Why don't we just set up a robot to automagically add 5 close votes to every question over the course of, say, 5 hours?

Question

Allow that I have been here pretty much from the start

Let us take:

https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/203975/development-test-interview

Closed as "too broad". Really ? I might allow that a bit more detail of the nature of the test would help but it seems to me that its just about as specific as it can reasonably be.

If there's a better place to ask, I'd be pleased to know - but it seems that there are progressively fewer and fewer questions that can be reasonably asked here? And if not here then where (I'm not talking about questions that obviously belong on stackoverflow, rather the ones that fairly obviously don't)

What are "conceptual questions about software development" ?

Yes, I've gone read the rest of the stuff and yes clearly the example is a marginal question (in so far as it might be off-topic - but it wasn't closed as off-topic...)

Answer 1

There are things that you as a relatively high reputation user can do:

1. Edit the question to improve it. You saw an answerable question in there and posted an answer - help the rest of the community see what you saw by teasing out the actual question and making it clear.
2. Add a comment explaining why it should be left open.
3. If the question is closed vote to reopen - preferably after an edit to improve it.
4. Engage with the community in chat to see if you can find out why people are voting the way they do and explain your point of view.

As to your final point - the close reason displayed is the one that the majority have chosen. There could be two or more close reasons in all, but we never see the others.

Answer 2

One of the hardest things to realize about Stack Exchange is that we are contributors to a site, but we are not the revenue stream for the business model. That lines from the next person to visit the site. Much of the site is designed around this - optimizing the search engine and being the place to go to find the answer to the question (not a forum that has a dozen answers, if you want that, there are many sites that cater to that approach).

For a question to be useful to this business model, it must be something someone wants to come to and see. A question that is only helpful to one person - the one who asked it - adds negligible value to Stack Exchange as a whole. Compare to a question that people do want to come to and see.

As users with a reasonable amount of reputation it is our responsibility to keep the site on topic, and useful to this end. If someone is asking polling question, or a question that doesn't do a good job of explaining itself it needs to be addressed. In many cases, this means closing questions. For some reason, P.SE tends to get a lot of the people looking for help on their career, education, or with very poorly defined questions.

I don't believe that it is fewer questions that are allowed to be asked, but rather that you see more and more of the borderline and on the poor side of borderline.

I will note that I personally have a philosophy of close fast, fix, reopen to try to avoid getting answers to questions that don't work correctly (the polling questions are most notorious for this). I do dismay at the difficulty that people seem to have reading the on topic portion of the help center and those who have the question closed as "too broad" or "primarily opinion based" on Stackoverflow and then reask it here without fixing the underlying problem of too broad or opinion based.

Aside from closing questions, we have the ability to edit them. Transforming a question that isn't a good fit into one that is a good fit (even if it is not the one originally asked, but should have been asked).

To the editing part, consider Java continuous integration with extras and Considerations on which Java version to run in Production which are two examples of questions that I reworked into ones that fit the site. I am sure other people have other examples - I just don't know them off the top of my head.

If there is a question that you believe should be open, please, come into the chat room and people there would be happy to work with you to figure out how a question can be worded so that it can fit properly within the site.

Many times, though, this will involve working with the original asker of the question which can be difficult (there is a surprisingly large number of users who ask a question and never revisit the site logged in again - even if it is a good question).

I'd much rather have a open good question on the site than a closed question, but I'd rather see a closed question than a multitude of poor quality open ones.

Going back to chat again, it really is a good place for the 'fun' things that people seem to nostalgize about and asking/answering those really fuzzy questions that seem to keep showing up about careers and education.

Answer 3

I get your frustration and feel we display closed questions like heads on the end of spears to discourage entry, but it's not easy to identify or have any consensus on appropriate questions.

The same 5 people are doing all the closing. You can't rely on the entire history of the site because the rules, interpretations, and people change.

You can't deny that there are too many questions that completely disregard the suggestions for acceptable questions.

Personally, I don't think the question example you're using offers any benefit to professional programmers. A test you can use any language and is going to involve programming just about anything they can come up with is hard to prepare for as you indicated in your answer. Are there programmers spending countless hours cramming for these types of tests or wasting money on some self-help book that claims it will teach you how to be a programmer in one day?

If this question is acceptable just because it's about programming, why not invite the thousand of other questions anyone could ask about how to get better at anything programming related? I wish more people (myself included) would ask how to get better at writing questions and stop making me close them. https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/204587/which-certification-to-go-for How about getting certified in reading the FAQ's?