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@mmyer Oh...Beatles reference. Maxwell's Silver Hammer. P.C. stands for Police Constable. (Of course if you have to explain it, it's no longer funny. Ah, well.)
@David Thornley Good distinction. I was referring to questions that belonged but were badly formed rather than those that belong elsewhere, but you make a good point.
And, downvoting is (potentially) better than close votes since it gives the OP time to actually "fix" their question before they can't do anything with it.
I'm not entirely sure that those "new users" will really be future SO users in the first place, so it doesn't really matter whether or not they understand the close reason. It seems to me that most people looking for a quick answer for their work just hit as many "boards" as they can with the same question, then go on to the next problem, so explaining why something was closed isn't useful to them.