@ThisGuyCantEven Pretty much exactly the same answer. It's the role of those answering to teach and the role of those voting to judge. These are different skillsets, and we shouldn't require those judging to also be teachers. There are those who feel we shouldn't have down-votes on questions. I don't wish to comment directly on that, but if we have voting on questions then it has a different purpose and skillset to commenting on questions.

From what I read elsewhere moderators remain in post until they step down, become inactive, or commit some serious violation of SE rules such as abuse. I respect SE staff's position in taking no action in this type of problem directly. But view this in light of an inability for communities to unseat moderators; there's no fixed terms or reelections... this means plain old bad moderators are left in place with nobody both capable and willing to do anything about it. Even as a "zealot" I don't see what I could do to change the behaviour of a mod who's clearly entrenched in their own view.

@T.E.D. Sure. But the problem with "opinion" is complex WRT Politics in a way that is less common for Physics. In your example, the answers are likely to cite reference material published by the subject themselves. Though such answers might be interesting and informative, there is a problem of whether the subject was being honest. And there lies the challenge of "what people want to believe". Even where the answer's author might claim it was backed up with evidence, belief of that evidence might itself come down to opinion.

@T.E.D. Would it be fair to catagorize such sites as "more opinion based". I'm not quite sure the word "technical" paints the line in the right place. The meta sites themselves would fall into this same characterisation. Purely fact based sites tend to suffer less with what people want to believe.

It's always felt to me that the current system was plainly wrong. Suddenly popular questions draw so much attention so quickly that 5 close votes is way too easy. Less popular questions limp along and have to wait for the review queue. A vote bases system would have been much more appropriate as it would balance for the number of people interested.

I don't think this would be helpful to the community. If sufficient numbers users keep re-opening a question it infers some kind of value that others might not be seeing. IMO if sufficient users see real value in a question then it would be better to leave it open. Although, I'd specifically exclude "opinion based" closures from this logic.

@Tetsujin Discussion of what that distinction looks like, how to tell them apart, what stops a moderator mixing the two and / or what to do about if a moderator does confuse the two would all make the basis of good answers here. I do believe I've witnessed a moderator unapologetically crossing that boundary, and it left me wondering if the boundary even exists for moderators... so I wrote this question.