Timeline for What to do with a question requesting specifically for a bad practice?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 27, 2020 at 3:09 | comment | added | Alan Munn | @Schrödinger'scat I think here we've just misunderstood each other. I understood your comment to mean that the only difference between my answer and yours was the fact that I mentioned downvoting and you didn't. So I defended limited downvoting if an answer promoted a demonstrably bad practice. I don't see how downvoting has anything to do with these particular meta posts, since neither of us had received any downvotes although it seems my answer now has one. | |
| May 26, 2020 at 23:23 | comment | added | user194703 | The real problem I have with this kind of reasoning is that you there is no logic, at least none that I can follow. I say that your later answer only adds the downvotes to my earlier post, and then you tell me that you do not downvote that much. How is that relevant? This post is not about any of us, it is a general question. | |
| May 13, 2020 at 20:39 | history | edited | Alan Munn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
made answer explicit
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| May 13, 2020 at 19:11 | comment | added | user194703 | Well, more users seem to vote for your answer. The only difference in suggestion what to do from my earlier answer is the downvote, so one interpretation is that they like that. That's fine, I'll nevertheless stick with my opinion that one should not prominently mention downvotes here as they often do more harm than good. | |
| May 13, 2020 at 18:43 | comment | added | Alan Munn | I've downvoted 54 times out of more than 9000 votes in 9 years, so I'm not really an active downvoter, but they do have their place. And the other reasons to close are usually versions of what used to be the "too localized" closure reason that disappeared, e.g. solved in the comments, user typo, update system etc. | |
| May 13, 2020 at 18:34 | comment | added | user194703 | There is the fifth possibility of giving community-specific reasons to close a question, which is an option that is used very often. So to me it is circular. And to distinguish good from bad posts does not imply the necessity to downvote. | |
| May 13, 2020 at 18:31 | comment | added | Alan Munn | @Schrödinger'scat Of course it's not circular. The criteria for closure are pretty much laid out. (i) Too broad (ii) opinion based (iii) Off topic (iv) Duplicate. So asking a narrow enough question about how to do something using TeX but that people think is a bad idea doesn't fall into any of those categories. So such questions shouldn't be closed. This is more or less the question version of "Should bad answers be flagged as 'not an answer'?". And similarly, the answer to that question is no, bad answers meet the criteria of being answers, and voting should sort out the good from the bad. | |
| May 13, 2020 at 18:24 | comment | added | user194703 | Please do not get me wrong, but isn't your argument circular? The OP is asking whether one should close posts that ask bad practice, meaning, of course, whether asking for bad practice is a reason for closure. Now you are saying "There are no grounds to close questions that are asking for bad practice, since such questions don't meet any of the criteria for closure." To me this is circular. Needless to say that I agree with the overall conclusion of your answer except maybe for the downvote part, as this is pretty much in line with my answer. | |
| May 13, 2020 at 16:11 | history | edited | Alan Munn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
softened the downvote part
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| May 12, 2020 at 23:57 | comment | added | Alan Munn | @mazunki I agree which is why I said ‘perhaps’. Although I probably wouldn’t upvote answers which promote bad practice. But once and a while downvotes are needed. There’s generally not a lot of downvoting on the site generally. | |
| May 12, 2020 at 23:54 | comment | added | mazunki | I agree, except on the downvoting part. While the answer should say that it is a bad practice, it does answer the question at hand, so leaving a comment informing readers and the person who wrote the answer that it is a bad practice is sufficient. Personally I might upvote someone explaining how to do it in a non-recommended way, just because I learned something. | |
| May 12, 2020 at 20:05 | history | answered | Alan Munn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |