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101 votes
22 answers
16k views

Improving the copy in the close modal and post notices – 2023 edition

Since we updated the close modal text and post notices a few years ago, I've known that there are concerns about whether they're sufficiently clear for users and whether they're giving the correct ...
-22 votes
3 answers
209 views

What is the purpose of the "needs details or clarity" closure reason? [duplicate]

What is the purpose of closing a question because it needs details or clarity? Example scenarios Scenario 1A The question does not have enough details to be answerable, and it is closed. It receives ...
6 votes
4 answers
439 views

JavaScript vs. jQuery, why wasn't this question closed? [closed]

Regarding Stack Overflow question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16472714/what-features-does-jquery-provide-that-arent-available-natively-in-the-browsers (now deleted): I guess I'm a little ...
30 votes
2 answers
436 views

Voting to close as "primarily opinion based" on Meta?

Why can questions on Meta be closed as primarily opinion based? Aren't the majority of the questions on Meta "primarily opinion based" and thus eligible for closure? I would guess the reason ...
-16 votes
2 answers
142 views

Should a question be closed without a discussion? [closed]

I recently posted a couple of questions in two stack communities (this one on physics and this one on skeptics) that have been closed, both deemed off topic. In one case (skeptics) it has been ...
90 votes
3 answers
868 views

Can we rename the off-topic close reason label on the primary screen?

When you click on the button to cast a close vote, you get a list of options: duplicate, off-topic, unclear, too broad, and primarily opinion based. These appear to be consistent across every site. ...
32 votes
3 answers
297 views

The newer close reasons don't account for questions that are too general and require lengthy answers

There are some questions that are incredibly broad. These used to be closed under the "too broad" reason, but that went away. These questions now fall right between two of the new categories: Needs ...
7 votes
1 answer
99 views

What to do when a question is close-worthy for a different reason? [duplicate]

Suppose I'm reviewing a question which has been edited after being closed. Significant changes have been made, and the result does not fit the original reason for closing the question. However, IMO it ...
6 votes
1 answer
64 views

When should I vote to close as "off-topic -> does not appear to seek input and discussion from the community" vs "unclear what you're asking"?

Two of the close reasons here on meta, "Off-topic -> This questions does not appear to seek input and discussion from the community" and "Unclear what you're asking", seem to mean essentially the same ...
-21 votes
2 answers
170 views

How to prevent privileged users from dumbing down a site? [closed]

Is there something that can be done to prevent curators from dumbing down a SE site? I've witnessed this behavior several times in the following forms 1: a user asks a question that is either not ...
-7 votes
1 answer
130 views

When and how should we close questions about deprecated or removed features here on MSE?

I noticed that here on MSE, there's an unofficial policy of closing questions, especially unanswered questions, about deprecated or removed features of Stack Exchange. From what I can tell, this has ...
1 vote
1 answer
66 views

Should questions without enough info, but a good + accepted answer, be deleted? [closed]

Example question (paraphrasing an answer on Stack Overflow): My website appears upside-down. Please fix it. LINK Example (and, theoretically, accepted) answer: I see that you applied transform: ...
2 votes
0 answers
48 views

I marked my question as duplicate but it was put on hold as too broad [duplicate]

I asked a question on StackOverflow and after some time I found a duplicate of my own question. I thought it would be fair to mark my own question as a duplicate and I did. However, my question was ...
3 votes
2 answers
79 views

Is "closer match to another SE" a reason to close an on-topic question as off-topic?

This is related to Close as off topic, flag to migrate, or both?, but it is specifically about questions which are on-topic where originally posted. The SE family is getting quite large now, and a ...
3 votes
1 answer
57 views

Guidelines for creating a custom off-topic close-vote reason

Background: My main site, CogSci.SE is going through a major overhaul to try and get it out of beta hell. One of the ways we are attempting this is creating a new custom off-topic close vote reason. ...
-4 votes
1 answer
72 views

Is it worth having an "other" reason to close a question? [duplicate]

I was looking through the close votes on Electronics.SE, and saw a lot of unclear and too broad reasons, including one that I thought was perfectly clear, and so I answered and voted to leave open. ...
-9 votes
3 answers
122 views

Closing questions because answers are off-topic

Usually one asks for closing questions that appear off-topic. But what about questions with answers off-topic? It happened few times that I've asked a specific question and I've received a lot of ...
3 votes
1 answer
56 views

Deleting or Closing an Answered Question if Off Topic

I have a question elsewhere which has been voted down, and has 2 votes to close it. I think anonymous down votes are supremely unhelpful, and that topic has been discussed already. However, I accept ...
2 votes
1 answer
101 views

Is it a good idea to introduce an additional reason: "Closed as Bug"?

I am moderating two Stack Exchange beta sites which both are quite active and deal with very new technologies. At least once a week we receive questions which at some point turn out to be a bug. ...
6 votes
4 answers
253 views

Why are people so trigger happy with close as duplicate? [closed]

I have asked this question which I don't honestly think is a duplicate of the question linked as motivation for closing. They are both about java, but one is about the language and the other one about ...
-16 votes
1 answer
110 views

Feature request: Add mandatory field for more precise reason

This was earlier requested on the meta site for LaTeX here at stackexchange, under When flagging for close: Adding a reason. The discussion lead to a suggestion to post the request here. Posts on ...
4 votes
0 answers
28 views

Can we have an option to post a selected close reason as a comment?

While the idea to copy a close reason to a comment is not new, I did not find a suggestion to implement it as an optional feature. Let's have a check-box (or something) that can indicate that a ...
-17 votes
2 answers
186 views

unfairness in stack exchange sites? [closed]

Before you continue reading, I will be suprised if you can give a reasonable answer to this question, that supports the moderators over at stack overflow ok I admit, I'm not an expert on stack ...
5 votes
0 answers
62 views

Close votes combine and falsely attribute close reasons [duplicate]

In this question several users voted to close the question as a duplicate. I did not agree with this, but I thought the question could use some more clarification (specifically reference images), so I ...
-4 votes
2 answers
120 views

Reporting Close-Voting misuse [closed]

I sometimes come across a question on SO from a new user that was structured well, asked properly and the user showed their code, etc. Essentially it's a good question and follows the rules. But I ...
30 votes
4 answers
461 views

"Closed by" is incorrect

Do not give the impression that all votes are unanimously in favor of the winning close-reason. I closed for "belongs on superuser," yet SO claims I closed for a completely different reason. Source: ...
2 votes
1 answer
74 views

How to handle off-topic, but self-answered and good looking questions?

Should self-answered, correct or at least good looking, but still off-topic questions be VTC as all other off-topic? Wouldn't that be to rude against OP? Would such question be profitable anyway? I ...
5 votes
4 answers
526 views

I do not understand the 'too localized' closure of questions [closed]

Yes, I get the other reasons for closing questions, but too localized because a question might only effect a small area of people? Personally, I see any question deserves to have an answer if it is ...
0 votes
2 answers
65 views

Add a comment if migration is suggested, but question is then closed [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Show comment when voting to migrate Sometimes when I vote to migrate a question, that question eventually gets closed as offtopic (because, say, 3 people said it was offtopic ...
-2 votes
3 answers
275 views

Why was my question being closed as subjective and argumentative?

Why was my question being closed as subjective and argumentative? What is your favourite JavaScript reference manual? Just search Stack Overflow for "what is your favourite", and you will see ...
-5 votes
4 answers
361 views

How can we remove the "Not a real question" close reason from SO? [duplicate]

Somebody has to stop this, now. I've been seeing questions getting closed for this nonsense reason. They aren't my questions but it bothers me a lot. I searched MSO on the matter. The explanation ...
7 votes
6 answers
644 views

Could "not yet relevant" be considered a serious close reason?

Now, there's nothing wrong with Go (other than the fact that I don't think I'll be bothering to learn it anytime soon), but it's providing us with a nice test drive of what will happen to the ...
0 votes
2 answers
114 views

votes based on opinion or just feeling is allowed in Stack Exchange?

I am aware in Stack exchange Opinion based questions and answers are not allowed as per SE guidelines. Am I allowed to Close vote based on opinion rather than logical reasoning and judgement against ...
4 votes
1 answer
166 views

Question with 300+ upvotes nominated to be closed, is this good moderation?

I'm relatively new to the whole moderation game, and was just served with the close queue for this (4 year old) question: window.onload vs $(document).ready() Which is now nominated to be closed, ...
2 votes
1 answer
68 views

Closure for questions asking for code [duplicate]

It seems I've fallen out of touch with closure options for "give me the codez" style questions; however, from the close dialog under off-topic because... I recall there being options such as: ...
2 votes
1 answer
50 views

Do you handle tool/library requests differently for languages with smaller user bases?

I've cast plenty of close votes on questions based on them being tool, library, or resource requests: Questions asking us to recommend or find a tool, library or favorite off-site resource are ...
3 votes
1 answer
65 views

Good duplicate questions archive

I know, I'm not the first to talk about this idea, but I haven't found anything useful which is less than a couple of years old... It seems that vast majority of questions which need to be closed ...
6 votes
4 answers
161 views

How to correctly close questions that are too basic?

In the php tag, we receive a lot of questions that are either too basic or lacks a minimal understanding of the problem being solved. See this question for example. For some of these questions, where ...
14 votes
2 answers
269 views

How to deal with too much, unorganized code given current close reasons? [closed]

It's not uncommon, especially when dealing with questions by new users - that questions include hundreds of lines of code, 99% of them completely unrelated to the question. Something like "Here is my ...
7 votes
2 answers
139 views

Using old off-topic close reasons under "other"

Should people be copying old close reasons to use for close votes? For example, take the following question (the first close vote was after the introduction of the new reasons): Bootstrap 2.0 Not ...
28 votes
1 answer
907 views

How to handle debug-my-code-for-me questions [duplicate]

I see questions like this occasionally, where it amounts to little more than a bunch of code. Usually there are some end-user details, like, when I click this button, it doesn't do what it's supposed ...
21 votes
3 answers
435 views

Debug-me questions solvable with a stack-trace or debugger

Consider a question that Is about some Java code That fails because it throws a NullPointerException That the user wants help debugging And the user includes a short excerpt of code that has the ...
-16 votes
4 answers
132 views

Marking as duplicate should be time sensitive

Some questions are marked as duplicates years after they were initially asked. It seems that if it took that long to find a duplicate, then the original question (the one being duplicated) was poorly ...
2 votes
0 answers
67 views

How to see reason for close votes in advance? [duplicate]

How the user can see the reason to close his/her question before it has enough votes to be closed? All I see is close(2/3/4), but if I would know the reason in advance I could improve a question.
35 votes
2 answers
603 views

Should I vote to close old questions?

I just stumbled upon a question from 2009 (that's what I mean by 'old'), and it's this one for reference. I think we can all agree that by Today's standards this question would be closed (with a ...
13 votes
3 answers
179 views

Custom Close Reasons and the Brain Freeze Effect

OK, so the question I'm looking at is clearly off-topic, but it doesn't fit one of the existing close reasons. What to do? Of course! Use a custom close reason. Hmm, what to put there? This ...
-5 votes
2 answers
146 views

Closing questions based on insufficient expertise by moderators? (Another mods vs. typical users issue)

I had a recent experience where a question was closed by a set of moderators who had little or no expertise in the subject area of the question. It seems that this is fairly common, with users who ...
4 votes
1 answer
140 views

Questions asking for some example code or algorithm

What is the proper course of action for questions asking for an example code or algorithm? I've come across a few of those in recent weeks, i.e., this one: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...
-11 votes
1 answer
213 views

Why is an F# question considered off-topic if a similar C# question exists?

This question has been vote-closed because there is a C# version and it's "off topic". The question asks for an F# solution (after some editing; it was originally posted poorly), and a comment by "...
3 votes
1 answer
56 views

What to do with an invalid close reason?

This question is currently in the reopen queue, as it was noted that it's not a duplicate. However it's still off-topic and should either be closed anyway or migrated to TeX SE site. I'm not sure how ...