Make the FAQ clear on how a question can be reopened

Question

What the FAQ says ...

Okay, so let's imagine I'm completely new to the site, and I have a question closed. However, I think my question is perfectly valid, or I'm totally confused about why that even happened. Nobody cared to write a comment about why it was closed.

I start thinking about it, and I'll try to read the FAQ. Here's what I read:

Questions that are not a good fit for this site may be voted closed by experienced community members. Closed questions cannot be answered, but are eligible for improvement (and eventual re-opening) through editing, voting, and commenting.

Users with 3000 reputation can cast up to 50 close votes per day. When a question reaches 5 close votes, it is marked as closed, and will no longer accept answers. Closed questions may be opened by casting reopen votes in the same manner. However, you may only vote to close or reopen a question once.

To a new member of the site, this may seem

• overly detailed: The reader might ask, "What do I care if members with reputation over 3k can cast 50 close votes a day?".

• missing details: The FAQ says, "may be voted closed by experienced community members" and "when a question reaches 5 close votes". This is not always true. In some cases, the question can be closed by a moderator only. From my experience, some moderators are more likely to intervene, while others only step in if there are already some community votes. As the FAQ doesn't even mention that at all, it's confusing.

• missing guidelines: My question has been closed. Now what? In some cases, the moderator who closed (or one of the five >3k users) might not have even left a comment. The message points to the FAQ, but the FAQ says only little about how one would go and get the question reopened.
  Should the user edit? What should they edit? "Voting"? How? "Commenting"? Should the user start pinging every user who voted to close?

Obviously, there are too many open questions here.

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Example

Original question is closed by one binding moderator vote. User posts a new question and says:

the other one was closed because "this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion." So I rephrased it.

They didn't know they had to edit their old question and what to do exactly to have it reopened. The procedure of having a question reopened is clearly insufficiently addressed in the Stack Exchange network's FAQs.

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Suggestion

This part of the FAQ should include more information. Here are a few ideas I came up with initially, but go ahead and suggest changes if you like!

As @YannisRizos mentions, it would also make perfect sense to create new page similar to the "How to Ask" and "How to Answer" pages that the "closed" message would then link to, instead of just extending the FAQ for this very special case.

Either way, this is what I think it should look like:

What can I do to get my question reopened?

Carefully read the message below your question. The text should explain why it was closed and point you to the FAQ. In order to have it reopened, you will have to edit your question to meet the standards outlined there. Take into account any constructive comments you received, and read the How to Ask guide.

Once you edited the question accordingly, you may use the "flag" link to inform a moderator about your changes.

They will judge if the question is worth reopening. Similarly, users with 3000 reputation can cast a "reopen" vote, which behave the same as close votes.

You can also visit Meta to post a "reopen request".

What should I not do?

Do not post the question again. Chances are it will be closed too, and also possibly deleted. You always need to fix your closed question first.

Answer 1

Problem: People don't pay attention:

The problem is that users who post questions that end up being closed are likely not paying attention. They manage to get through every single barrier and/or guide-rail that the system puts in front of them, and they still post a bad question.

Let's postpone the debate for a moment about whether or not users should read. Let's just assume we want to fix the problem, and to do this, we have to think like a new user. ;)

The first thing these users see when their question is closed is this really big banner with big text that says the following:

closed as not constructive

Sure, there's text below it that says the question can still be reopened, and there's a link to the FAQ, but this really large text on the post notice drowns out the information that's more important. Remember, most new users aren't paying attention. In short, the large text "closed" implies a bit more permanence, whether or not this was intended or not.

In many forums, a post is closed after a certain amount of time, and closed forum posts rarely, if ever, get reopened. In the forum world, "closed" means "this is done; it's finished", whereas on Stack Exchange, we've redefined closed to mean something that is a bit more temporary.

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Question "Review" Queue:

Someone said before that closing a question is analogous to the moderator review queues that some forums have before you can post. Google Groups is like this. Before I could post on the WebRTC group, my first post had to be approved. If what I wrote had something wrong with it, then it wasn't going to be posted. Most people get this, but on Stack Exchange, things are done differently, and people that haven't been exposed to it face a bit of a learning curve.

So, if a closed question is really analogous to being pushed into a review queue, so to speak, then let's change the language so that it makes more sense to someone who is new to Stack Exchange. Unless there's going to be a Stack Exchange school or course that users must go through, we're always going to face people who haven't fully understood the process before posting. Here is a proposed post notice for closed questions, one that highlights solutions:

Question Needs Improvement

This question is not constructive. Want to fix it? Learn more...

When the question is closed, only show the above in the post notice. Don't show any more information. Less is more. The "Want to fix it" link should work very similar to the "expand" links in the FAQ. If the user decides to fix the post, and he/she clicks "Want to fix it", then expand a small section with the remaining post notice:

This question can be edited and fixed, based on feedback from the community. Review the comments left by experienced users, and make sure you address those points via [edits] to your post.

As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, and you need more guidance, see the FAQ.

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Simpler Solution:

At the very least, if adding an expansion to the post notice isn't a good idea, then at least reword what's on the post notice so that the action items come first:

temporarily closed as not constructive

If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, see the FAQ. However, as it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion.

Answer 2

The help center article titled "What if I disagree with the closure of a question? How can I reopen it?" now goes into more detail than the old FAQ entry did. It does not explicitly instruct users to flag their revised posts for moderator attention, as that's not necessary a lot of times (especially now that any substantial edit places a closed question in a review queue to be considered for reopening), but there's more information about how and why a question might be closed, as well as some more specific guidance on what to do about it.

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As I mentioned in an answer to a different question about closing, this is a problem that we're aware of and working on. We're exploring our options and trying to come up with a solution that will be clear, easy, and useful; the problem is not quite as simple as your question makes it seem. Sure, we could just add more text to the already long FAQ section...but honestly, very, very few people ever read the faq, even if they have a specific problem that could be solved by reading it.

This is a twofold problem:

1. We need to find a better way to encourage users who vote to close to leave a helpful comment explaining exactly why the question is a bad fit for SE (which part of the scope does it violate, how is it too localized, etc.), and
2. We need to motivate users whose questions are closed to come back and improve them when possible.

The latter is pretty difficult issue; if a question is closed, it's often because the asker isn't familiar with the scope of the site, or they mistake SE for a general forum (ask questions that don't fit our format). For those users, do we first try to teach them how to get their question reopened and then hope that they'll read another page about what questions are on- and off-topic, or do we try to get them to understand the scope of the site and the SE philosophy before telling them how to possibly get their question reopened? They're both really important goals, but most people will not care enough to get through two separate tutorials/walk-throughs.

Your proposed FAQ changes aren't bad, but you fall into your own complaint of it being "overly detailed". Jeff's points about the wall of text and encouraging whining remain valid. Additionally, the part about "do not post your question again" isn't really necessary; if someone posts a question that is identical to one that they previously posted and was closed, it should come as no surprise that the question is closed a second time. If the question is posted in a new, better form, though, that's totally fine - closed questions are supposed to be deleted eventually anyway, so this shouldn't cause too much clutter.

I appreciate you bringing this issue to our attention again; it is definitely a part of the user experience that needs improvement. Unfortunately, I cannot promise you an immediate, concrete solution, but I can tell you that it's being discussed and we hope to fix it soon.

Answer 3

I appreciate what you're proposing here, but I feel this would make the problem worse, not better.

First, the existing text does cover this:

Questions that are not a good fit for this site may be voted closed by experienced community members. Closed questions cannot be answered, but are eligible for improvement (and eventual re-opening) through editing, voting, and commenting.

What you wrote isn't bad, but it has two problems.

1. It is a "wall o' text". If the user can't read and comprehend the above simple sentence, the odds of them reading and comprehending 3+ paragraphs more, is slim to none.

2. It enables whining. Because it starts with "my question is valid" and goes on to say "your question might have been unfairly closed! here's how you can complain about it to anyone who will listen!" it will cause no end of friction. The reality is that most questions are closed because they were NOT, in fact, valid. So getting users into this "I done been wronged!" mindset is a very bad idea.

I am open to some refinement of the text that is there, but

1. No walls of text.

2. No whining or enabling whining.

Here's my proposed change:

Questions that are not a good fit for this site may be voted closed by experienced community members. Closed questions cannot be answered, but are eligible for improvement (and eventual re-opening) through editing, voting, and commenting. See How to Ask for guidance on editing your question to improve it.