Is the "not constructive" close reason appropriate for meta?

Question

The text of the "not constructive" close reason reads:

This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion.

But discussion is on-topic for meta (isn't it?)! discussion is one of the your-question-must-have-one-of-this-set tags! There aren't necessarily any 'facts' or 'specific expertise' about what's talked about in meta questions. Meta wants "opinion, debate, arguments"

And so on.

So I would suggest that this close reason is out of place for meta; at the very least, it needs its text changed.

Answer 1

I think that close reason is extremely appropriate for Meta. "not constructive" to me reads as "this isn't going anywhere". Maybe the description isn't 100% accurate, but the title "not constructive", and the general sentiment of that close reason, hits the nail on the head for quite a few closed posts here on Meta.

Any discussion on Meta should still be constructive, it should be going somewhere, it should have a point.

^{Or at least freehand circles.}

Answer 2

Here's some history: on 7 May 2010, the close reason "not a real question" was replaced by "noise or pointless". Then on 15 June 2011, "noise or pointless" was decommissioned and folded together with "subjective and argumentative" into the new "not constructive" close reason, which exists both on the main and the meta sites.

It seems that this was done to make the close reasons more consistent across the sites, but I agree that Meta is quite different from the main site, so other close reasons would be quite OK in my opinion. I just don't think we want to keep changing the close reasons all the time ...

Answer 3

I have usually seen the "Not constructive" close reason applied to posts that caused a flame war. While discussion is generally on-topic for Meta, I think that heated arguments are not. One possible way to rephrase the description is as follows.

This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion of an unprofessional nature.

Answer 4

The first part of the description would be fine, except when it says, "specific expertise." The part that says, "this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion" doesn't seems to suit a meta site, except when it says extended discussion. (Although, I don't see when a discussion would be called extended.)

The part that says, "we expect answers to generally involve facts" would not apply to https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/107074/50-seconds-fastest-close-ever (the link is for 10k users on Meta Stack Overflow) as the question involves facts, and the eventual answers would involve facts too; still such questions are pointless, even if they involve facts.

It seems that OP of this question invented the fastest way how to get -8 votes and get closed - all this happened within 50 seconds! The downvotes were mostly because it was originally written in all-caps.

As the question is pointless, it can considered "not constructive."

Maybe the description of that closing reason can be changed to better suit a meta site, but I think that "not constructive" is generally understood, on a meta site. (I have never seen a question closed as not constructive, when it was.)