear search and turn it into a hash table. And on the other hand, what does it hurt to have the answers to "obvious" questions available on SE? | |
| Jul 7, 2011 at 16:34 | history | edited | user159834 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 6, 2011 at 11:45 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | @Lance: "You're asking them to be psychic" No, the entire point is that we're asking them to do some basic research before asking. | |
| Jun 12, 2011 at 0:46 | answer | added | Erik B | timeline score: 11 | |
| May 31, 2011 at 20:29 | answer | added | Pollyanna | timeline score: 7 | |
| May 17, 2011 at 17:04 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 5, 2011 at 9:37 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 5, 2011 at 6:01 | history | edited | user159834 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 4, 2011 at 8:53 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 4, 2011 at 8:18 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 25, 2011 at 18:28 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 23, 2011 at 7:13 | vote | accept | Pekka | ||
| Apr 22, 2011 at 20:36 | answer | added | Jeff Atwood | timeline score: 79 | |
| Apr 22, 2011 at 20:29 | answer | added | user142852 | timeline score: 23 | |
| Apr 22, 2011 at 19:20 | comment | added | Pekka | @Isaac yeah, all true. However, with duplicates, the counter-argument is stronger IMO: It's much, much more difficult and time-consuming to recognize a duplicate. I tend to leave that be, CW'ization would often be terribly unfair. But reference questions are easy to tell if you have a bit of knowledge. | |
| Apr 22, 2011 at 19:19 | comment | added | Isaac Truett | @Lance & @Pekka I get (very mildly) annoyed when someone asks a question I've already answered and instead of pasting a duplicate of my answer I flag the question as duplicate, then other people come along and upvote answers which, naturally, aren't as good as mine was, but they don't know that since they didn't see my answer to the original question. I could see the same argument for wikifying duplicates, but I also see the same counterargument. Either way someone loses. | |
| Apr 22, 2011 at 19:18 | comment | added | Pekka | @Lance it's great to point out a link if the OP doesn't know how to do some basic operation. But does it need to earn reputation? I don't think so. See also the edit to my last comment. | |
| Apr 22, 2011 at 19:17 | comment | added | Lance Roberts | @Pekka, I answer questions in VBA all the time, and finding MSDN links is a big pain. Microsoft also is the land of dead links, they're always changing them, so if we give links, they will die in time. | |
| Apr 22, 2011 at 19:15 | comment | added | Pekka | @Lance I disagree. It doesn't take a psychic to tell these kinds of questions, just a bit of experience in the programming language, platform or library. If you know that they can be answered satisfactorily by a link to the manual, you know it's a general reference question. At the moment, you can easily earn 80-100 reputation points by telling somebody how to select an element by ID in jQuery, the most basic possible operation provided by the library. (I'm no exception, I have answered lots of those too.) That takes away the whole point of reputation as some measure of a bit of expertise | |
| Apr 22, 2011 at 19:11 | comment | added | Lance Roberts | The last sentence is a very bad idea. Some good answerers who may not know that something will be closed as "general reference" will get hosed, and then ticked off. You're asking them to be psychic. | |
| Apr 22, 2011 at 19:04 | comment | added | Pekka | @Lance not sure I understand what you mean, can you elaborate? | |
| Apr 22, 2011 at 19:03 | comment | added | Lance Roberts | -1 for suggesting weaponizing Community Wiki | |
| S Apr 22, 2011 at 18:59 | history | suggested | Hendrik Vogt | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 22, 2011 at 18:57 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Apr 21, 2011 at 20:28 | answer | added | mfg | timeline score: 1 | |
| Apr 21, 2011 at 20:17 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 9, 2011 at 12:27 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 9, 2011 at 12:20 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 9, 2011 at 12:14 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 9, 2011 at 12:08 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 9, 2011 at 11:59 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Apr 6, 2011 at 13:22 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Apr 5, 2011 at 15:22 | comment | added | Pekka |
@Pan yup, that's why I'm asking. Key quote from Jeff in that post: Do we really want to spoon-feed (or even encourage in any way) users so lazy they can’t find obvious Wikipedia pages? Or do even the most basic research before asking?
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| Apr 5, 2011 at 15:19 | comment | added | Piskvor left the building | @Bobby: Well, there was a blog post about it a month ago; since then, silence. blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/02/are-some-questions-too-simple | |
| Apr 5, 2011 at 15:16 | comment | added | Pekka | @Bobby there is a category of questions for which that rule needs to be reconsidered. | |
| Apr 5, 2011 at 15:09 | comment | added | Time Traveling Bobby |
This has one major flaw: Google it is specifically banned on SE.
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| Apr 5, 2011 at 15:03 | answer | added | smartcaveman | timeline score: 50 | |
| Apr 5, 2011 at 15:01 | answer | added | Aleadam | timeline score: 6 | |
| Apr 5, 2011 at 15:00 | comment | added | Borror0 | related suggestion: If General Reference becomes a close reason, add a field for an url like for duplicates | |
| Apr 5, 2011 at 14:43 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Apr 5, 2011 at 14:40 | comment | added | user50049 | +2 if I could. We really need this. | |
| Apr 5, 2011 at 14:35 | history | edited | Pekka | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Apr 5, 2011 at 14:28 | history | asked | Pekka | CC BY-SA 2.5 |