One of the main arguments against keeping old, fun posts in a locked state is that they create broken windows, which serve as an advertisement for the types of questions which are acceptable—notwithstanding the historical notice stating the opposite. I've never found that argument convincing, but I certainly wouldn't want to encourage behavior that makes Stack Overflow worse, so I'd honestly, sincerely, without any trolling like to ask those that do believe this to drop the hammer on me.

If this claim is true, I would expect Meta to be rife with posts from indignant users claiming that their question was closed, while that "weird programming feature" question over there exists. I would think coming up with about two dozen such meta posts from the last 6 months would be trivial; surely this problem is big enough to manifest itself at least once per week.

To be clear, I've seen Meta pages filled with posts containing "why question closed". I know plenty of questions get closed, and plenty of people complain. I'm talking about people specifically complaining that "old junk exists, so my new junk should, too".

Finally, let's not waste time digging through all the closed Stack Overflow questions looking for stuff that seems similar to these purported broken windows. There are tons of junk questions that come into the front door of Stack Overflow every day. This junk comes in many flavors: here's a wall of code, now find my error; here are my program requirements, now someone write it; spam; and, of course, non-constructive crap that might look similar to some of the old favorites. But just because some old junk questions exist, and some new junk questions get asked, doesn't mean the former caused the latter—post hoc ergo propter hoc.

No more rhetoric, no more arguments, no more anger. Just data.

EDIT

There's been a bit of confusion as to what I'm asking above, and it seems I could have been a bit clearer. A lot of answers and comments below deal with open questions on Stack Overflow and Programmers.SE creating broken windows, with one answer even quoting me to show how keeping questions open and active can create broken windows. The people writing these answers are correct; keeping off-topic questions open and active does indeed cause these problems.

This question is intended to ask whether broken windows would be created by keeping questions like the strangest language feature closed and locked, delisted from "top question" pages, and with a big bright prominent banner proclaiming to all that the question exists for historical purposes only, and is not a good example of an on-topic question.

So the bottom line is, I was wondering just how many meta threads there were asking "why can't I ask X when Y exists" Where Y was locked at the time of asking (which would likely be reflected in the answers).

One of the main arguments against keeping old, fun posts in a locked state is that they create broken windows, which serve as an advertisement for the types of questions which are acceptable—notwithstanding the historical notice stating the opposite. I've never found that argument convincing, but I certainly wouldn't want to encourage behavior that makes Stack Overflow worse, so I'd honestly, sincerely, without any trolling like to ask those that do believe this to drop the hammer on me.

If this claim is true, I would expect Meta to be rife with posts from indignant users claiming that their question was closed, while that "weird programming feature" question over there exists. I would think coming up with about two dozen such meta posts from the last 6 months would be trivial; surely this problem is big enough to manifest itself at least once per week.

To be clear, I've seen Meta pages filled with posts containing "why question closed". I know plenty of questions get closed, and plenty of people complain. I'm talking about people specifically complaining that "old junk exists, so my new junk should, too".

Finally, let's not waste time digging through all the closed Stack Overflow questions looking for stuff that seems similar to these purported broken windows. There are tons of junk questions that come into the front door of Stack Overflow every day. This junk comes in many flavors: here's a wall of code, now find my error; here are my program requirements, now someone write it; spam; and, of course, non-constructive crap that might look similar to some of the old favorites. But just because some old junk questions exist, and some new junk questions get asked, doesn't mean the former caused the latter—post hoc ergo propter hoc.

No more rhetoric, no more arguments, no more anger. Just data.

EDIT

There's been a bit of confusion as to what I'm asking above, and it seems I could have been a bit clearer. A lot of answers and comments below deal with open questions on Stack Overflow and Programmers.SE creating broken windows, with one answer even quoting me to show how keeping questions open and active can create broken windows. The people writing these answers are correct; keeping off-topic questions open and active does indeed cause these problems.

This question is intended to ask whether broken windows would be created by keeping questions like the strangest language feature closed and locked, delisted from "top question" pages, and with a big bright prominent banner proclaiming to all that the question exists for historical purposes only, and is not a good example of an on-topic question.

So the bottom line is, I was wondering just how many meta threads there were asking "why can't I ask X when Y exists" Where Y was locked at the time of asking (which would likely be reflected in the answers).

One of the main arguments against keeping old, fun posts in a locked state is that they create broken windows, which serve as an advertisement for the types of questions which are acceptable—notwithstanding the historical notice stating the opposite. I've never found that argument convincing, but I certainly wouldn't want to encourage behavior that makes Stack Overflow worse, so I'd honestly, sincerely, without any trolling like to ask those that do believe this to drop a Kevin Montrose-style science hammer on me.

If this claim is true, I would expect Meta to be rife with posts from indignant users claiming that their question was closed, while that "weird programming feature" question over there exists. I would think coming up with about two dozen such meta posts from the last 6 months would be trivial; surely this problem is big enough to manifest itself at least once per week.

To be clear, I've seen Meta pages filled with posts containing "why question closed". I know plenty of questions get closed, and plenty of people complain. I'm talking about people specifically complaining that "old junk exists, so my new junk should, too".

Finally, let's not waste time digging through all the closed Stack Overflow questions looking for stuff that seems similar to these purported broken windows. There are tons of junk questions that come into the front door of Stack Overflow every day. This junk comes in many flavors: here's a wall of code, now find my error; here are my program requirements, now someone write it; spam; and, of course, non-constructive crap that might look similar to some of the old favorites. But just because some old junk questions exist, and some new junk questions get asked, doesn't mean the former caused the latter—post hoc ergo propter hoc.

No more rhetoric, no more arguments, no more anger. Just data.

EDIT

There's been a bit of confusion as to what I'm asking above, and it seems I could have been a bit clearer. A lot of answers and comments below deal with open questions on Stack Overflow and Programmers.SE creating broken windows, with one answer even quoting me to show how keeping questions open and active can create broken windows. The people writing these answers are correct; keeping off-topic questions open and active does indeed cause these problems.

This question is intended to ask whether broken windows would be created by keeping questions like the strangest language feature closed and locked, delisted from "top question" pages, and with a big bright prominent banner proclaiming to all that the question exists for historical purposes only, and is not a good example of an on-topic question.

So the bottom line is, I was wondering just how many meta threads there were asking "why can't I ask X when Y exists" Where Y was locked at the time of asking (which would likely be reflected in the answers).

One of the main arguments against keeping old, fun posts in a locked state is that they create broken windows, which serve as an advertisement for the types of questions which are acceptable—notwithstanding the historical notice stating the opposite. I've never found that argument convincing, but I certainly wouldn't want to encourage behavior that makes Stack Overflow worse, so I'd honestly, sincerely, without any trolling like to ask those that do believe this to drop the hammer on me.

If this claim is true, I would expect Meta to be rife with posts from indignant users claiming that their question was closed, while that "weird programming feature" question over there exists. I would think coming up with about two dozen such meta posts from the last 6 months would be trivial; surely this problem is big enough to manifest itself at least once per week.

To be clear, I've seen Meta pages filled with posts containing "why question closed". I know plenty of questions get closed, and plenty of people complain. I'm talking about people specifically complaining that "old junk exists, so my new junk should, too".

Finally, let's not waste time digging through all the closed Stack Overflow questions looking for stuff that seems similar to these purported broken windows. There are tons of junk questions that come into the front door of Stack Overflow every day. This junk comes in many flavors: here's a wall of code, now find my error; here are my program requirements, now someone write it; spam; and, of course, non-constructive crap that might look similar to some of the old favorites. But just because some old junk questions exist, and some new junk questions get asked, doesn't mean the former caused the latter—post hoc ergo propter hoc.

No more rhetoric, no more arguments, no more anger. Just data.

EDIT

There's been a bit of confusion as to what I'm asking above, and it seems I could have been a bit clearer. A lot of answers and comments below deal with open questions on Stack Overflow and Programmers.SE creating broken windows, with one answer even quoting me to show how keeping questions open and active can create broken windows. The people writing these answers are correct; keeping off-topic questions open and active does indeed cause these problems.

This question is intended to ask whether broken windows would be created by keeping questions like the strangest language feature closed and locked, delisted from "top question" pages, and with a big bright prominent banner proclaiming to all that the question exists for historical purposes only, and is not a good example of an on-topic question.

So the bottom line is, I was wondering just how many meta threads there were asking "why can't I ask X when Y exists" Where Y was locked at the time of asking (which would likely be reflected in the answers).