Please find other ways to hide inloved questions that prompt close
I have not been present in the hard and very productive work performed by what must now be a pretty spectacular team for the last 10 months.
Having returned and found my cherished Electrical Engineering remade with nicer rules I feel blessed. I have boycotted the SE and neither asked or answered any questions so am happy to have a new home here.
I however have a concern that a certain measure of elitism is being allowed here for the sake of expediency. Also I believe that my and many others who have called for less closes and deletions may not have been fully heard even yet, I still see discussion now on meta here and have to wonder why everything must be binary with select people deciding for everyone.
I bring to your attention a question that was closed as being too "broad with multiple questions" in the space of less than two hours.
https://electrical.codidact.com/questions/278522
I make the plea again that closing of a question should be a last resort and only if it provides some VALUE to close the question. Having an open question provides VALUE and the close must somehow offer greater value before it should even be considered, I contend that this will be a very rare case.
Hiding a question from power users or anyone who cares is a simple and fair remedy that I have often proposed on SE and Codidact, it would be easier as it only affects the person who is bothered by the question. It would allow it to remain hidden until an edit or an answer is made and then the question could offer itself for inspection to the power user again if he has set it that way. Perhaps the OP was called away for a family emergency and did not have time to answer his own question which would possibly have remained open because the answer has VALUE even though the question was not so good.
The reason this bothers me more is that I see similar "broad questions with multiple questions" that should be closed for the same reason but are not, in fact they are answered and what is worse they were posted and answered very well by the same person who is guilty of closing similar questions by others in less time than it takes to post an answer. While this was likely a valuable FAQ type Q&A it still looks like favouritism in the end result.
https://electrical.codidact.com/questions/276105
I think both questions are valid and have VALUE and closing one and answering the other is not the spirit of Codidact. Either we close both or we find a neutral way to handle the perceived fear of open questions that some have.
Hiding them is a fair and neutral way to handle the situation. If a question gets a lot of flags for attention then it can be considered on it's merits. A check list for deciding if it MUST be closed or MAY be hidden from lists or COULD be left open to collect interest should be prepared so this action is not left as a subjective decision by a single moderator that requires begging to undo.
This has always been a flaw with SE that drives new and old folk away. When a total stranger can ruin your day when you are vulnerable and in need of answers it is not nice. I am triggered by this action for reason/s I do not know but I have seen enough comments over the years to know I am not alone. Also there is NO technical reason that a middle ground cannot be found. I had hoped this would have been baked in from the start and I am deeply sorry that I was not more present to motivate more when it might have been easier to implement but I have made these same suggestions on many of the Codidact discussion platforms in the early days with interest from others as well.
Please make Closure a rare event only for damaging questions with no VALUE. Remember that the simple ACT of posting a question on a open source public spirited Q&A platform may have been a profound achievement for the OP due to any number of reasons and that is VALUE enough for me.
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Here's the thing, and this is where I think there's a disconnect of understanding. On Stack Exchange, and to a similar extent here, question closure signals "this question is not suitable for this site in its current state". Blocking the ability to answer (which is what closing does) is therefore logical: if the question is unsuitable in its current state, so will any answers be; to leave the question open for answering is to invite answers that ultimately, a site may not want. That's unfair both to the question's author (the answers might be deleted later), and to the answers' authors (their hard work might be deleted).
On the other side of that coin, it feels unnecessarily harsh - and simply unnecessary - to the question's author, and to other users who may want to answer it. From that point of view, closure becomes an unnecessary stumbling block, and can feel rude or come across as a put-down - even if the intention is just to say "unsuitable as written; needs work".
What Stack Exchange's closure mechanism has failed to do (and, by extension, ours, since we haven't really had a chance to look at it in depth) is to bridge those two points of view. Yes, blocking the ability to answer is necessary, but how can that be done in a way that says to the author "you can do [some things] and then this will be suitable here", instead of "this is unwelcome here, go away"? I don't have ideas there - as I said, this isn't something we've really had a chance to look into - but I'm more than open to suggestions.
I have boycotted the SE and neither asked or answered any questions so am happy to have a new home here.
I'm glad you're here. You might also want to mention this in your SE profile, and point people here. For example, see my profile on SE.
Also I believe that my and many others who have called for less closes and deletions may not have been fully heard
No, we heard, just don't agree. We are not going to make the mistake that SE made, and forget where the real value of the site comes from. People asking questions are necessary, but they wouldn't be here at all if it weren't a good place to get answers. The real value of a site is its ability to provide good answers. That comes down to the experts willing to spend their free time doing the answering.
After a while, SE saw clicks as the only value, probably because that's where their revenue came from. Regardless of how much the masses bitch and moan when you enforce quality, they are still ultimately there for that quality.
The experts that provide the quality want good questions with high content to drivel ratio. When you don't enforce that, and don't let the core users enforce it, the experts will curtail activity or leave altogether. This is already happening on SE.
Let me be really clear. This site will be managed as a place that the core group of experts will find rewarding to hang out in. Once word gets out that good content is to be had, the questions will come. And they'll keep coming because we'll keep it a rewarding place for the core group to be. We are early in this process, but it is ramping up.
I suppose you could call that elitist. So be it. In the end, though, the result is a site where good answers can be had.
select people deciding for everyone
Those "select people" will be those that have provided lots of high quality content, as judged by the users. This is necessary. The masses are their own worst enemy.
It is to every individual user's advantage to get their question answered regardless of the effect on the site. However, it is in everyone's overall interest to protect the site first. We simply can't be listening to the moans and groans of individual users who have contributed little, because what they say they want is not good for the site, and not good for themselves long term.
Put another way, this is NOT a democracy where everyone is equal. It can't be. Such a system would collapse due to the clamor of short-term demands from the many, in opposition to the long-term requirements of the site. Those consistently providing the content are and will continue to be more equal than others.
question that was closed as being too "broad with multiple questions" in the space of less than two hours. https://electrical.codidact.com/questions/278522
Yup it was, because it was too broad and with multiple questions. Not all reasonable questions that come up due to legitimate electrical engineering efforts are suitable for this site. It was closed not because it was a bad EE question, but because it just doesn't fit with the mechanics of this site. It might be appropriate for a discussion forum, but that's not what we are here.
closing of a question should be a last resort
No. Questions need to be closed swiftly when they don't fit the site parameters. The longer a bad (for this site) question is open, the more it gives a false impression of what is acceptable here. Quality needs to be visibly and ruthlessly upheld, else we'll lose control of quality altogether.
Another point is that it should be somewhat inconvenient to post unsuitable questions. If people can post bad questions and then get the desired result, they're going to be back doing the same thing again. Why shouldn't they? It worked and there were no negative consequences. (In this particular case, it wasn't a user being sloppy or trying to get away with something. This user has posted other good questions and answers. This particular one wasn't even a bad question, just one that didn't fit this site. It was closed, and we moved on. It wasn't a big deal.)
Having an open question provides VALUE and the close must somehow offer greater value
You are ignoring the strong negative value to the site by having inappropriate questions persist. That's a lot more important than any information in any one question and its answers.
Hiding a question from power users or anyone who cares
is no solution since it only covers up the problem instead of directly addressing it. Inappropriate questions are a problem on their own, whether hidden from some users or not. Someone still posted a bad question and got the desired result without any consequences. That not only teaches the OP a damaging lesson, but also everyone else that happened to watch.
it still looks like favouritism in the end result. https://electrical.codidact.com/questions/276105
We deliberately seeded the site with a few canonical questions and answers. From experience elsewhere, we have found that certain questions come up often. When that happens here, we can close them and point them to one of these canonical questions as a duplicate. A very similar question on SE was quite handy and heavily used for exactly that purpose.
To be fair, there are several questions within one, but they are closely related. If you look closely, you can see that each sub-question was quite answerable without opinions, as demonstrated by the actual answers.
both questions are valid and have VALUE and closing one and answering the other is not the spirit of Codidact.
The two are quite different. The one that got closed was largely soliciting opinions, whereas the second was answerable with theory and facts.
When a total stranger can ruin your day when you are vulnerable and in need of answers it is not nice.
You make it sound like you are blameless. The rules about what's on topic and the kind of questions we accept are fairly well spelled out. If you run afoul of those, it's on you. Don't try to play the victim. Your day got ruined because you wrote a bad question, probably because you didn't read the rules before posting. Instead of complaining about how the world is so unfair, read the rules, understand why your question got closed, and come back with a proper question. If you can't or aren't willing to do that, then this is not the site for you. We have no intention of being everything to everyone.
make Closure a rare event only for damaging questions with no VALUE.
First, all inappropriate questions are damaging by definition, far beyond any positive value they might contribute if they were more appropriate.
Second, closure is actually a rare event here, at least so far. I haven't counted, but maybe around 3 questions or so have been closed in the history of this site. I think you'll find the percentage far less than on SE. It's hard to know for sure, but being clear about the site rules, then ruthlessly enforcing them probably has a lot to do with it.
the simple ACT of posting a question on a open source public spirited Q&A platform may have been a profound achievement for the OP
Which is of no relevance whatsoever. We're not here to hand out gold stars or "atta-boys". How easily or not someone posts a good question is immaterial. It only matters that they do.
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The default scope in this EE community pretty much went with the same scope as the SE site. For now.
These sites are new and most communities are still struggling to come up with what's off-topic and what questions that should be allowed. Nothing is set in stone and there's always the possibility to change things, if there is enough community consensus.
As another example, the Software Development community went with an entirely different and broader scope than SE, which allows some level of discussion and more subjective "best practice" questions.
It's up to every user of the site to discuss the scope here an meta, what questions should we allow?
We should also have in mind that people come here from SE with very different expectations:
- Some thought SE was bad because of the corporate/profit model and how they treat their users & volunteers.
- Some thought SE was bad because it was too elitist and "snarky".
- Some thought SE was bad because it allowed too many basic questions from people without sufficient domain knowledge.
And so on. The latter two reasons might collide and sating everyone will be hard.
What I personally think was most problematic with the FPGA question is that is asks 3 rather unrelated questions at once:
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The first one is pretty easy to research with Google & Wikipedia.
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The second question could be a good one if given more detail and a specific example. Discussing PCB traces or EMC in an application with FPGA + some manner of radio is a perfect question for this site, but we'll need something more concrete, because there are thousands of possible and completely different applications.
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The third question might be good for a self-answered Q&A or such, if rephrased a bit and also possibly with the term FPGA narrowed down a bit. For example, here's a similar such question I wrote about common beginner problems with CAN bus: https://electrical.codidact.com/q/276251. Something similar for FPGA might be nice.
(Though it might have to be narrowed down to a specific tool chain? - I don't know a lot about FPGA personally and haven't written HDL since uni.)
Regarding the power supply question, I agree that it wasn't great either. I could have closed that one as "too broad" as well, though the intention is obviously to write self-answered Q&A, in which case I would perhaps be more lenient. Because writing a good question when doing self-answered Q&A is hard! I've done a lot of such myself and one always underestimate the question, since the poster themselves think the answer is what's important.
In this case I think the question could improved by giving a simple, specific example and then the answer could refer to that example as well.
Finally, I strongly disagree that everything ever posted on the Internet has value by default. Experience from SE shows that the majority of the stuff posted there actually holds no value what-so-ever and can be safely deleted with no loss to mankind.
The whole SE experiment ought to finally have killed the myth "there are no stupid questions" and replaced it with "there are some questions which aren't stupid".
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