Before jumping into this post, you should probably read post Next steps for open-ended questions that describes changes released today that provide a path for integrating open-ended questions on Stack Overflow.
Let’s rip the band-aid off that elephant in the room. Expanding the scope of what’s on Stack Overflow is a big change. There are lots of opinions and ideas on this topic. And it touches on a lot of things, both technical and philosophical. There’s a lot to figure out.
We tried to guide that expansion by building a new area of the site (Discussions) and by creating other branches of the primary experience (what’s been referred to as “Opinion-based content” (OBC)), but neither of those ended up in a good place. Despite their drawbacks, we saw promising usage of those formats — users asking and answering these types of questions, and users organizing them and making sure their quality adheres to reasonable standards. And we have a pretty decent sense of the kinds of things (good, bad, and ugly) that we’ll see.
We are sure that the community can do a better job guiding this than we have, provided you have all the tools you’re accustomed to. And I don’t just mean curation options and moderation features. I also mean the ability to work together and figure out how to sift the pearls from the sand via the policies and guidelines FAQ. I mean the innovative thinking that built and maintains a world-class spam management & control system (Charcoal). I mean the generous efforts that still churn out helpful tools (Stack Apps) from an aging and poorly-documented API. I mean the dedication that keeps you coming back here every day (even if it’s only to tell us what we’re doing wrong). All of that is what Stack Overflow needs right now.
This is the time to seize the moment. We’re all aware of the current challenges with participation. Sure, an earlier start on this would have been great. But it’s not too late, and those who agree can help chart the course ahead. Those who delight in saying it’s too late don’t need to be part of the conversation.
Okay, locker room pep talk over. Let’s get to work.
As the necessary conversations commence, we’re laying out a few guidelines:
Expanding the scope of content on Stack Overflow is the direction we, as a company, have decided to move towards. The old status quo is not sustainable. Stack Overflow needs to be guided by rules and policies that make sense for 2026 and the future. Many reading that may feel moved to debate this stance. You are welcome to express that point of view, but take a moment to consider why you feel the way you do. And try to end your posts with a paragraph that starts like “But if it HAS to change, here is how I think it can work best…”
We need to use the tools we have. We do not have the resources to reinvent the core curation experience or the reputation system on the public platform at this time. We can make modest changes, purposefully or experimentally. But our capacity to do that is limited, so be thoughtful about the changes you might collectively request. The bigger the change, the longer it will take, and the fewer other changes we can make.
We look to you for guidance on what comes next. We are here to support you. An AMA* with some members of the team supporting you is a quick look at the team that you’ll be hearing from, and a chance to ask them some questions.
What do we need to talk about?
Create some new questions here on Meta and start talking about what’s most important. We’ll be doing some of that, but don’t wait for Community Managers (CMs) to post. We will have ideas and suggestions. And we might nudge you to dig deeper or consider another perspective. But aside from letting you know more about how the “OBC migration” will work, there’s no big sequel to today’s posts waiting to drop.
As we see areas of ideation and focus emerge in discussions on Meta, we might propose establishing working groups to move things along. So keep that in mind as another tool we can leverage.
Want data to guide discussion and decision-making? If you can’t pull it yourselves, let us know what you want to see and we’ll do our best.
Things we should probably tackle first:
What makes a high quality open-ended question? Where should that guidance be detailed? We’re hopeful that someone from the community will start this conversation. Highly related topics to discuss:
What should the open-ended question type tags be? What should be the type that designates traditional Q&A (currently “How-to / Troubleshooting”)? We will need to stick with the three current open-ended question tags (tooling-recommendation, best-practices, and advice) until the OBC migration has been completed, but discussion on this topic can begin anytime.
The closure options for “opinion-based” and “seeking recommendations” are now obscured by some guiding text. What should that guiding text say? And where should that text link to for further guidance? CMs can support as needed (for example, creating a new help center page that mods can manage). Developers will need to modify the text and links when it’s time to update those.
Do the remaining closure options make sense? Should some be updated, or removed? What’s possible right now:
For now, these options must be the same for all questions; no variation based on specific tags. If conversations produce a desire to have different options for traditional and open-ended questions, or different options for each specialized open-ended question tag, we’ll discuss the specific needs with you and evaluate those requests as they arise.
The reasons or their descriptions in the first level menu (primary close reasons) can be modified by developers if needed.
As some of you know, CMs and moderators can manage the options in the second level menu (community-based reasons) as needed, which includes adding new options. We’ll need to ask developers to do any placement or changes to obscuring messages. We’d prefer to obscure a reason for a while before removing it, to ease any transitions.
Does “on-topic” mean something different for open-ended questions? Let’s not pretend that there’s ever been universal consensus about the boundary of “about programming or software development”. What does it mean to remain true to the spirit of the site’s focus while allowing for more types of questions?
In a world with more open-ended questions, should duplicates be handled differently?
What automated processes need to be adjusted, reconsidered or stopped?
Spevacus, JNat, and Frog will be starting some conversations on these topics, but we encourage you to start some on your own as well.
These are just some starter ideas. Most of these topics have been written about extensively. Let’s pull from and reference those older conversations, but let’s not rely on years-old words to do the work for us – instead, we invite you to consider them critically in light of the current landscape, and whether they stand to scrutiny given the direction set above. Make new posts that focus on the current challenges and what the future can be.
If someone wants to keep a list of relevant NEW conversations somewhere, feel free to add that to the bottom of this post. Or use other methods to keep those discoverable. Perhaps they could be organized with some new tags.
Please post feedback for this post as answers, to better facilitate discussion.
