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I see questions with that are closed. These look like valid questions for that topic, to me. What are we expecting with that tag that we have to close these questions? Should we get rid of the tag because these questions can not be "Answered" as specifically as we would like?

I did also note that these questions also had other tags. Could that be the problem, that the people who have closed Questions were thinking that such a question did not belong under Java or something similarly technical?

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closed as too localized by animuson, jonsca, yhw42, Jim, Pops Aug 20 '12 at 14:47


Pretty much any question tagged with [hiring] is not constructive because it solicits opinion, usually about a hiring process, or off topic. –  animuson Dec 27 '11 at 20:30
@ಠ_ಠ Won't - no they don't need migrating to Programmers. Not unless they are specifically about hiring developers and not general HR type questions. –  ChrisF Dec 27 '11 at 20:32
@Scrooge: What, who, me? Why, I would never suggest something so stupid and ignorant. That would be highly embarassing. –  Won't Dec 27 '11 at 21:09
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Close, but it's worse than that. We should get rid of the tag, but for more than just because they can't always be answered. We should get rid of it because "hiring" is off topic for Stack Overflow entirely.

The existence of a tag has no bearing for whether or not that tag is on topic for Stack Overflow, because for a long time any one could type just anything into the tag box. This was necessary to seed tags when the site was younger. Stack Overflow has since added restrictions for creating tags, but a lot of tags exist solely for historical reasons.

This oversimplifies it a bit, but if you don't have a problem with a specific snippet of code, it's probably not on topic for Stack Overflow. While it's easy to find counter-examples on the site, it's worth remembering that there are (rare!) exceptions, and that this is community enforced. It's frequently not possible to get 5 people with 2000 rep to vote to close off topic questions.

BTW: What hiring tag? ;P

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Your tag editing re-activated a bunch of really crappy questions and put them back on the front page. Not much of a cure. –  Uphill Luge Dec 28 '11 at 21:36
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