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This request is related to this previous blacklist request and The Great Legal Cleanup™, but this meta post was requested to address the specific questions involved.

There are two questions that are still around with , but they are locked so the cleanup (which started last year) can never be completed. This is because locked questions cannot be modified or flagged, so the tag cannot be dropped from them, which means that the tags can never be burninated.

  1. Can someone copyright a SQL query? was created in December of 2009, when Stack Overflow was more accepting of broad questions which should really be asked to a lawyer. The first few answers explain how they can get around the "copyright" issues, and the next few answers take guesses at the situation.

    This is a pretty specific question (even if it may seem broad), but even looking around on Google gives you a few answers to the question. So at this point, Stack Overflow is not the only source of possible answers to this question.

  2. Pirated software at a company? was a question asked in May of 2009, which got 8 FGITW answers and was closed within the first 5 minutes. After a close war, it was eventually left open for a few years until it got the current historical lock and was closed.

    Again, a quick search for the title gives a large number of better sources of information. This Stack Overflow question isn't even at the top of the list anymore.

Both of these questions have been modified a few times after being locked to drop some of the tags from them, so those tags could later be burninated. At this point, after dropping , neither question is going to have a set of useful tags (and one question only has tags set to be burninated). Because it's generally agreed that historically locked questions are one step away from deletion, I believe we should take the final step and delete both of these questions.

Note that questions about copyright are off-topic on Stack Overflow because they aren't actually programming questions, and Stack Overflow isn't a community of copyright lawyers. That isn't something I'm interested in debating here.

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    Erm, this applies to almost any historical-lock question. Why just these two? Is it actually the [copyright] tag that's bothering you? Then just ask to remove them from those questions. And I suppose you'll have to ask for a black-list or the tag will just come back since you'll also get the "don't use it" warning deleted. Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 22:32
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    @HansPassant A general "lets kill all of the historically locked questions" post is going to go nowhere, because not all historically locked questions are causing issues. It was specifically requested to raise a question about these two questions on Meta, because they have a poor set of tags and are blocking the burnination. Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 22:39
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    It just sets a very poor precedent, everybody will find something to hate about a historical-lock question and will bring it to meta. Just minimize the ask. Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 22:46
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    They're garbage. We should delete them.
    – nobody
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 22:58
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    @HansPassant I disagree. Questions about legality and laws are dangerous because the answers may be wrong, but more importantly, SO is a global site and therefore answers may be correct or incorrect depending on the reader. These answers have real life consequences if they're incorrect, some more serious than others.
    – Rob Mod
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 23:10
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    This is not the first time a locked question was put through the "trial of fire" stackoverflow.com/q/5574241, stackoverflow.com/q/245973, others more to come.
    – Braiam
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 0:00
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    These questions being specifically about legality, it makes sense to me to address them in particular. There's no reason to go from these two specific questions to talking about all historically locked questions in general.
    – Claudiu
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 13:32
  • I think that stackoverflow.com/questions/899699/… should be migrated to workplace.stackexchange.com. It's a question about a real workplace issue, as opposed to programming. So, that's part of a solution - now you have 50% less questions with the copyright tag. Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 18:24
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    @AndyClifton As much as that might seem like a realistic solution (I'm not sure how on-topic it is, so I can't judge that half), questions can only be migrated in the first 60 days after they are asked. Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 18:31
  • From the legality point of view, there's law.stackexchange.com. Questions about law would be better asked there, although the mods might require that a specific location be mentioned since laws tend to vary with location. Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 18:45
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    6 years old questions viewed only 12K and 6K times? just delete them. For the sake of completeness I also checked answers, none looks particularly worthy. No wonder that Google didn't give 'em much juice
    – gnat
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 19:04
  • Were those questions ever on-topic?
    – Raedwald
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 21:17
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    I think this also brings up whether we need the culture tag that's used on one of those questions, as well...
    – TylerH
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 14:51
  • Nothing should be done?
    – kenorb
    Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 3:10
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    @AndyClifton it's a poor fit for Workplace as pointed by their moderator. Better to abstain of recommending sites you're not familiar with
    – gnat
    Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 19:35

3 Answers 3

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These questions are laughably off-topic at Stack Overflow today. Pirated Software was certainly off-topic when it was asked, because Primarily Opinion-Based (The POB close reason) questions have always been off-topic to my knowledge. I don't think the question belongs on the Workplace SE site; enderland, a Workplace moderator, has suggested as much... since the question is asking vague community opinion, it would not be considered on-topic there.

The only way Copyright SQL Query could be on-topic is if it were asking about the feasibility (even then it'd teeter on too broad), but it's not; it's asking about the legality. That puts it solidly outside of the purview of what Stack Overflow is and what Stack Overflow tries to be. I am not familiar with the exact topicality rules for Law.SE, but I would ask someone more knowledgeable if it would be a decent question there. If it is, migrate it; if not... burn it. All the answers are just advice from non-lawyers anyway.

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    The pirated software question would not fit at all on any Stack Exchange site, let alone The Workplace.
    – enderland
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 15:35
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    ^^^ commented by Workplace moderator
    – gnat
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 15:36
  • @enderland: Really? Seems like a good fit for Workplace to me. It's effectively about whistleblowing. Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 15:47
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    @BarryTheHatchet but I'm curious and What does this community feel about turning in companies which condone the use of stolen software are basically the definition of opinion based questions asking for people to chime in with their thoughts, as evidenced by the answers on the question.
    – enderland
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 15:49
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    @enderland I'll bow to your expertise, but I will say I'm surprised because I often see questions exactly like that on The Workplace and they get many answers/upvotes. e.g. "My workplace is doing something I find dubious. What do I do?"
    – TylerH
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 15:54
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    @TylerH that's far different than "how do you guys feel about this" and nearly all those questions are required to have some level of, "I want to do X, how do I do this" by definition ("what to do" is off topic on Workplace).
    – enderland
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 15:57
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    @enderland I see what you mean; I misread the locked question, thinking he was asking about what to do while still at the workplace. I'll edit my answer above to reflect that.
    – TylerH
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 15:59
  • @TylerH the content could fit on Workplace but not without significant edit.
    – enderland
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 16:02
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One could plead CC BY-SA and copy and paste each question and a synthesis of its answers to a better site (Law or Workplace) as a community wiki canonical question, with a bit of copyediting and some 10K links for attribution.

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  • This would break the links to the question,
    – Ferrybig
    Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 12:03
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    Ugh. No! Don't just copy paste. If people actually have the question, then let them actually ask it. I would hate this.
    – Zizouz212
    Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 14:14
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If you'd like to burninate the tag, moderators should simply edit the questions and remove that tag. Checking for history of these questions, this was already done in the past for tag, so I don't see the reason why it can't be done for .

edited tags at https://stackoverflow.com/posts/1840847/revisions

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    Moderators specifically requested that a consensus is formed on Meta about what should be done. Originally this was my goal, but those two questions have pretty terrible tags. Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 3:17

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