Conversation started Oct 22, 2013 at 17:04.
gnat
gnat
Oct 22, 2013 17:04
@MichaelT you know, when I look at old, currently inappropriate questions with solid, good quality answers, I ask myself, why do we need to blindly follow SO stringent requirements for historical lock? "The post is stellar... large number of views, upvotes and inbound links" oy wey. These may be fair for a site that changed smoothly, slowly and gradually, but Programmers are not like that!
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A: What is the history behind the site scope change from NPR to "conceptual questions about software development"?

user8The timeline of this was: June 3, 2010 — NPR proposal created in Area51 September 1, 2010 — NPR enters private beta as "Programmers" (will continue to call it NPR for the sake of distinguishing it from the current site) September 7, 2010 — NPR enters public beta September 13, 2010 — MSO starts ...

user55340
But if its something old and ugly, it needs 4 people other than the one who found it (who was likely one of the regular /reviewers).
gnat
gnat
There was a time when questions like that were freaking officially welcome. There was a time when askers posted these in a good faith and in a fair accordance with site scope and traditions, and answerers were doing their best to provide quality answers, again, in a good faith and in a way they've been told from day one...
...We can throw it away and pretend it didn't exist, but I think the only real reason for that would be that we blindly follow SO-specific policy for historical locks - which was established with a very very different history in mind. Hope one day I'll make that rant into a meta post to have it sorted out
Sparticus
Sparticus
@gnat it was my understanding that Historical locks were to help maintain our SEO
at least in part
gnat
gnat
@Sparticus here is an "official" description what locks are for: meta.stackoverflow.com/tags/historical-lock/info
> A historical lock preserves older content that was very popular when it was originally posted, but is now off-topic or otherwise out of scope for the site it is posted on. Historically locking a post ends the debate over whether a question should be kept on the site or deleted, and is often the final state of a question that has been deleted and undeleted more than once.
Sparticus
Sparticus
> There are a large number of views, upvotes and inbound links on the post, and
that to me sounds like trying to keep our SEO up
creating dead links for other sites hurts us
as well as deleting highly viewed pages
gnat
gnat
Oct 22, 2013 17:07
@Sparticus "is now off-topic or otherwise out of scope" - the word now is the key here
it was al-right back then
now it's not
when deletion doesn't look al-right => lock
Sparticus
Sparticus
and you're saying that doesn't apply well to programmers?
gnat
gnat
@Sparticus I say that the requirements (very stringent) don't apply. I think we need to be more lenient in historical locks
more lenient than SO
Sparticus
Sparticus
more lenient as in use historical locks more often?
gnat
gnat
because as opposed to SO, Programmers went through quite dramatic scope change
@Sparticus exactly
Sparticus
Sparticus
OH
I thought your view was the opposite. My mistake!
gnat
gnat
Oct 22, 2013 17:10
@Sparticus well that's why I didn't yet that meta post I am dreaming about. Need time to spell it in a way that won't be mis-read :)
Sparticus
Sparticus
haha fair enough
 
Conversation ended Oct 22, 2013 at 17:11.