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Welcome to a restart of the Broken Windows Review project. These posts are intended to simplify the cleanup of closed questions. By listing a number of such questions in a single meta thread, users can quickly find questions that are in need of improvement, reopening or deletion. See this post for details on the original Broken Windows project. For a list of previous entries in the series, check the tag.

This review will end on January 15th.

What's the goal?

Improving the site by reducing the number of closed questions. During the review users are encouraged to use the tools available to them (edit, flag, vote to reopen, vote to delete)

The outcome of the review for a closed question can be one of the following:

  • improved: this should always be the first goal, unless the question deserves deletion and edits would be wasted effort
  • reopened: the question was closed unjustly or has been improved enough to be reopened
  • deleted: the question no longer adds anything to the site
  • kept: this should be a rare outcome but some questions should be kept closed and not deleted, such as:
    • exact duplicates that are highly searchable and provide useful redirects to the parent question
    • questions that are borderline off-topic but have high-quality anwers

Discussion

If you wish to start a meta discussion about one of the posts in this review, please use one answer below per question. All further discussion of that question can be done in the comments on that answer. Please don't discuss multiple questions in a single post. This helps keep each question's discussion in one spot.

Submitting a question

If you've found a closed question that you want to discuss during this review, please submit a link in the comments on this post. Submissions are only considered during the first days of the review. Note that questions should have been closed for at least 2 days so deletion votes can be cast and to ensure that the review process doesn't interfere with questions that are still actively being improved.

Submissions will no longer be accepted after January 9th.

Questions for Review

Off-topic - Company-specific / Legal

1. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/59752/does-overtime-from-multiple-sources-stack - Deleted

2. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/59976/should-it-be-necessary-to-wear-professional-in-it-company - Automatically Deleted

3. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/59709/resignation-tendered - Deleted

Off-topic - Real questions have answers

4. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/59975/why-were-bad-at-assessing-risk - Automatically Deleted

Unclear

5. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/59739/bringing-mooc-courses-coursera-udacity-etc-to-the-attention-of-managers - Deleted

8. Advice on mixing union and non-union workers - Re-opened (+9)

Too broad

6. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/59822/how-should-i-update-my-status-of-work-in-scrum - Deleted

Duplicates

7. https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/59935/how-to-ask-for-a-raise - Deleted

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  • I've based my template off BWR4, please comment if you think it can still be improved.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 7, 2016 at 16:16
  • 31 candidate questions to consider
    – gnat
    Jan 7, 2016 at 21:00
  • @gnat I've based this list off closed question from the past few (basically ones I cast delete votes on). The questions you linked should be handled as well, but should we keep those for Review #6 ("Return of the Downvotes")? I think it makes sense to group those negative score questions together. I imagine a few can be improved or got unjustified downvotes but the majority are probably candidates for deletion and can be handled in a batch.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 8, 2016 at 9:53
  • I see, your reasoning makes good sense
    – gnat
    Jan 8, 2016 at 9:58
  • 1
    @gnat If you want you could even start BWR 6 concurrently. I wanted to step away from making it a weekly thing. The deadlines for previous reviews was possible because jmort was running it and as a mod he could clean up any unhandled questions himself. We don't want to saturate meta with too many threads or tackle too many questions in a single review but I'd argue that so many negative score questions do require cleanup.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 8, 2016 at 10:03
  • that's an interesting idea, I need to think about it a bit
    – gnat
    Jan 8, 2016 at 12:45
  • Q4 has been deleted. Can it be undeleted for the benefit of those of us without 10k rep?
    – Philip Kendall
    Jan 8, 2016 at 16:06
  • 1
    @PhilipKendall I undeleted it. But if it doesn't get some love I probably will redelete it (it was auto-deleted by the built-in cleanup process). There are also almost 40 people now who can vote to delete (or undelete) questions, too, which should help in future cleanups!
    – enderland
    Jan 8, 2016 at 16:21
  • @PhilipKendall Deletion is one of the normal outcomes of the review process. It doesn't really make sense for us to undo the cleanup actions we're taking in this project. I suggest using google's caching if you want to view the page. Cached versions are typically available for a short time after deletion.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 8, 2016 at 16:23
  • 1
    My take on it (as mentioned here) is that there's no real need for sub-10K users to view deleted questions because they can't act on them (i.e. undelete) anyway. I'd be open to ideas on how to better present these questions on the review though if people think it's problematic.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 8, 2016 at 16:24
  • @Lillenthal I think it should be the responsibility of the person proposing the question for review to ensure everybody can review it; it's not reasonable to expect every user to go and find the Google cache of the question on their own. Why not just start with the Google cache link in the question?
    – Philip Kendall
    Jan 9, 2016 at 11:42
  • 1
    @PhilipKendall I disagree. The purpose of the review is to group these questions and make it easier for users to weigh in without having to track them down themselves. Voting to delete is one of the tools at our disposal and if enough people decide to delete then the review is essentially over for that question. Checking the cache is a last-resort for people to satisfy their curiosity but it's frankly way too much effort for no gain to start mirroring the questions up for review. In the case of Q4, it was actually deleted by the Community user
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 9, 2016 at 13:16
  • 2
    @JoeStrazzere There is auto-cleanup for closed questions with no upvoted answers, they are deleted by the Community user. In regards to the points you raise in your answer, that's precisely why we want ill-fitting question to be closed quickly! As long as they remain open they can be answered by users with good intentions despite the fact that question isn't clear or won't fit the site. It's why we get many questions with answers saying "Check with a lawyer." That's true, and they harvest upvotes for them, but the question itself should be closed.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 9, 2016 at 21:21
  • 3
    And because of those answers, the questions aren't automatically deleted, which is the whole reason the BWR was started: to deal with closed questions that are lowering the quality of this site's content.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 9, 2016 at 21:21
  • 1
    1200 have a score of 0 or less.. That's definitely quite the backlog.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 10, 2016 at 23:34

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
4

7. How to ask for a raise?

This question seems to have been asked and answered many times. Since this particular instance has absolutely no answers (and thus there can be no value keeping it around), it should be deleted.

3
  • 1
    This currently has two delete votes.
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 10, 2016 at 4:06
  • 1
    it has now been deleted
    – mhoran_psprep
    Jan 10, 2016 at 13:26
  • Why delete this. It doesnt hurt to be there to be found by search engines...
    – IDrinkandIKnowThings
    Feb 4, 2016 at 20:00
3

1: Does overtime from multiple sources stack?

This seems like a legit close to me. This seems to be a clear request for interpretation of a specific labor law. I beleive that is definitely within the scope of an off topic legal question.

2
  • 1
    I would agree. This could possibly be on topic at Law SE, but I can't say I understood what the question was asking.
    – David K
    Jan 8, 2016 at 21:01
  • 1
    This has been deleted (presumably as a result of this review).
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 10, 2016 at 4:08
2

This review has now ended. All but one of the questions involved was deleted.

0

5. Bringing "MOOC" courses (Coursera, Udacity etc) to the attention of managers.

This one seems pretty clear to me, and has two viable answers despite being "closed as unclear" after waiting less than a day. Rather impatient, in my opinion.

Perhaps others were confused, but if I were king of the world, I'd open it.

2
  • 2
    Disagree on this. The issue with it is that the OP never clearly clarified what he wanted to accomplish. Brag to management? Get input on useful courses to follow? Leverage this training for increased responsibilities? Argue a raise? Since the OP didn't come back to clarify the close is valid and I voted to delete. The answers are well-meant but not that useful given the lack of a core question.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 9, 2016 at 21:16
  • The OP also doubts him/herself Are they worth bringing up but does not say anything about what kind of MOOOCs (one fictitious example), or what industry. This question is too unspecific/broad.
    – user8036
    Jan 12, 2016 at 10:49
0

8. Advice on mixing union and non-union workers

This one isn't closed.

5
  • Was reopened by Monica, check the comment history. Looks decent enough to be kept open to me.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 9, 2016 at 21:18
  • 1
    This question was edited and reopened after this review started. (I cast the fifth reopen vote.) It has, since then, picked up two close votes.
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 10, 2016 at 4:03
  • The edit wasn't to improve the question. It was closed months ago. The edit was the OP begging for it to be deleted. I think that the question would take a book to answer. The OP has union issues, and/or has bullying issues. They will need a top to bottom review of the company/work site. where was HR? what doe the Union contract say?...
    – mhoran_psprep
    Jan 10, 2016 at 13:38
  • If it wasn't specifically about union pressure it would be like many other bullying questions. 3 decent answers boiling down to "this is union promoted bullying". Suggest to leave open because this specific issue may happen more often, and can easily be found just by searching for is:q union (currently 19 questions).
    – user8036
    Jan 12, 2016 at 10:55
  • I actually like this question, maybe because I've worked in multiple environments where we had mixes of union/non-union.
    – enderland
    Jan 13, 2016 at 16:57
0

6. How should I update my status of work in scrum?

This was closed in about 9 hours. Perhaps there should be a cooling off period before questions can be closed? (shrug)

This one has several answers, too. All four answers essentially focused on the same thought. So at least for that short period the question seemingly wasn't too broad at all.

2
  • 1
    I somewhat disagree with the close reason used but feel that this is still off-topic. All answers basically boil down to: ask your scrum master / manager / team because each team will handles their meetings differently. Perhaps this would be better suited to the Project Management SE.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Jan 9, 2016 at 21:47
  • Could also be related to the scrum variant chosen in practice. So yes, ask your scrum master/too narrow for here.
    – user8036
    Jan 12, 2016 at 10:57

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