What does closing a question mean?

Question

In light of the debate going on regarding another question that was closed, I wanted to share something I found in the Skeptics SE FAQ, which was very persuasive to me.

https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1345/faq-my-question-was-closed-what-does-it-mean

While not everything they say is appropriate to SA (as they have their own site specific issues with notability and such), they say (emphasis added):

Rationale: why do we close questions?

There are really two ways to do moderation. If you've been on any of the .moderated newsgroups you'll be well aware that to get a post on there, it needs to undergo a review process first and be accepted. The aim is to keep problem discussions from arising.

SE is slightly different - it works the other way. Anyone can ask a question on SE and closing a question is the equivalent of putting that question back into review/improve mode. It's a feedback mechanism designed to react to problem cases only, so the usual business of asking and answering good questions can just... happen.

I like this idea—closing a question is an invitation to improvement.

This does imply that we should perhaps give some advise in the comments when voting to close on how to make a better question, or why it is being closed, but that is an extra courtesy.

We should not feel bad about closing a question, even in borderline cases because they can be improved and re-opened, and that is what the mechanism is for.

Answer 1

This shouldn't be too much of a surprise. The faq say:

Questions that are not a good fit for this site may be voted closed by experienced community members. Closed questions cannot be answered, but are eligible for improvement (and eventual re-opening) through editing, voting, and commenting. See How to Ask for guidance on editing your question to improve it.

Other sites' faq say the same thing. See also the second to last paragraph in the meta.SO faq on closed questions.

Many of us also always comment when we're closing questions, especially for new users. I think we're generally pretty good about noting when a different version of the question would be good, and suggesting editing, even if we don't explicitly say "...then it can be reopened."

With respect to directly using closing as an invitation for improvement: many larger sites do use that philosophy. They'll close a question quickly, even if a modified version will likely be okay, because they're also fast about reopening questions. Small sites often have trouble doing this, though. It takes us long enough to get to five close votes; it takes much longer to get to five reopen votes. So if a question can obviously be fixed up in a straightforward way, it's often easier to skip the closing and reopening.

I'd also note that it's often much friendlier to simply improve a question rather than closing it to try to get the OP to do it. If you're concerned about how it will be received, do let the OP know they can roll back the edit if they really want to.

So in general, the most important thing to take away from the idea of closing as invitation to improvement is that you should be eager to vote to reopen, and if you're in the habit of voting to close without an explanatory comment, you could try to be more helpful. (Same philosophy as downvotes!) The things you vote to close are the same ones you've always voted to close - it's just that you need to be thinking about salvaging them, not destroying them.

Answer 2

As this subject has been done to death on Meta Stack Overflow, I'll be blunt.

The definition of closing has been made abundantly clear almost since the inception of the network:

It’s important to note here that closing a question is a step on the road to deletion. Closing is effectively “nominate to delete”, as a question that can’t be answered is no longer truly “alive”. That said, some closed questions should be kept around. For example, duplicate questions that have totally different wording are sometimes useful. With the duplicates, people can find either variation with search terms and link through to the original. The majority of closed questions, however, aren’t particularly useful and are much more likely to eventually be deleted.

I flatly disagree that closing is merely a friendly suggestion to edit or improve, and repudiate the notion that most closed questions are even salvageable. Some are; that's why we still allow editing questions when they're closed, and give everyone with close privileges a set of parallel reopen votes.

Reopened questions are the exception to the rule. The vast majority of closed questions on any and every Stack Exchange site:

• Get asked by users who do not subsequently engage with the site or community
• Display little to no evidence of having read the faq or about page
• Aren't edited or improved
• Are never reopened
• Are eventually deleted

That doesn't mean that we should never try to help people who get their questions closed. Some people do "get it" afterward and clarify or clean up their questions and sometimes even go on to become regularly contributing members. But again, these are the exceptions that prove the rule. As moderators (diamond and community) it behooves us to understand how the system really works, to see and treat things for how they are and not how we wish they were.

As a community, we already edit questions that are slightly off-track but still salvageable. I've personally done this hundreds of times and I seriously doubt that anyone could say in good faith that I don't try. Closing a question means that nobody who saw the question could think of any way to fix it - at least not with the information available. Even if the question could be reopened after a phenomenal edit, it's not necessarily the wisest or most pragmatic course of action. It's just as easy to ask a new question, taking into account the lessons learned from the initial closure.

Closing means "this question does not belong here". If you change the question, then sure, it might then belong - emphasis on might. It's not a promise, and any expectation of constant hand-holding eventually burns out even the most committed members.

All of that being said, I almost always do leave a comment when closing a question regarding specifically why it was closed and, if applicable, what changes might get it reopened. And I encourage others to do that as well. But much like downvotes, an explanation not be treated as an obligation; the close reason itself provides a clear explanation and the faq has more detail.

See also: My question was closed! What should I do?