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Given the changes that have been rolled out on Meta for the new close hold reasons, we've lost "too localized" here on meta.

However, "too localized" has a genuine use on meta (which is part change management system) to indicate those things which are truly obsolete (as evidenced by the text of the old close reason "refers to a specific point in time").

That said, there are things that are obsolete on meta, but we have no way of indicating that other than an "off topic" closure, which really sends the wrong message.

To mitigate that, I'd like a status-obsolete tag for meta sites which meta diamonds can apply to posts that have been made obsolete by other changes that were made to the system afterward.

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    If this gets implemented, would we tag it with status-completed or status-obsolete?
    – Oded
    Jun 21, 2013 at 12:17
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    @Oded This gets status-completed because it was work that was done. If the feature request is never done, and will not be done because other work renders the feature request obsolete, then it gets status-obsolete.
    – casperOne
    Jun 21, 2013 at 12:18
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    For example if the whole system of tags is removed
    – Richard Tingle
    Jun 21, 2013 at 12:28
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    You went through all the accept rate feature requests tagging them status-declined and commenting why. Is there a difference between this request and that action? FWIW I would prefer the community having some power to do this as there are a lot more of us to find the questions that deserve this and flagging them all seems a little harsh on the mods.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Jun 21, 2013 at 12:30
  • @ben: Compared to what happens on SO I'd say this is fairly light on us. We get no more than 20 flags sitting in the queue at any moment in time here.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    Jun 21, 2013 at 12:33
  • @RichardTingle I'm not as against that as you might think.
    – casperOne
    Jun 21, 2013 at 12:47
  • @benisuǝqbackwards Well, that action required a lot more work on my part, I had to tag the question, the comment was a nicety. That said, if I'm forced to comment because the current close reason is inadequate, then there's something wrong.
    – casperOne
    Jun 21, 2013 at 12:49
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    Bring "Too Localized" back.
    – Travis J
    Jun 21, 2013 at 13:21
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    Could we not change the third offtopic reason just slightly; it's very close to what you'd need in most cases, as it is saying that the question is now obsolete, it's just not worded well for feature requests. Perhaps changing "problem" to "issue" would generalize it enough to work here?
    – Servy
    Jun 21, 2013 at 15:17
  • @Servy I think stamping "off topic" for this reason is absolutely the wrong message. It's not off topic. Off topic is quickly going to become the new NAA
    – casperOne
    Jun 21, 2013 at 18:55
  • This is a poor idea, it's good as it is.
    – Cole
    Apr 18, 2016 at 18:38

3 Answers 3

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Hmm.

If this were solely a Meta problem, you're right that there are really two logical solutions today:

  • It could be done with tags, just as you suggested, or...
  • it could be put as a custom OT reason, since that's where things that are site-specific now live.

But as you point out, the problem with the second one is there's already been some concern that "Off-Topic" isn't a totally intuitive name for some site-specific reasons.

And "was totally on topic but is no longer relevant" strains it a lot farther than the other examples we've seen raised. (Side note - that's one of the pieces of feedback we're watching carefully as we roll this out more broadly; if it seems like re-naming those to something else will work better, we'll consider it.)

But I think this idea may be relevant to a broader group of sites

Many of the specific concerns with the loss of "too localized" seem to be circling around questions that might be captured under something like "no longer relevant", as they've been obviated by changes in the outside world, they wound up being about something trivial like a typo that's been found, etc.

Now, we're not going to start tacking on even more new close reasons quite yet. We want to watch and listen for a while first, but we are hearing some pretty reasonable concerns raised. A reason like might address a lot of them, so we're going to see what else we learn from the broader rollout to ensure we have the complete picture, and go from there..

Given that, I'd be reluctant to create a formal status tag now that we'd want to educate folks on, etc, since we know we want to look at this issue for potentially more comprehensive solutions.

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    Thanks for listening, irrespective of what happens.
    – AndrewC
    Jun 21, 2013 at 19:37
  • Related suggestions: Close reason Obsolete and more detailed suggestion to rename Off Topic.
    – AndrewC
    Jun 21, 2013 at 19:37
  • I know you're looking at a lot of data for this, but if it helps, I went through fourteen of the undeleted Too Localized questions on JLU and found that five of them would benefit from a "no longer relevant" reason, which is enough to tie with our other custom off-topic reason in terms of usage. Small numbers, but it's a smaller traffic site than SO. We also aren't fully happy with the "off-topic" classification for them because they are technically on topic, just not useful.
    – Troyen
    Jun 21, 2013 at 19:57
  • @troyen, that's really helpful. We're going to see what we learn after the rollout this week, but info like that will inform what, if anything we add or tweak in the weeks ahead!
    – Jaydles
    Jun 24, 2013 at 14:02
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Ironically, the developer answer to this question is:

Now, we're not going to start tacking on even more new close reasons quite yet. We want to watch and listen for a while first, but we are hearing some pretty reasonable concerns raised.

This was two years ago. Recently, I had a conversation in a site specific meta site that was confused by this post: New reason for closing: Insufficient Effort

Obviously a lot has happened since then. It would be best if questions like that one could be retagged to [status:obsolete], since clearly Jeff Atwood's answer of:

Based on this feedback I modified the description text for "not a real question" to

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form.

Is flat out not the case anymore - though it was the case in 2010.

I don't think there's any need to have to

Given that, I'd be reluctant to create a formal status tag now that we'd want to educate folks on, etc, since we know we want to look at this issue for potentially more comprehensive solutions.

It's a moderator-only-tag. People know what means, and quite frankly it's confusing as it is. Users can't create a , and if anyone can't figure out what it means, we can have a tag wiki for it obviously.

For me, the bottom line is this: having a custom close reason may have consequences of some sort (do we actually want these old questions closed?), but having a new moderator only tag can only help to add clarity to these old questions and certainly won't subtract clarity.

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What about some synonyms:

Possible tag description:

This tag indicates the post is no longer of consequence but is of historical significance. If you don't want to see archived results from your search, be sure to exclude the from your search results.

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  • [status-no-longer-relevant] is just a mouthful :)
    – Luke_0
    Jun 27, 2013 at 1:59

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