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Feature Request: “Ask For List”

It seems that the moderators started developing the habit of closing and downvoting most of the questions submitted to this site.

I wondered why the following thread is closed as "not constructive", when it received more than 500 upvotes.


So please allow the users to share their thoughts and ideas. We all are here to learn.

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marked as duplicate by gnat, hims056, Martijn Pieters, Andrew Barber, Josh Caswell Dec 27 '12 at 19:01


Well, this isn't a forum--it's a very structured Q&A site, so not every post is welcome. –  simchona Dec 27 '12 at 8:42
This is a site where you can find questions and (hopefully) definitive answers. A question with 50 different answers just isn't a good question for Stack Overflow. –  Bo Persson Dec 27 '12 at 8:51
Well a similar to visual studio q that question can be: I was wondering if people have any tips or tricks to help me speed up my web pages well, is out of the role of this site. (even tho I do not wish the visual studio q to be deleted from the moment is exist) –  Aristos Dec 27 '12 at 8:52
"moderators started developing the habit of closing and downvoting most of the questions"...While this is simply not true, also keep in mind that there are moderators (with a diamond) and users participating in community moderation. As for the downvotes, well, you simple can't know who cast those. –  Bart Dec 27 '12 at 8:53
A person cant predict the number of answers will be posted for a question while he submit it. Also it's very useful for the people who worked on that platform. that's why it got many upvotes. –  user833985 Dec 27 '12 at 8:54
In the case you've linked it is in fact very predictable that it will result in a list of answers, as the question itself is phrased as a poll. Nothing surprising about that. –  Bart Dec 27 '12 at 8:56
Thanks for giving so many downvotes.I asked a question about closing and downvoting the questions asked in the site and got downvotes for that thread also. :-) –  user833985 Dec 27 '12 at 9:02
I think the downvotes work in a different way here. It just represents people who doesn't like this suggestion. It may not have anything to do with the question. –  iDev Dec 27 '12 at 9:03
@user833985 meta.stackoverflow.com/faq#vote-differences –  Bart Dec 27 '12 at 9:22

1 Answer 1

You see the whole list of answers down there? Tons of different items, one not better or worse than the rest? That's the problem.

It falls under the header "not constructive" and questions inviting such lists (by now) get closed. It's how the site has evolved over time. Even if it's useful, it's simply not deemed to be a good fit for the site.

As for the more general "What can I ask here?" question, you will have to read the FAQ. Each site within the network will have its own FAQ detailing what can and can't be asked.

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