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I'm very much of the opinion that the most commonly used selections in any list should be the most prominent and fastest / easiest to select. Somewhat related to Fitts's Law.

Now, this is an assumption, but I believe that the 'This question does not appear to be about the software that powers the Stack Exchange network, within the scope defined in the help center' reason is the most used on Meta Stack Exchange, yet it's buried down at the 4th of 5 reasons in the modal.

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This increase the amount of time it takes me to find and select it. I'm a busy man, I have things to do. However I also use this close reason quite a lot so there is probably a cumulative time benefit to making this reason easier and faster to select. Time is money, people!

I suggest moving this close reason to the top of the list.

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    Yep, let's have this implemented. The only thing I have to deal with is waste 30 more seconds every time until I realize I'm looking at the wrong place and the close reason is now at the top.
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 10:22
  • Yes, there will be a transitional period I guess. But I'm sure we'll get past that. Having said that; a few years ago I did change around the cupboards that I keep my mugs in vs the glasses at home and even though I grab one nearly every day I still regularly open the wrong cupboard. (That may be more about me than the implementation though).
    – JonW
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 10:40
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    True. The ideal order IMO is: "This question does not appear to be about SE...", "...pertains to a specific site...", "...does not appear to seek input", "...can no longer be reproduced", and "Other" still in the end though it might be used more than others.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 12:26
  • Not sure why someone voted to close this as no-repro. It got fixed, not rendered irrelevant.
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Commented May 7, 2018 at 9:09

3 Answers 3

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We used to put the "most common" generic entry at the top until we found that it wasn't particularly helpful.

That last choice is the catch-all "it just doesn't fit" response when nothing else seems to fit. But if you put the most generic entry first, people much less likely to check if there's a better match most of the time.

When someone takes time to create a post, we should provide best possible feedback why their efforts did not work. There are much more detailed, helpful reasons to close a post, but folks aren't generally going to read every single entry to see which fits best. Folks have a tendency to start at the top of the list and scan down to the FIRST answer that seems to work — so if you don't put the more-detailed selections at the top, they never get used.

That is just human nature.

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  • This is a fair point, but is is definitely the case here, or just an assumption? It takes a certain degree of reputation before someone has the ability to close, so they will have some degree of commitment to the site before they start closing. I would be interested to see if the first reason really is chosen more often (as it is, the first reason is pretty open to interpretation anyway - does that get selected often, and inappropriately?)
    – JonW
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 13:27
  • This might be true for ordinary sites, but I don't agree this is true here on MSE. I believe people here pay more attention when closing, and won't fall for the "hit the first reason". Fact is, dozens of questions get closed every day here for that last reason, without mistakes. (Following your logic, those off topic questions would have been closed as "does not appear to seek input and discussion".)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 13:32
  • That has not been our experience. We switched over to this format a long time ago.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 13:34
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    Some AB testing perhaps? Serve up 50% of users with the current order and 50% with an alternative order and see which one gives the most false-positives. (I love tests you see).
    – JonW
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 13:36
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    @JonW I can't speak for the devs, but I would not recreate a problem we fixed long ago just to measure how much worse it was back then. When someone takes time to write a post, we should provide best possible feedback why their efforts did not work. Fitt's Law says we can move that mouse just a bit less far, but this feature-suggestion optimizes for the least amount of consideration/reading to close a post. Closing a post should take a bit more consideration; we want to optimize for that. You may not agree with the priority; I'm just clarifying why it was done.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 13:52
  • I'm really only concerned with giving the best experience to everyone; closers and posters. If you say that people were closing thing incorrectly until the current reasons were implemented then yes, that's fine. I agree that giving people the wrong reason for closure is a poor experience and trumps my laziness for selecting items in a list. I just wondered if theres a way to keep everyone happy.
    – JonW
    Commented Aug 22, 2016 at 14:05
  • In a way, we've already done A/B testing. MSO has the option at the top, as you can see in my answer. Why is that?
    – Laurel
    Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 22:14
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I think that we should reorder the close reasons to be more consistent network-wide. For example, look at MSO:

At MSO, the close dialog has the reason you wanted in a different place, at the top.

My suggestion is use the MSO ordering, and move the "specific site" reason to be first or right above "other" on the list. This will make it consistent with other metas that have this menu:

One choice

It's a bit confusing to have to search for the option that is always right at the top on all the other metas.

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As of March 2018, along with this change to another off-topic close reason, this is now .

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    Well the reason in for the re-order is basically the opposite of what’s being asked here though (as per Shog’s reply to you)
    – Cai
    Commented May 7, 2018 at 11:18

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