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We've seen and discussed this a lot over the years. Most recently, Ewan posted another meta question tangentially related to this where a string of questions were down-voted. The answer to the meta question basically says that the questions ended with "what is the best practice" or "what is the industry standard practice?" with the recommendation to just edit that part out if the post is otherwise good.

I've been reluctant to do this because I feel it fundamentally changes the desired outcome or answer that the OP wants, but Thomas Owen made some good points and I'm in; I'll start editing out those troublesome bits. But still, I have doubts.

When is it acceptable to edit a post and remove phrases asking for best practices or industry standard practices?

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This is probably a good place to elaborate on my thinking.

Most of the time, when I see someone asking about "best practices" or "industry standards", it's tacked on as an afterthought. They've outlined the context, their problem, and the desired end state. Since most of us realize that there are no best practices, this question adds noise and distraction. Removing it shouldn't fundamentally change the answers and how they refer to any good practices or standards that may exist, the context(s) where those are applicable, and any potential drawbacks to using them.

In cases where removing the request for best practices or standards fundamentally changes the question, that suggests the question has other problems. The most likely problem would be that it is a resource/reference request.

If a small subset of people can't see past trigger words like "best practice" or "industry standard", then it seems to be low-hanging fruit to edit those terms out. If the question still isn't good, then there should be actionable advice for how to make it good, and that can be addressed through comments or Meta.

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Whenever the question appears to be salvagable.

(Otherwise, just downvote and/or close vote it.)

If you feel uneasy with the edit, why not simply leave a comment for the OP (and others) why you changed the question's wording? To provide an example, I chose one of the questions subject to Ewan's post, did such an edit by myself and added a related comment. As you can see, my comment got an affirmative response from the OP. When you explain people why you changed their question, then in most cases it should not be a problem, quite the opposite.

What bothers me more that in most cases, already downvoted questions most times keep their downvotes, regardless of any edit, and our well-known downvote trolls do not leave a message what else bothers them about the post, or if they have noticed the change, or why the change don't suit them. The inept close-votes fortunately age away automatically.

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They shouldn't ever be edited out, we should change the rules to allow them

When a questioner asks this, they are saying "I have a working solution, but I'm not happy with it overall" or even "I'm about to start work on this, give me some advice about what approach to take"

Arguing that there is no best/standard/industry practice, or that "it depends" is technically true, but practically false. In most cases there are well known pitfalls and solutions to problems and good answers can be given.

Just because there might be two competing good answers with no objective way of differentiating, doesn't mean the question and answers are not a good fit for the site. In fact the site description and guidance actively encourages these type of architectural/design questions.

Expecting people to dance around the wording damages the overall experience of users of the site.

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  • While design and architectural questions are encouraged, I don't see where questions about best practices, specifically, are mentioned. Still, the reason I like your viewpoint is that we are having this discussion based on some voters pulling the trigger at the mere mention of this phrase without regard to the rest of the question. And I agree, it makes us look bad. This all reminds me of some self-reflection I indulged in a while ago. Commented Jan 4 at 22:58
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    I see your point, but I think the arguments from Why is asking a question on "best practice" a bad thing? and Best practices BAD, patterns GOOD? and Why questions about "the correct way" are too broad don't have changed. They have a way-too-broad community consensus. Commented Jan 5 at 7:41
  • @DocBrown The arguments simply don't apply when the term "software engineering" literally means "best practices in programming" for huge swathes of topics. If we agree the underlying question is on topic, why ask for a syntactic dance around how you ask it? esp when we can't even agree on what the specific formulae of words would be Commented Jan 5 at 13:50
  • @Ewan: I think you missed the point of these arguments. It is not that terms like "best practices" do not fit to the topic. It is also nowhere explicitly verboten to use these terms. However, history has shown us too many askers were using these terms when looking for an easy answer which does not require any thought. This has made these terms become trigger words for certain voters (especially autistic voters) who don't want to put much time (and thoughts) into a question, downvoting blindly and thoughtlessly. ... (1/2) Commented Jan 5 at 15:04
  • ... the ideal way would be to check whether a question still makes sense (and isn't too broad) without the trigger words, and if that's the case, don't downvote and/or closevote it. Unfortunately, if we leave those trigger words in, each potential voter would have to go through this process again. The IMHO better alternative is to edit those trigger words out, even if it takes more time, to make it easier for other readers/voters to understand when a "best practices" question is acceptable. When the words cannot be removed without changing the meaning, then I am sure the question... (2/3) Commented Jan 5 at 15:11
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    ... isn't salvagable. So I think Thomas Owens has perfectly hit the nail on the head: we should edit the buzzwords out when possible simply because we will not be able to educate everyone to vote on them correctly. Commented Jan 5 at 15:21
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    The rule change I would prefer is to forbid to use more downvotes per week or per month than upvotes on a single site. Someone who uses more downvotes than upvotes has a IMHO a very unconstructive attitude. Such voting behaviour should be discouraged. Commented Jan 5 at 15:26
  • from the help what not to ask "Questions asking "What is the best way" without providing any criteria for evaluating what is best" Commented Jan 5 at 16:10
  • @DocBrown im pretty sure ive seen other similar rules quoted in the past, "no lists" etc and the posts you linked. Change this rule so that we explicitly allow "Best Way" questions. I'm not sure I am convinced by your "random old skool drive by downvoter" theory "Programmers" was always more loose when it came to these rules and we can be again Commented Jan 5 at 16:16
  • @DocBrown im not sure what you mean by "exactly"? dont you think that this rule is used to justify a downvote for a question which asks "whats the best/standard practice for X?" Commented Jan 5 at 16:22
  • @Ewan: without providing any criteria for evaluating what is best - it is not generally forbidden to ask for a "best practice", it is just not recommended. But a question which fullfills this can probable stand on its own without the well-known trigger words. I don't seen any need to change this rule. Commented Jan 5 at 16:24
  • @DocBrown you are dancing on the head of a pin, if someone asks for "best practice" in a architecture question the criteria is never stated its just implied "what are other people doing? what works in industry?" Commented Jan 5 at 16:26
  • in the linked question from our help it explicitly lists "Is this the correct / preferred / accepted / most popular / better way?" as bad Commented Jan 5 at 16:28
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    @Ewan: ""what are other people doing? what works in industry?" to me sounds way-too-much "what is the most popular approach" or "what is the braindead cargo-cult approach" - and if that is what the really meant, and the OP cannot present their issue in a different fashion, the question is probably not a good fit for this site. Commented Jan 5 at 16:31
  • @Ewan: "in the linked question from our help it explicitly lists "Is this the correct / preferred / accepted / most popular / better way?" as bad" - the linked question contains a recommendation for writing better questions, not a law. Commented Jan 5 at 16:33

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