Please close the mega topics (ternary and companion objects)

There’re two long topics discussing language features that I propose should be closed.

I believe these topics should be closed for the following reasons:

The topics are so long that good posts are lost in the noise

There have been several good posts and discussions on these topics but those posts are lost in the mountain of replies petitioning for/against the feature being discussed or replies restating points made earlier in the topic. Unlike Reddit, good posts don’t float to the top.

The topics aren’t ending naturally

These topics are interesting and people will have an opinion on them. This is great until the topic becomes a place to petition for/against a position. Even though everything has been said, another user will come in support/against the feature of discussion without communicating anything new.

The topics are at risk of becoming toxic

A portion of the posts speaks to why the another person’s opinion is invalid because of ignorance or their position, or posts that completely ignore the comments of the other person’s opinion to restate their own position.


Some benefits for closing these topics:

Specific questions of the features could start fresh without a year’s worth of posts

Closing the topics would force those with specific questions to start new topics. Replies could be directed to their specific use-case instead of to a large, year-long discussion. With smaller direct threads, we could avoid introducing the same points several times over again that might not relate to their question or idea.

The topics could not be persisted by a small group of users.

Currently, a single person can keep the thread alive or push it away from good discussion points. Since these topics have become the primary place to discuss these features, a small group of users is able to throw off the conversation for everyone.
If this were Reddit, we could upvote/downvote the topic to healthy discussion.

Closing the topic would preserve the good discussion made on these topics

Closing the topics to new replies preserves the valuable replies made hidden within deep within the topics and would hopefully stop the cycle of aggressive petitioning without providing new information. As the topics continue to grow, the good points become harder to find.

What do you guys think?
Is there a reason for closing the topics I missed? Should we move these topics to Reddit? Or instead, should leave these topics open for another year of quasi-voting on their issues?

13 Likes

+1

-1

I partly agree.
The main problem of those topics is that arguments are repeated and the same counterarguments are given all the time.

I think their should be a summary at the end of those topics and only when you state something others than stated in the summary you should be allowed to post it.
Do the posts should not be closed, but be moderated.

The problem however is that this means that moderators need to become a kind of cops and the moderation will take much more time and effort.
Maybe that’s also the reason why these posts are this massive?

4 Likes

Also in case of those 2 topics finding someone without a bias is kinda hard :smiley:

When I visited theses topics the last time, I thought that everything has already been said and that we are now in an endless repetition.

When I visit this topic, I think that everything has already been said and that we are now in an endless repetition.

Close the never ending stories PLEASE?
As far as I can tell, Kotlin as a language improves over Java, but community…

I believe this thread is going to be referenced from another thread, asking to close it. :wink:

What with about a dozen answers here? I don’t think you have read through one of the mega threads, this one is not even close to them. And we are not yet arguing the same point over and over again, because someone new comes and replies without reading everything, not that I would want to read those threads again from the beginning :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

1 Like

Thank you, we have decided to close the two topics.

2 Likes

Please close https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/t/kotlin-to-support-package-protected-visibility/1544/87 as well.

2 Likes