Is there a policy for a moderator to fix a confusing or contradicting closing?

Question

People ask questions at all sites, and frequently some of the questions are closed by moderators. Moderators are not perfect and occasionally they leave unclear or contradicting closing information that confuses fixing. There is a clear policy to draw a moderator's attention.

If a moderator (user with a ♦ symbol after their name) closed the question, then you may flag it for moderator attention. Again, do this only after editing and include a detailed explanation of why it should be reopened. There is more than one moderator, and moderators do reconsider their decisions.

However, I find a grey area even after the author asking in a comment and its meta as the policy suggests. If a moderator still doesn't reply to it intentionally or unintentionally, then the author will have no choice to fix their question based on confusing information, and could fix wrongly.

For example, one moderator may leave contradicting messages like please narrowing it down in comments and send an off-topic closing private message. The narrowing-down's correct classification is require focus. It contradicts with off-topic.

This contradiction causes a real problem because

• Officially speaking, even one narrows it down as commented, a moderator can still close it down for being off topic because a closing message is private, but official, and a public comment is not.
• Publicly speaking, if one fixes the medical part as the closing message suggests, it can still be closed by a moderator for not fixing the narrowing-it-down part and no one knows it because it is a private message.

Both seem to lower down fixing quality for a user not knowing how to fix it exactly, and giving moderators too much power for allowing them leave a confusing closure without regulation, and no one can do anything about it. So, is there a policy if moderators still don't reply to a questionable closing even after author flagging, asking in a comment and meta as policy suggests?

Answer 1

Yes, I closed your question. As it originally read when I closed it, it seemed to be asking for evaluation of risks in bodybuilding. That can either fall under general health or massively broad.

From the help section on how to ask:

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.

Your question was not well received, but it did in fact get two good answers before it was brought to my attention for closure. These were ignored in favor of you accepting your own answer (downvoted several times and basically a compilation of links).

Yes, I did not respond immediately. I was away with my family for most of the weekend. I have responded on the site, and indicated much the same things that I have here. You are free to edit it, narrow it down and nominate it for reopening.

Answer 2

I am afraid the other answer is off topic for both irrelevant for not discussing if a policy exists and site-specific. My previous answer is deleted without explanation. I guess it is because off topic as it pertains to a specific site so I am going to try to change my scope to be less site-specific and provide a possible answer, and explain why I think this way.

The moderator in fact means other people could provide answers off-topic to medical, instead I get a clear message that my question is off topic to medical, which causes confusion and my previous fixing plan totally wrong and is an example of a unclear closure exists and is possible to happen at all site for even experience and reputation could occasionally not stop it in our case. Secondly, multiple reputational users here help guide me fix my question. We all fail to correctly guess what exactly is the moderator thinking about medical in our example.

It demonstrates truth for all sites that without a moderator answering it is difficult to fix a unclear closure. But as reputational users here suggest, after flagging, commenting, and it's meta, all I can do it wait. Some even suggest I cannot expect he will answer. But no one indicates a policy exists for a moderator not answering an unclear closure after drawing his attention.. They are experienced and reputational users. I am afraid these indicates for all sites there is no policy for it. The answer to the question is probably no. If a moderator doesn't answer and fix an unclear closure, so far there is no policy to guaranteed response. One has to either wait longer for a response that may not happen, or fix question based on unclear information.