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So I had my question closed within eight minutes of asking.

Is this a little fast? Not only do I object to the reason it was closed (not a real question, come on I'm asking for decent books!), but it was closed insanely fast. Should there be a grace period for questions (diamond mods exempt if so) before they can be voted on to be closed?

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16
  • 13
    A little fast? No, most are closed in under three.
    – nb69307
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 18:31
  • Needs CW, for sure.
    – Jon Seigel
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 18:32
  • 8
    I'm not going to vote to reopen until the questions sounds like less of a joke. Also, it's a rep whoring question with tons of duplicates
    – Earlz
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 18:32
  • 11
    I don't mind that particular question, but I'd be strongly opposed to a grace period where questions can't be voted closed by the community.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 18:34
  • 2
    Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/48102/…
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 18:35
  • @Bill: It's trying to guess intent, but "not a real question" was not the correct reason to close it. I can understand the large amount of questions that simply must be closed, but I've seen improperly formatted text-vomit closed slower then this.
    – Josh K
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 18:41
  • 4
    @Josh K: I agree that wasn't the right reason. I would have leaned toward "exact duplicate" since books for each of those topics has been covered.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 18:46
  • 2
    I wonder if search engines do (or could) handle closed questions differently. (Like: if SOFU sets some no-index flag to closed questions.) Google always seems to pick up new question very soon, so if indexing is different for closed questions, then that is yet another good reason to close as soon as possible.
    – Arjan
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 19:16
  • 3
    ++ for @Bill. @Josh, this type of question has been asked time and time again - likely why it was closed. You ought to be able to read the top results from a couple other questions to get a nice list of books to purchase.
    – Sampson
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 19:26
  • 1
    The question is just too broad, narrow it down to one topic (first checking for dupes).
    – Lance Roberts
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 19:37
  • And make it Community Wiki.
    – Pekka
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 20:12
  • See: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/10890/…
    – Shog9
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 20:22
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    @Arjan: that would defeat the purpose of leaving undeleted closed questions around. The idea is to help Google users find the canonical question (and as a consequence, answer), regardless of the many different wordings there might come up with.
    – perbert
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 20:23
  • Thanks for linking to that question. I've added it to my bookmarks folder for questions to delete when the two day grace period has expired.
    – Ether
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 20:24
  • @voyager, ah, you're totally right (at least for duplicate questions, and I guess it's one system for all).
    – Arjan
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 20:30

4 Answers 4

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The sooner, the better:

  • It avoids new users (who are not too familiar with the sites yet) waste time on answering off-topic questions.

  • It avoids answers of duplicate questions being spread among multiple questions, rather than being gathered at the original/master. It also avoids duplicate answers for duplicate questions.

  • It makes very clear to new users how things work.

  • It ensures that a changed (improved) re-opened question does not have unreleated early answers.

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  • 2
    I can't argue with any of those points because they are all importent, and I agree with them.
    – Josh K
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 18:55
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    You forgot: It makes for a seemingly hostile environment.
    – mxmissile
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 22:20
  • @mxmissile, that's indeed good to remember: closing needs an explanation, or some reference to such explanation (like the FAQ).
    – Arjan
    Commented Apr 30, 2010 at 22:22
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I agree with @Bill. "I don't mind that particular question, but I'd be strongly opposed to a grace period where questions can't be voted closed by the community."

Many users see a question when it first gets posted(and is on the front page). If we don't allow them to close right then, then over 90% of them are not going to wait or view the question after the grace period. This means that bad questions may stay open for a longer time for no real gain.

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3

The question you are asking here is about closing questions too fast, so I'll address that part only. I think this is a good thing. Spam, offensive posts, nonsense, etc, are closed rapidly by the community, and prevent the site from being cluttered and hard to use. I wouldn't want to do anything to hamper this - it's one of the best things about SO. A "grace period" would be pretty painful in the case of clearly objectionable posts.

If you have any objection concerning the fact that your question was closed, you can either edit it to improve, or ask a question on meta about why it was closed.

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-1

I thought it was a decent question and the comment about wanting to appear "hardcore" was funny.

Anyway, it got closed, and now, since you have -3 points, you are eligible for the "peer-pressure" badge should you choose to delete this question....

Every cloud has a silver-lining, eh?

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