What is meta? ×

I asked a question about whether or not I should attend a programming conference, but it was closed. I don't understand why such a valid question is closed. Isn't C++, C#, MFC and .NET programming related?

share|improve this question

migrated from stackoverflow.com Oct 13 '09 at 19:40

This question came from our site for professional and enthusiast programmers.

Please don't start a topic asking why this thread was closed. –  Ed Swangren Oct 13 '09 at 19:40
Belongs on meta. –  karlgrz Oct 13 '09 at 19:40
Can you put the link of it to us? Thanks. –  Nathan Campos Oct 13 '09 at 19:42
Thanks John! ;) –  Nathan Campos Oct 13 '09 at 19:46

5 Answers 5

What @John Rudy said (okay, what I said, since he linked to me ;) ).

Additionally, I will explain why this question is perceived as programmer related rather than programming related.

Lots of non-programming professions have conferences, and lots of professionals go to those conferences. The reason and motivations you, as a programmer, go to a conference or choose to pay for it out of pocket are not substantially different from the reason a non-programmer professional would do the same for a conference in their own field. Just slapping a "programming" in front of conference doesn't necessarily make it programming related.

That said, you went well beyond that. You also want to know whether a particular conference is likely to help you significantly bridge your specific programming knowledge gap. But it's a very fine distinction to make.

share|improve this answer
Why are people upvoting me and not this? People, please, upvote this! Joel is the source of my answer! (I'm going to just delete my answer now ... ) –  John Rudy Oct 14 '09 at 13:15

It was closed because it was so subjective that there is no single 'right' & provable answer.

share|improve this answer
There is no provable answer to ANY programming related question. Experts disagree on all subjects, even in court proceedings. And time often proves past consensus wrong. –  Andomar Oct 14 '09 at 10:49
@Andomar-Notice I didn't say I agree with it (for the record I don't). But you asked why and that is my interpretation of "not programming related", given my experience on SO. And there are questions with provable answers, like Q-[How do I assign text to an asp.net label?] A-[myLabel.Text = "something";]. KWIM? –  John MacIntyre Oct 14 '09 at 13:36
@Andomar: There are provable answers to programming-related questions. I've answered many C++ questions by quoting the standard. Not all questions suitable for SO have provable answers, of course. –  David Thornley Oct 14 '09 at 14:50

Well, I don't agree with this closing, so I reopened it.

YMMV, but I personally think it was well asked and sufficiently programmer-y to warrant its existence.

share|improve this answer

It was listed as closed for not being programming-related. Personally, I don't see what's programming-related about it. It discusses programming skills, but not in any way that would distinguish them from, say, different sorts of accounting skills. The question of how to pick up new skills, and who pays, would be equally applicable to actuaries, and so the question is not programming-related.

share|improve this answer
still, IMHO the question was asked in good faith and has the right tone –  Jeff Atwood Oct 13 '09 at 23:13
@Jeff - Since when has "good faith" been a standard? –  Super Long Names are Hilarious Oct 13 '09 at 23:45
It was asked in good faith, but in my opinion (good for one open/close vote) it was not actually programming-related. It would also be possible to ask a question more suited for SF or SU in good faith, and we'd close and move it. As it happens, we don't have a site here for technical career questions, so we just close it. –  David Thornley Oct 14 '09 at 14:49
@DavidThornley this is being a bully. When I ask programming peers a question, I want the answer from them, not to go to some other SE site and ask non-programmers. –  user188035 Sep 2 '13 at 23:18

I'm glad this question got reopened. If you look from a distance, say from Mars, programmer conferences must surely seem related to programming.

Closing should be made harder. Relevant and fun questions get filtered out by trigger happy moderators. It reminds me of usenet's comp.lang.c.moderated, where people would remove relevant questions that were not to their own taste, as "unrelated to C".

share|improve this answer
"I'm happy that the system worked - we should change the system!" –  Shogging through the snow Oct 14 '09 at 14:44
But the system did not work; it required a manual intervention by Jeff Atwood after a complaint on meta –  Andomar Oct 14 '09 at 15:20
So why didn't you vote to re-open it? If the system "failed" here, it's due entirely to apathy on the part of those who would wish to see such questions. –  Shogging through the snow Oct 14 '09 at 15:22
Closing a question removes it from most people's view. The chance that enough reopen-capable people see a closed questions is almost zero. As a case in point, I did not know about this particular question before I read about in on Meta. –  Andomar Oct 14 '09 at 15:43
Every day, questions get re-opened - someone must be finding them. I still don't see how your argument holds water: you have the same power to re-open as those who closed it; the only difference is they used their privileges, while you didn't. –  Shogging through the snow Oct 15 '09 at 18:35

You must log in to answer this question.