Timeline for What makes a question too broadly scoped for askubuntu?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
22 events
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:25 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://askubuntu.com/ with https://askubuntu.com/
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| Apr 5, 2013 at 19:18 | history | edited | Eliah Kagan | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
improved grammar; qualified claim about problem solvers
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| Apr 5, 2013 at 19:11 | history | edited | Eliah Kagan | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added addentum on "practical, actual problems"
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 16:29 | comment | added | Eliah Kagan |
@Oli That gives full manpages, not short, meaningful explanations of purpose that explain how the commands tie in with each other. That's also not just commands that start with apt-, but includes all commands with the text apt- in their names (e.g., add-apt-repository). I'm not sure why, but if it's like the way "wildcards" work in apt commands themselves (e.g., apt-cache policy ... where ... has a *), then it's because it's interpreted as a regular expression and not a shell-style wildcard. If an adequate summary exists (or is added) elsewhere, this question should be duped.
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 16:07 | comment | added | Oli Mod |
I'll agree a summary of the commands might be justified but that can be appended to any one of the existing "What is apt" questions that already exist. For this one, the best answer is: man --names-only --wildcard 'apt-*'
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:47 | comment | added | Eliah Kagan |
@Oli That's the critical question. To attempt to address it from what I've said: "I think such an answer to this question would illustrate how APT is organized and educate people about the breadth of its utilities" and that "a good answer will synthesize information about the different utilities, explaining how they relate to one another." This would fill a current gap in the documentation (man apt does not even summarize the utilities). If someone needs to do something they can search for that specific task, but many people also want to learn how the framework as a whole works.
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:43 | comment | added | Oli Mod | So let's pull this back to my main reason for nuking it: What is the value in this incomplete list of commands without a targeted answer? Who benefits from it? Why would they be on the question in the first place? | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:40 | comment | added | Eliah Kagan |
@Oli Not all (or even the vast majority of) subcommands would have to be covered in an answer. An answer could explain the purpose of each apt- utility provided by the apt package, and give a single example, making clear that there are other subcommands with other uses. I do think this clarifies the nature of our disagreement on this issue, though--I think such an answer to this question would illustrate how APT is organized and educate people about the breadth of its utilities. I don't think we have to interpret that question as asking for an exhaustive use guide for every command.
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:35 | comment | added | Oli Mod |
Yeah I'm talking about what comes after apt-get (etc) like: upgrade update, install, remove, autoremove, purge, source, build-dep, dist-upgrade, dselect-upgrade... All but two apt-* commands have multiple subcommands. How do you expect to give useful answers without talking about every subcommand?
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:32 | comment | added | Eliah Kagan |
@Oli As I said, there are other apt- commands that are not provided by the apt package, which I think don't need to be considered part of APT. Furthermore, like on my system (without these extra packages installed), the OP of that question typed apt-, pressed tab, only got 10 commands, and showed us in the question. It's pretty clear the OP is asking about those 10 commands.
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:29 | comment | added | Oli Mod |
And these "10 commands" are not that. Just between apt-get and apt-cache, there are 30 commands. apt-* is huge (48 commands if I count correctly).
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:28 | comment | added | Eliah Kagan | @Oli I'm not saying you did not act cautiously. I'm saying you (or perhaps the moderators as a whole, depending on how I am to read what you have said) have performed an action best left to the community, eroding the community-run nature of the site. When a question under dispute, with no established consensus, with not even a single 3k close vote, is closed by a single moderator close vote, something is wrong. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:21 | comment | added | Oli Mod | On the second point, I think you're completely wrong. This question is a bad question by the existing rules of the site. There are flags and there is consensus between moderators that this is a bad question. And I gave it time and re-read everything having slept on it. In terms of process, I've given this more than the required caution before acting. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:20 | comment | added | Oli Mod | If somebody needs to do something they [should] search for "How do I do something", not "What are all the related functions of <<this function that I'm trying to use>>". | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:20 | comment | added | Eliah Kagan | @Oli Also, while I think it may have been reasonable for you to lock the question while the present dispute works itself out, I think it was wrong for you to have closed it unilaterally. I don't know if there were close flags from community members, but even if there were, given that there is no clear community consensus as of yet about that question, a moderator should not use a binding close-vote in this situation. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 15:17 | comment | added | Eliah Kagan |
@Oli But you are bumping this to the extreme. There's only 10 apt- utilities.. Type apt- and press tab, and you'll see them. (I see no reason why an answer would need to document utilities whose names start with apt- but which are not part of APT in the sense of being provided by the apt package.) Explaining 10 commands, even with one example per command, would not take hours, and a reference explaining them briefly would carry the benefit that if someone needs to perform a package management task, they can easily see which utility to use (then get more info on it if needed).
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 13:44 | comment | added | Oli Mod | ... It's not just about bredth of scope, it's the amount of detail required at the same time. Let's bump this to the extreme. Consider the questions: "What do all the GNU utilities do? (with examples)" or "What are the BASH builtin functions and what do they all do?". They're asking too much from a single answer. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 13:36 | comment | added | Oli Mod |
The clear difference between this apt question and the list of question you lead with is the answer demanded in the question. The others are content (and probably best served) with explanations and summaries of discrete systems. This one requires somebody to document all of apt. It might not be lazy but I don't see the benefit from somebody pouring hours and hours into answering something that nobody is ever going to search for. If somebody wants to know what apt is, they're looking for the summary. If somebody wants to know about apt-mark, they'll search for "What is apt-mark?".
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| Apr 3, 2013 at 4:50 | comment | added | Seth | No, I wasn't asking you to do it. You can if you want. I was just asking if you thought that was better than closing/deleting it. | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 2:04 | comment | added | Eliah Kagan | @Seth That sounds like a good thing to do. Are you asking me to do it? I might have time for that a little later... | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 2:03 | comment | added | Seth | I was going to try to post a good answer, but by the time I can get it finished Oli will probably have killed it. What do you think about working with OP and editing it into a more precise question? | |
| Apr 3, 2013 at 2:00 | history | answered | Eliah Kagan | CC BY-SA 3.0 |