Are we closing too many good questions now?

Question

Something has changed ever since Programmers got out of beta. Too many good questions, which are fully in the spirit of the site, are getting closed prematurely. Mostly these questions seem to be closed due to minor issues like grammar. Others have been improved by more senior members, but get closed anyway.

Here are a few examples:

• What criteria should be used in evaluating if a company is worth working for?
• What features would you like to have in PHP?
• What is 1 WORD that best highlights a productive programming mindset?
• What prompted Alex Stepanov to consider object-orientation a hoax?

The closing of the PHP question was particularly shocking, not because it was asked by a PHP developer, but because "what feature would you like to see in X?"-style questions have been around here for a long time.

I can understand the impulse to close when there is more than one red flag: (1) poor grammar; (2) the question has meta commentary, asking if this is the right place; (3) extra detail is added, which pulls away emphasis on the question itself. Now that all of the red flag issues have been addressed on these questions, I hope we can reconsider the decision to close.

Simply, if you close questions and provide specific reasons for doing so, and then when those reasons are addressed you leave the question closed, you will discourage good users.

Update: Here's yet another example:

• Cant answer very many questions on StackOverflow. How can I improve?

I like Anna Lear's comment: "The close makes no sense. This question isn't about SO as a site and doesn't belong on meta. The question is about ways to improve as a developer to be able to better answer questions."

Answer 1

These fare poorly on the subjective scale.

1. If you read the question, it is literally asking "what single quality you would want to see in a prospective employer?"
2. The OP should have revealed a bit more about who he was and what his goals were; I support leaving this one open.
3. Might as well be "what's your favorite word".
4. Completely speculative and not in a good way.

Read over these questions with the 6 guidelines in mind ...

• inspire answers that explain “why” and “how”.
• tend to have long, not short, answers.
• have a constructive, fair, and impartial tone.
• invite sharing experiences over opinions.
• insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references.
• are more than just mindless social fun.

... and I think you'll agree with the exception of #2, they are all correctly closed.

Answer 2

1. What does this question have to do with programming?
2. It's open. The OP didn't reveal his position and intention.
3. It's absolutely useless. Just curiosity, fun.
4. Maybe it can be reopened now, but the existing answers are very poor.

Poor grammar is not a good reason to close a question. Questions should be closed based on their content.

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Edit for the new question added on above post:

What does this question have to do with programming? I don't know where it's appropriate, SO, MSO, Writes.SE or whatever, but I'm pretty sure it isn't on PSE.

Answer 3

Yes, we are closing too many questions.

I'm all for closing questions that are clearly off-topic, but think the attitude on all StackExchange sites is way too strict. The guidelines are a bit too strict. Don't get me wrong--I don't want StackExchange sites to become Reddit--but I think we are more in danger of becoming Wikipedia in that the community is hostile to most questions except those created by the 1% who really grok the site.

Answer 4

You are closing questions that should be migrated. Closing should be a last resort, not a hair-trigger reflex.