Why is a moderator unilaterally closing questions with existing topicality discussion?

Question

This question was in the middle of a question about whether it was on-topic or not -- a discussion we needed to have because whether or not pet food is on topic is not addressed in our rules. Two senior members of the SE voted in the comments that it was on-topic.

And then ... a moderator closed it unilaterally, without comment or direction to the asker. This was deemed hostile by the asker, and I have to say I agree with them. It feels like the post was simply closed because that moderator didn't like it, and not because the post violated any rules at all.

Why is this OK?

Answer 1

I am the moderator who did the closure, and the topicality of the question has already been decided and become part of the rules of the site. The basis for it is the Meta question Would a question regarding making homemade pet (kitten/cat) food be considered off-topic?.

The most important parts of our scope are indeed written down in the help center. However, there are also topics which are so rare that they are not codified in the Help center. For those, it is Meta discussions which determine whether the question is within the site scope. In fact, the network tends to treat the Meta content as being the more important one, with the Help center being more of a summary of the most important rules which have been discussed and concluded on Meta.

Had this been a brand-new situation, I would not have closed unilaterally. In that case, the best course of action would have been to create a new Meta discussion, and wait for the results. But once such a discussion exists, its results are considered binding. They become part of the rules, which are expected to be enforced by moderators and users with a closing privilege. This happens regardless of a separate discussion which may be taking place in the comments (this kind of comment discussion is actually quite common, because people are understandably frustrated when their questions get closed).

Answer 2

This was perfectly within the rules of Stack Exchange, including the guidance given to moderators.

The closure of a question and the discussion whether it’s on-topic are two independent processes. The closing of a question requires a certain number of close votes, in the case of a moderator vote, one is sufficient. The guidance to moderators is to vote like they would as regular users with non-binding votes. That moderators tend to hold back is a bit of a custom, but by no means required, quite the contrary, in fact. The same principle applies to the reopening process. Neither is irreversible, and that’s part of the way the SE system is designed.

Any discussion whether a question is within the site’s scope and possible clarification can happen at any given time, whether the post is open or closed.

For basic discussions about whether a topic should be within the scope, we have this Meta. In the case of pet food, this decision has already been made by the community. Comments are not the right place.

In short, it’s perfectly acceptable if a question gets closed while a discussion is still ongoing. That it happens infrequently here is usually because we have few users that exercise their right to vote for closing and our mods aren’t around 24/7, so that this kind of debate here often is already competed by the time enough close votes were gathered or problems with the post fixed. On sites with significantly more traffic, the pattern is rather closing first (also to prevent a bad post from gathering worse answers), then reopen after a discussion and/or an edit.

Your claim that the post, that was clearly off-topic as originally posted, had no comment or guidance is incorrect, please refer to the custom close vote in the comment section.