Is this question about code reviews on topic? If not, why?

Question

The question What is best practice when running code reviews (formerly How can I tactfully suggest improvements to review others' badly designed code during review?) seems to have been closed about a year ago for being off topic. The question was originally asked in 2011 and has a number of useful answers (including one from yours truly), and has been viewed over 8000 times. It's somewhat subjective, but also pretty well focused.

The question relates to how to criticize code when reviewing it, presumably without ruffling too many of the author's feathers or looking like a prima donna. Critiquing other people's work isn't unique to software engineering, but it's certainly an essential part of any serious software engineering process, and the answers already given are fairly specific to software.

Am I wrong to think this question is on topic and should be reopened? If so, a more definite statement about why it's off topic would be very helpful.

PS: I think the previous title was more descriptive and I'm not crazy about the recent title change, but I think the editor was trying to get the question back on-topic.

• gnat: Possible duplicate of How do I ask a "Best Practices" question?
• Caleb: @gnat I don't think "best practices" was the intent of the question -- it wasn't part of the title until 5 or 6 hours ago.
• gnat: oh my what a destructive edit in rev 5. Hardly did any positive impact on topicality but broke a previous accurate title

Answer 1

I reverted the title to a more appropriate title, deleted all negatively scored answers, and reopened the question. It's on the edge of being too broad / primarily opinion based, but there's also some good content.