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I recently had this question that I asked put on hold. Memory leak on 18.04-- Is it even worth upgrading? (do you have memory leak issues?)

Now, this is not an opinion-based question. Some computers may respond differently to the memory leak than others (my Dell Optiplex 9010 seems tro use LESS RAM since the upgrade). All I wanted was feedback on how much memory is being hogged as compared to 16.04. Hell, I have a laptop I might upgrade, and based on user feedback, I may or may not upgrade it.

It's easy to see this question as opinion-based-- I get it. However, feedback on this is important--- there's a huge difference between a small, perceived bug that hogs a little RAM and a huge one that affects user performance. If people noticed that 18.04 was UNUSABLY hogging all of their RAM, they could have given me feedback there. Now someone closed my question and I can't get that feedback.

Just because Ubuntu shipped 18.04 before it was ready, doesn't mean people shouldn't be allowed to ask these kind of questions. Am I being punished, or would META be better for that kind of question?

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    Your core question was "is it worth upgrading" and "what you all think about the memleak problem". This isn't a forum - this is a Q/A site that has restrictions about the types of questions you can ask. Your question says "Is it worth upgrading?" (opinion-based) or "What do you all think about the problem?" (also open-ended, and opinion based). The other problem is you don't ask a specific question that is answerable within the scope, which makes it "Too Broad" as well.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 20:31
  • So if I said, "How is the memory leak affecting you?" That would be acceptable?
    – Robert Sederholm
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 20:33
  • It's NOT worth upgrading if it's got a bug that makes the system wholly unusable. That is not an opinion, it is a fact. I'll go to Ubuntu Forums, because you apparently don't like that I pointed out one of the major downfalls of 18.04. Thanks.
    – Robert Sederholm
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 20:34
  • No, again you're asking too broad a question. "How does this affect you?" again drives specific answers but is not answerable within the scope, which needs to have a specific question that can be answered with supporting evidence and facts, not "How does this affect you" which will vary person to person and deployment to deployment.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 20:35
  • Exactly, that would give me an idea of what kind of systems are deeply affected and what to avoid upgrading, etc. Totally not the wrong place to ask the question, I had a ton of views before you closed my question, nobody else saw a problem with it. Just you.
    – Robert Sederholm
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 20:36
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    You need to read the help center, and realize this is not a forum site where you can get input from users about how something affects them in an open-ended discussion-like format where you pose a question and get subjective replies Both of your questions don't fit into the way that we expect questions and answers, per my analysis. The community at large is free to disagree and if there are enough people in agreement can reopen the post. You weren't being punished, though, and you aren't the only one to get their question closed that's similar to this for the same or similar reasons.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 20:38
  • Yeah but nobody can read it now that it's inactive, huh?? it'll disappear from the front page in a half hour and be forgotten about in an hour.
    – Robert Sederholm
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 20:48
  • Ubuntu Forums has NEVER been as helpful but whatever rolls eyes
    – Robert Sederholm
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 20:50
  • Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than on facts, references, or specific expertise. I wanted facts, like screenshots, etc. Not opinions. I wanted someone to be like, yeah I'm using 40% RAM whereas when I was running the same apps doing about the same thing on 16.04 I was using 20%. Of course that invites some opinion-based answers, but now, because of you, the 200 something'th person to read my question, I don't even have the option to disregard them.
    – Robert Sederholm
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 20:53
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    @RobertSederholm Simple rule: If you expect one answer to your question, it's a good question. If you expect multiple answers, it's a bad question and not for this site: got to ubuntuforums.com instead. That's the difference between the Ask Ubuntu and UbuntuForums.
    – Fabby
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 21:13
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    I kind of agree with you, perhaps opinion based was the wrong close reason. That said, I would close your question as too broad. A good single answer cannont be given because everyone will have their own experiance with the issue, so either way it is off topic, as it cannot be answerd and it should be closed, the reason is a minor consideration. FYI ranting, caps lock and boarder line insulting people, will not help your cause. This is NOT a discussion forum.
    – Mark Kirby
    Commented May 18, 2018 at 21:49

1 Answer 1

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This is my analysis, which is based on my knowing how the site runs/operates. Note that since I helped close your question, this is my justifications. The community is free to cast reopen votes if they disagree with the action, as we defer to the community consensus.

Note that in response to your question "Am I being punished", the answer is "No, this isn't punishment directed against you, this is the general handling of questions that don't fit the site's required format of how to post questions and get answers".

Your core questions are only stated in the title, and those two questions are:

  • Is it worth upgrading?

and

  • What do you all think about the bug?

Both of these questions are open-ended questions without the ability to get a firm fact-based answer that can get a clear answer to the question.

The first one is a subjective answer - if someone thinks it's worth upgrading that's an opinion, if they think it's not worth upgrading, that's also an opinion, and can't be supported by any specific evidenceor facts.

The second one is a "What do you think about this?" open-ended question that, again, caters for opinions and not hard-facts and evidence to support a core answer. Even if you rephrase this to say "How is the memory leak affecting you?", you are going to get different answers based off of individual opinions based off of their own observations of the issue, not hard facts and evidence across all systems or such.

Further, this "What do you think about this" question caters to having multiple responses from multiple people to gauge their opinions. Not only are you not going to get fact-driven answers, you are not going to get a single answer you can accept, but rather many answers. This breaks the Q/A format because Ask Ubuntu is designed such that you can ask a question, and then get a single answer that solves/answers the original question. By expecting multiple answers, none of which you can directly accept because they all answer the question with people's individual opinions about the problem, you still get into the "Too broad" and "Opinion-based" problems.

This could also be "Too Broad" because you ask open-ended questions that don't have specific answers. (And in fact, "too Broad" fits better, so I've reclosed the post with that reason)

With either reasoning, the core problem is, I think, this doesn't match the scope of the site. Note that this isn't a forum - this is a Q/A site that has restrictions about the types of questions you can ask, and has a requirement that questions be narrow enough that an actual answer can be given with supporting facts and evidence, and that answers actually answer the question within the scope of the Help Center.

Both of the core questions being asked here are going to be driven for opinion-based replies. The combination of the two makes the question 'Too Broad'.

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    Another issue: the problem is not specific to 18.04 . In that there also is a bias. We demand facts :+)
    – Rinzwind
    Commented May 19, 2018 at 14:58
  • If 18.04 shipped with it it's specific to 18.04 LOL Yes the question was too broad.
    – Robert Sederholm
    Commented May 26, 2018 at 13:36

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