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I know that it seems like it's been a hot topic as of late, how Stack Overflow can be very harsh to new users. I kind of agree with that, from what I've experienced. I have heard a lot of arguments on both sides and while I understand the attempt to have a standard of quality, I also agree with those that say that it's very harsh on beginners who may not know what to search for. It also doesn't help that Stack Overflow has become THE source for questions and answers.

Just last week I was searching for some pretty specific SQL stuff - I was delighted to see that a Stack Overflow question had my exact problem! I clicked on it only to see that the question was closed. A google search was not helping me with this issue - I could only find the Stack Overflow question - but it was closed, so what was I to do? That was a pretty disheartening moment. I've also seen a link to some beginner questions that while broad, led to some very useful answers that taught me a lot about different languages. Those too have been unfortunately closed.

This brings me to my possible suggestion though I don't see many people agreeing. What if instead of focusing so much on closing and deleting questions with negative votes, we instead made it so you had to get a certain number of positive votes to remain archived? Then if you don't get a certain number of upvotes in a certain amount of time (say a month, or maybe even a week or something) your question is automatically cleared. Now this accomplishes the standard of quality that the Stack Overflow team is looking for, allowing it to be a comprehensive Q+A where the questions meet certain standards to help the internet. Only the questions with good reputation will remain archived forever. However at the same time, without such a need to delete or close topics, beginners can also get their questions asked without being driven away?

To me it seems like a more welcoming environment, to not have to worry about being swarmed by angry downvoters. I understand people say that beginners can go to other places, but Stack Overflow really is ubiquitous. It's always the most useful thing that pops up on google search, and is the most clear place for somebody to try and go first. And I think it'd be nice if it was a place where everybody could get help on what problems they may have, even some that are considered "low quality" questions, and its the high quality ones that remain archived. I'm sure there are some people who don't mind taking the time to answer lower-quality questions, and it allows people to get help.

One argument I can see against this is that if the topics get deleted (rather than closed), there will be nothing to discourage other users from asking the same question again, and continually asking the same low-quality question. But if that is the case, and so many users are trying to ask this question, perhaps its merit should be re-evaluated?

marked as duplicate by gnat, Glorfindel, Luke, user4151918, Mureinik Oct 13 '15 at 21:38


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    Links please, or it never happened. – user456814 Jul 16 '14 at 7:26
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    I reject your premise. The fact that Stack Overflow has succeeded at its goal of being the best place to find solutions to particular problems absolutely does not create an obligation on it or its members to lower the standards for posts. Actually, it indicates the opposite -- that the choices that have been made so far worked pretty darn well. Nothing is perfect, but a reversal of direction is definitely not warranted. – Josh Caswell Jul 16 '14 at 7:29
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    StackOverflow is not meant to be "a place where everybody could get help on what problems they may have". That's simple not the goal of the site. Also, "if you don't get a certain number of upvotes in a certain amount of time" - this would mean almost all questions in low-volume tags would get deleted, regardless of quality. – l4mpi Jul 16 '14 at 7:33
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    ^At the very least I think it'd be helpful to tell people where they can go to find this information. Google searches are the obvious method, but sometimes it's find to hard what you're looking for. I just think that Stack Overflow has become so prominent there should be an effort to help new users. There's nothing more disheartening then finding your exact problem on google only to find that the question has been closed, and no answer to your problem is there. At that point why not just answer it so they don't have to ask again? – user3450598 Jul 16 '14 at 7:34
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    @user3450598 Because SO isn't meant to answer everyone's questions. – awksp Jul 16 '14 at 7:35
  • I agree that dead-ends in search are frustrating, but nothing stops you from improving a closed question that you want the answer to. – Josh Caswell Jul 16 '14 at 7:48
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    @JoshCaswell That may be true, but the assumption in my opinion is that if the question is closed once, then it will be closed again. Whether or not this is true, that's certainly the impression I got as a new user. Why would I think my question would be different? – user3450598 Jul 16 '14 at 7:49
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    I'm not talking about reposting, I'm talking about editing. Questions get reopened really quickly if they're closed and then edited to address the reasons for closure. – Josh Caswell Jul 16 '14 at 7:52
  • related reading meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5221/… – Brad Werth Sep 25 '14 at 16:26
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    Wisdom of the Ancients – user177800 Oct 13 '15 at 20:08
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    swarmed by angry downvoters - Unless you're posting spam, plagiarizing, or antagonizing people trying to help you, the people down voting are not angry at you. – BSMP Oct 13 '15 at 20:20

Don't drown out signal with noise

The purpose of downvoting is to quickly clear bad questions from the front page of the site (as well as other areas). There are far more bad questions that need to be downvoted than there are good questions that are worthy of being upvoted.

If we were to simply upvote good questions instead of downvoting bad ones, then the front page will still be flooded with low-quality questions...they won't go away, and they won't be crowded out by good upvoted questions, because those are in the tiny, tiny minority.

Similarly, bad questions simply cannot be allowed to remain on the site, even for just a few weeks. There's just too many of them. They'd crowd out all of the good content. Stack Overflow currently gets 7000-8000 new questions per day. There are very few good questions in that number that are worth keeping around.

Controlling users who can't ask good questions

Similarly, downvoting, closing, and deletion are the mechanisms by which the site controls users who can't ask good questions. All of those actions point out problem users to the system, which will then take measures to warn them of their post quality so that they can hopefully improve...otherwise they get question banned, and they stop flooding the site with their low-quality posts.

If we stopped taking those measures against problem users, then they'd just persist around the site longer than they should be allowed to, and spamming their low-quality content the whole way, making it harder to experts to find questions and other users that are actually worth helping.

Helping the few users who can be helped

There's a special proposal brewing in Area 51:

  • Stack Overflow Academy


Consider pitching in to help see if we can create a viable community to help new users become better at asking good questions on Stack Overflow.

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    I guess I just disagree with the mindset that so many users are "not worth helping." With Stack Overflow as THE site that shows up on searches, it's an obvious place to come for help. And I know the rules are in place for a reason, I just wish there was a better way to help these people than to just close their topics especially when the questions could be answered. Turning up a closed question on a google search is especially unhelpful. I see now the method I gave had flaws, I just feel like there has to be some way to allow people to not feel so unwelcome, and to actually get help – user3450598 Jul 16 '14 at 7:48
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    @user3450598 see Stack Overflow Academy. – user456814 Jul 16 '14 at 7:50
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    You've got two different problems, @user3450598, that you keep bringing up and conflating: your search dead-ends, and people who are asking questions that get closed. The second, people asking questions that don't fit for some reason, is not a problem that's going to be fixed by becoming more egalitarian. The first might be soluble if you would like to talk more specifically about it. – Josh Caswell Jul 16 '14 at 7:51
  • I suppose you're right Josh, in that the two are different issues. I guess it was my problem searching that made me frustrated with the seeming "trigger-happiness" of questions being closed. The reason I related the two is because a method of making it not so easy to just close questions would lessen the amount of people asking questions and not receiving help, but I do see that this is flawed. I do wonder if there's a solution for the closed question searches. Because while I see that it does discourage "bad" questions, it also just discourages people who might as well just be answered. – user3450598 Jul 16 '14 at 7:57
  • Perhaps there SHOULD be a subforum of some kind for broader questions, for discussion questions, or even for very narrow questions (less useful than broad or discussion questions). If there already exists one of this type, then maybe rather than just closing a topic, it should be moved to this place, and the link placed in the original topic? So that way somebody google searching it could find the information they need, and also be informed where they should post similar issues? – user3450598 Jul 16 '14 at 7:59
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    @user3450598 Meta Stack Overflow (and I'm sure Meta Stack Exchange too) are already full of similar suggestions, if you want to go look for them... – user456814 Jul 16 '14 at 8:01
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    See: The fourth place: polling, recommendations, and subjective-ish stuff, @user, and make sure to read through the links in the sidebar. That's an old idea. – Josh Caswell Jul 16 '14 at 8:01
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    That Area51 is a nice initiative to mentor new joinees, +1 for mentioning that @Cupcake – Infinite Recursion Jul 16 '14 at 8:06
  • Ah I have posted in that topic now Josh, as I do believe that is a very good idea, and I find it sad that so many people have been against it without thinking of how many people it would help. – user3450598 Jul 16 '14 at 8:12
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    @user3450598 do you realize that the "4th place" suggestion eventually became Software Engineering, but the site quality was so low that they had to enforce quality standards again? There should be a Meta Stack Exchange post about that somewhere... – user456814 Jul 16 '14 at 8:16
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    @user3450598 Part of the reason SO is so popular is because of these quality standards. Sure, creating another site with different standards will let people ask their questions without fear of retribution, but I can't imagine that place being too popular for people who want to answer, as we already get enough complaints about quality as is. Thus spurring people to post here once again, and BAM -- you're back where you started. – awksp Jul 16 '14 at 8:17
  • @Cupcake no I did not know that, I didn't know that had been implemented. I'd have to look into a post to read the arguments about it. – user3450598 Jul 16 '14 at 8:19
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    I didn't recall it, but is this the one? meta.stackexchange.com/a/200144 – Josh Caswell Jul 16 '14 at 9:14
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    @user3450598 see How can I encourage Stack Overflow to rein in the 'subjective' vigilantes?. – user456814 Jul 16 '14 at 9:18

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