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I have a great idea for changing parts of Stack Overflow.

Upon searching, I see a lot of these questions are downvoted, closed as duplicates, and I've even seen a few get deleted!

With this is mind, how can I propose a change to Stack Overflow and not just get shut down for it?

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  • 14
    I wrote this as something we can point future "suggestions" to, so if anyone sees a way to improve the question or answer, please, feel free. If the community overall feels this faq-proposed post is not worth the effort, I'll be glad to remove it. I tried to add what I generally see as the flaws for these suggestions.
    – Kendra
    Oct 15, 2018 at 21:29
  • 2
    Very, very relevant: Can we talk about the voting culture here on Meta?
    – user4639281
    Oct 16, 2018 at 3:24
  • 1
    also related: Show your work: one simple trick to make meta effective
    – gnat
    Oct 16, 2018 at 8:58
  • Also related: Twitter-driven Development. Firing mods and forced relicensing: is Stack Exchange still interested in cooperating with the community?. Experience shows that whining about something in a ~100 characters long Twitter post is by far the most efficient way to get features implemented. ->
    – Lundin
    Nov 23, 2022 at 13:57
  • Thus a well-researched, carefully considered meta post backed up with data and past user experience may get a overwhelming positive community reception, but it will not get your proposed feature implemented. That's not what meta is for, since some 6-8 years back. Meta is for keeping the users calm thinking that their opinions or feature requests there actually matter.
    – Lundin
    Nov 23, 2022 at 13:57

1 Answer 1

59

Before you post

Start with research

Chances are, if your suggestion is a big change, it or something similar has been requested before. Search carefully for your suggestion on Meta Stack Overflow. If you really want to be thorough, check Meta Stack Exchange too.

See what arguments have already been given for and against your suggestion, if any. Most of the time, these suggestions have also been thoroughly gone over, point by point.

Once you've compiled this research:

Gather data

You want to make any sort of large change? You need to back up your claims, show us what is wrong and why it is worth dev time or community time to try to change it. Even if your suggestion is for a small change, you want to have at least a couple examples of what you're talking about to help illustrate your point.

If at all possible, get stats. This could be from the Data Explorer, or by posting a request for stats here on Meta.

The more you can show us to support what you say and why you feel things should change will help your case. Prove to us that, even if we don't like your specific suggestion, something has to change.

The post

Present your findings clearly and uniformly

Pretend you're presenting information to someone in authority that you respect — your boss, your teacher, your parents. Pretend you have to have their approval to do whatever you're trying to persuade us of.

With that in mind, keep your tone neutral. Stick to the facts. Present only the data, not your emotions. Try to be as even as you possibly can.

If your post reads like a rant, people aren't going to take your want for a constructive discussion seriously.

Clearly explain and justify your suggestion

What, exactly, is it that you want changed? Why will it benefit the site? What, exactly, is wrong that is inspiring this change?

Be sure to be as clear as you can on these points. This will not only help others to see/suggest changes to your proposal, but it will help prevent closure for your post being unclear. We need to know what is wrong, what you propose to fix it, and why your fix would help.

Remember, you're the one that sees the problem and has a solution. Sell us on it.

Be open to feedback

Once you've posted, remember that your idea will be thoroughly picked apart and torn to shreds. No matter how well documented and researched, your post will be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. People will suggest problems and flaws with your suggestion. They will suggest problems with your research and your data.

Don't get angry and fight those suggestions. Take them to heart. Present them with data that negates their concerns, or suggest another way to handle things that will fix what they're concerned about.

Be open to alternate suggestions

If you're correct that something is wrong and needs to be changed, be prepared for answers to be submitted that suggest alternatives to your suggestion. They are no less correct than you are, and it's better to keep the discussion together than to segment it out over multiple posts. This is completely normal behavior.

Don't get into arguments in the comments

If someone is getting heated, stop communicating with them. It's better for your sanity, and you don't want to get carried away and off the point of your post. It'll be a lot easier for you to respond to feedback if you aren't getting heated as well.

After the post

If your post ends up closed/deleted

This does not mean that your opinion is being silenced, that the community does not want your input, or that we disagree with anything that challenges our way of doing things. All it means is that your post did not conform with the guidelines above and in the help center, and that your post did not really add anything new to previous discussions.

We do not close or delete posts just because we disagree with them. We close and delete posts that do not conform to our quality guidelines.

If your post ends up closed as a duplicate

It is possible that despite all your research, your question could be closed as a duplicate of a previous discussion or feature request.

If you still think your question/discussion/feature-request is sufficiently different, you should follow the guidance in "This question may already have an answer here" - but it does not. Read the other question and make sure your question clearly explains why it is different, or why your idea is different enough to warrant more discussion

If you agree that the ideas in your question are the same or similar enough, you could leave an answer on the duplicate instead. Before you do, make sure none of the existing answers already cover the same ground. If you think your ideas are new, then you can leave an answer expressing your support for the idea, explain why it is a bad idea, or propose an alternative solution to the problem. The goal of your answer is to add new information to the previous question to explain why you support the idea and how it will benefit the site. It could help breathe new life into an old idea.

If your post is downvoted

Note that downvotes are different on Meta, and do not always mean that your suggestion is poorly written or off-topic. Especially with posts, downvotes can be used to show disagreement with a suggestion or idea, in addition to the usual reasons.

So, if you did all of the above, but your post is still heavily downvoted, this may simply mean that you're not quite on the same page as the rest of the community. Try to understand the arguments against your suggestion or idea, and use this to improve your understanding of the site, or change your perspective, which will allow you to contribute more effectively on Meta as well as the main site in future.

Also, don't worry — unlike on the main site, votes don't affect your reputation.

Your suggestion still might not be implemented

Even if your suggestion is very well-received, solves a big problem, and the community really seems to like it, it might not be implemented. The Stack Overflow team still has final say in what gets implemented and what they spend developer time on.

If they do decide to implement it, the implementation could take 6-8 weeks.

Conclusion

So long as you are calm, your post is well explained and supported, and you respond well to feedback, your suggestion should lead to a constructive discussion.

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  • 6
    "Start with research" - and please remember, that our search engine is broken. If you really want to find out if something similar has been requested, use Google with site:meta.stackoverflow.com Oct 16, 2018 at 7:54
  • 8
    I find the conclusion your suggestion should lead to a constructive discussion a bit of a let-down. I see lots of discussion on Meta, but very little action. It doesn't really answer the not just get shut down part. The cynic in me believes discussion is often used as a "nice way" of shutting down a proposal, given the of late zero core-user-initiated proposals being implemented.
    – jpp
    Oct 16, 2018 at 10:22
  • 4
    @jpp "not just shut down" means "not just dismissed and closed by the meta community". Nothing in this Q&A implied it would be about guaranteeing a response from the developers.
    – BSMP
    Oct 16, 2018 at 13:08
  • 1
    Note that downvotes are different on Meta, and do not always mean that your suggestion is poorly written or off-topic. . This is something only known by people commonly browsing meta (I see the same 5 people commenting on like 90% of things that reach the new question queue). I wish there was a way to make this more apparent to new users of meta. I didn't know that was the case when I first came here.
    – chevybow
    Oct 16, 2018 at 21:30
  • @chevybow "I wish there was a way to make this more apparent to new users of meta." Oh there are ways. E.g. there was a proposal on meta to rename the tool tips on meta accordingly. It was constructively discussed. Nothing ever was implemented. Can't find it right now.
    – Trilarion
    Oct 16, 2018 at 21:35
  • 6
    99.99999% of proposals on Meta are never implemented, or officially even reacted to, and if they are implemented, it's usually because someone within the company came up with the same idea and never even knew a proposal on Meta existed. More often than not, it is a waste of time (except that perhaps one a Meta level reactions to proposals can be a sounding board on how the community feels about a specific thing - as far as that's relevant...)
    – Pekka
    Oct 17, 2018 at 7:46
  • 3
    @Pekka웃, Completely agree. Meta posts by core users, unlike tweets from non-users, are not treated as action points, they are used more to assess the impact of a potential change. More like a survey with little or no relation to decision-making.
    – jpp
    Oct 17, 2018 at 10:50
  • 3
    @Pekka웃 That statement is fairly close to true for requests for programming changes to the system. It's worth noting that lots of requests involve only configuration level changes, or are policy changes, not programming changes. Those have much higher success rates (not only in actually happening, but happening directly because of the meta question).
    – Servy
    Oct 17, 2018 at 18:46
  • 3
    The feature-request tag could be renamed to something like hypothetical-feature-discussion to reduce disappointment. Maybe I'll make a feature request for that. ;-) Oct 17, 2018 at 22:24
  • 1
    I'd either add in here, the user of tags. i.e. feature request or discussion. It's just a little unclear. Is this about feature request only or the whole process. You could draw a distinction and suggest first/ a discussion second/ feature request. or have then as two separate points of the faq. Thoughts?
    – user3956566
    Oct 18, 2018 at 16:33
  • @YvetteColomb Usually, the whole process ends up as a feature-request, either because that's just how the user posts it, or someone edits the tags that way. I hadn't considered otherwise, really, but I certainly see what you're saying... Hadn't really thought about a separate discussion post at all.
    – Kendra
    Oct 18, 2018 at 16:43
  • @Kendra I was "taught" it can be a good way to test the waters. Feel free to flag any comments you want deleted to try and keep track of the threads under the question and answer. Would you like me to make the question a community wiki?
    – user3956566
    Oct 18, 2018 at 16:45
  • Why was my post Closed as duplicate then?
    – Strom
    Nov 16, 2018 at 23:31
  • 3
    @Strom I'm not quite sure what closure you're speaking of, but none of your answers to this question were appropriate. This is meant to be a FAQ, not a place to propose features or request feedback from the community. Nov 17, 2018 at 13:29

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