The Assembly

7:53 PM

We need too localized back.

3

8:18 PM

@Seth why?

Each site usually has a specific type of question that is TL

That can go under the configurable off topic menu instead

No it can't.

That doesn't make any sense.

TL isn't always OT.

Michael Mrozek

I want it back because we abused it to mean "cross-posted", but I doubt that will be a persuasive reason

A: Closing changes: [on hold], unclear, too broad, opinion-based, off-topic reasons, bye-bye to Too Localized

@ManishEarth Questions that are too specific are not off-topic..

49

I think the changes are okay but they still don't fill the gap that Too Localised provided earlier. I used Too Localised as a way to close certain questions that could definitely not help anyone and trying to put those under "Off Topic" feels like a stretch to me which makes it seems way too Catc...

5

A: Closing changes: [on hold], unclear, too broad, opinion-based, off-topic reasons, bye-bye to Too Localized

There is one thing that really does not feel good about this redesign, and that's the focus on having essentially everything an "off-topic close reason". The choices you're essentially given are: too broad unclear subjective some already defined off-topic reason define a new off-topic reason ...

@Seth You have to make them OT

But they're not.

8:27 PM

You're right, the type of question is what's not good, not the topic

This is like the dupe change.

?

"You need to make them not a duplicate"

Yeah so?

@Seth I'm not following your logic there (since there is still a duplicate close reason)

8:28 PM

@voretaq7 I think he's talking about the "dupe must have answers"

@ManishEarth So all you can say is "too bad".

That's not a good reason.

@ManishEarth that seemed like a sane requirement to me (otherwise we have people closing things as duplicates of 3 year old questions with no answers and well...

All long help threads should have a sticky globally-editable post at the top saying 'DEAR PEOPLE FROM THE FUTURE: Here's what we've figured out so far ...'

@Seth First make clear what you mean by "You need to make them not a dupe"

@Seth if you're talking about the dupe change (a) hard data suggests that it's a rare case, (b) mods can always handle it

@ManishEarth In other words, questions that are duplicates can't be closed as such until one has an answer. That's unproductive.

@Seth They can

Mods can do it

And again, hard data

8:31 PM

@ManishEarth I didn't know that.

The legit # of cases where this applies is small

(Shog mentioned this somewhere on meta)

@Seth Generally speaking closing something as a duplicate of an unanswered question is unproductive too. (See the afore-linked xkcd panel)

@ManishEarth Maybe on some sites.. but it happens.

@voretaq7 Yes that's true, but making it so that we can't do that is the other extreme IMO.

Think how you'd feel if you followed a chain of 2-3-4 "Closed as Duplicate" links only to discover .... NOTHING at the other end of the rainbow.

3

However, I didn't know mods can do it.

8:34 PM

honestly the information architect in me says even mods shouldn't be able to do it (it should be a close-and-merge except <Morbo>"Merges to not work that way!"</Morbo>)

the premise of "Duplicate" is "This question already has an answer here" -- if that particular cake is a lie that's not very fair

@voretaq7 It shouldn't work that way. I would first try to contact the asker of the first question, then bounty it (if it was identical to my problem) then ask a new question and get the old question duped to the new.

Now we can't even do that.

@Seth hang on, I have to wipe up the coffee that just shot out my nose at the idea that people actually search for similar questions :-)

@voretaq7 Which is another reason we should be allowed to dupe them!

You should dupe older -> newer not newer -> older.

(seriously though - that's a great workflow iff your new question has an answer. Until it does it reduces to the previously stated case)

@voretaq7 No it doesn't.

8:36 PM

@Seth not always (on Server Fault: "Practically Never")

We can't have two identical unanswered question floating around.

@voretaq7 I don't know anything about Server Fault.

@Seth The entire world is not ~~a VAX~~ Ask Ubuntu. There are over 100 sites in the Stack Exchange network and the workflows need to work for all of them.

@Seth In the rare case that happens, mods close it

Or delete

(actually if we're being honest the workflows have to work for Stack Overflow and just not screw the rest of us too badly)

@voretaq7 Now you're saying the whole world is server fault ;)

8:40 PM

@Seth No, I'm saying "Your workflow is not the workflow on all 100+ sites, and at least 2 (SO, SF) work differently."

Anyway, if sites are abusing closing the people who use it right shouldn't suffer.

now if the 98 other sites all follow your workflow it may make sense to remove the "Must have an answer" requirement - but honestly that requirement still seems sane to me.

@voretaq7 How does SO work?

Anyway, we're supposed to be talking about TL not dupe.

Yeah, so: TL gets misused a lot

@Seth My experience on SO is that duplicates work the same way as SF: "We already answered this at least a dozen times, here's a link to one of those - now quit bugging me!"

8:41 PM

I'm not going to agree. The request to change it back is status-declined anyway, so lets not reopen and old wound. — Seth Mar 28 at 3:26

And it's not that some people "use it right"; it's just too unclear

@voretaq7 So basically you're too lazy to use the site the way it's supposed to be used? That's what I get out of that.

@Seth and yes. Like @ManishEarth said TL is just plain abused. I personally think it's a valid close reason but it's not a well defined one

what does "Too Localized" mean? Explain it to me in 25 words or less.

@voretaq7 quantitatively

@Seth "Clearly you missed the f*&!ing search button...." - yes :)

8:44 PM

@voretaq7 In my book: TL means you're question is too specific to be answered here and won't help other people.

I'll give you (one) SF example for Too Localized: "I have 50 users hitting a SQL Server 2000 database -- What kind of server should I buy for it?"

That is Too Localized (because really nobody else will find the answer valuable -- if scoped down to be specific enough to answer it's only applicable to the asker)

@voretaq7 That's NARQ or NC as well.

it's also Not Constructive (because it's shopping)

and NARQ (if it's not scoped down far enough to make it TL - because we don't have enough information)

What about abandoned questions? How do we close those?

so we have three close reasons that cover one question right now - that's a shitty situation

@Seth "Do we want to close those?" is the first part of that question

8:47 PM

Here's a TL question that doesn't fit any other close reason:

I'm embarrased--I figured out how to make it work, but it's been so long that I don't know what I did so I can't leave the answer here for others. — Jeromy French 22 mins ago

(we did a major cleanup on SF about 18 months ago - a lot of what we did was closing 0-score no-answer questions so the auto-delete reaper woud eat them)

@voretaq7 Do we want to leave them open? Usually not.

In some cases, yes.

@Seth stuff like that it's best to encourage people to flag so a mod can just delete 'em

(really the OP should have deleted it since it's a dead-end question, but not everyone uses the site correctly)

@voretaq7 Yeah, like not closing duplicates :P

If the community wants to close them I'd say "it doesn't matter what reason you pick" (because you're just closing it so it gets the automatic -1 and auto-deleted)

8:49 PM

I've got to go.

abandoned questions are a special kind of suck though

@voretaq7 It does matter, because anyone who sees that question is going to think "Oh, this question is insert close reason here" when it's not.

@Seth for a month. Then the question will be automatically deleted by the helpful server gnomes

yes it's a less than ideal situation, but handling it otherwise is a nightmare (special-case close reason: "Abandoned", with special-case conditionals "Can only be applied to questions over D days old with no answers, edits, or comments in I days" and special-case handling (because it should really just be deleted)) -- that shriek you just heard in the background are the developers getting ready to lynch me :)

9:34 PM

@voretaq7 So don't do it the correct/right/helpful way because hopefully no one will see?

@Seth "don't add unnecessary complexity". But if you really think that level of complexity is necessary you can make a mSO post about dealing with abandoned questions :)

@voretaq7 Using a wrong and confusing reason is less complex than just TL? O_o

@Seth Abandoned != TL

and TL is still ill-defined. The question you proposed as an example isn't TL - it's abandoned.