The Whiteboard

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11:57 AM

@psr I don't think so, but I'm biased because I love reading Pierre's answers on here

12:47 PM

@moderators. my reopen flag for this question has been declined with explanation: "Sorry, but the question has been closed and reopened a number of times now. To be reopened it would have to be substantially edited."

I have a substantial edit in mind that would likely cut off the chance for chatty / speculative garbage masquerading as legitimate replies, but editing is not possible for me because question is locked.

Any advice on how to proceed? Brute force approach would be to copy question contents into a new one and tailor it to my needs but I am somewhat reluctant to use it since my version question would keep about 9/10% of what is there now and the question "core" would remain essentially the same

Rachel

@gnat Did you specify in your flag that you want to edit the question to bring it on-topic, but it is locked and you need them to unlock it?

gnat

@Rachel no i did not. for your convenience, quoting full text of flag message:

please consider reopening the question, preferably with "we're looking for the long answers..." protection. Refer here to evaluate details of my request: meta.programmers.stackexchange.com/a/3811

The edit I have in mind is to replace text between _"Why did (notably)..."_ and _"...not mere speculations."_ with something like:

**Looking for a definitive answer from a primary or secondary source for why did (notably) Java and C# decide to have a static method as their entry point – rather than representing an application instance by an instance of an Application class, with the entry point being an appropriate constructor which, at least to me, seems more natural?**

Rachel

@gnat I imagine they just read the "please consider reopening the question..." and decided no it shouldn't be reopened. Would probably be better to flag as "Please unlock this question so I can "heroically" edit it"

gnat

1:08 PM

@Rachel sure. in this case I don't complain about decline, only looking for advice how to proceed

Rachel

@gnat I often see moderators asking users to be more specific in their flags when they want something non-generic done, and have noticed myself that if I flag with a specific action specified, it gets done a lot more frequently than using one of the related-but-not-exact generic flags

gnat

yup, in this case I have no problem. I missed that question itself could require edit - didn't notice that question has been closed and reopened a number of times now

thought it's just the first round - I've been offline at the "ancient times" of this closeopenwar

Rachel

@gnat Looks like it's only been closed twice, and reopened once. You can view the timeline here: programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/156336/timeline

I wouldn't really call that a "close/reopen war"

I'd be interested to see if those were single-moderator close votes, or a full 5 community close votes

gnat

yup if I only knew that one needs to take a look at timeline in this case. My fault - not being attentive => flag decline is deserved

as for votes I am frankly not quite interested in this case. After flag decline, I took time to closer review question and answers and it does not look surprising to me that it steers controversy. A bit too deep in the gray area, a bit too low in "definitiveness requirement" so to speak

9 hours later…

ChrisF

9:57 PM

@gnat @Rachel - I didn't realise the question was locked - I've now unlocked it.

gnat

@ChrisF thanks!

edited the question (it now is "Looking for a definitive answer from a primary or secondary source"), voted to reopen. @ChrisF @Rachel would you mind taking a look? I'd appreciate advice if it can further be made, quoting self...

...easier to "cut off the chance for chatty / speculative garbage masquerading as legitimate replies"

...or as OP put it in Meta discussion "avoid what’s happened to a similar class on Stack Overflow, where every second answer made the same, stupid argument"

ChrisF

@gnat I'd like to see at least one and preferably two more votes from the community before stepping in. Feel free to solicit them here on on meta :)

gnat

10:14 PM

@ChrisF I see. that's certainly wise of you, taking into account your "binding power" :)

anyway, if you can see how it could be re-worded, polished etc I would appreciate your guidance. I recall few months ago your critique of my "android guide" answer was pretty helpful (and improvements based on it brought me a nice piece of rep points)

ChrisF

It's getting late here. I'll try to take another look tomorrow.

gnat

@ChrisF thanks! it's certainly can wait

tomorrow is perfectly OK with me

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