Outside factors shouldn't be a consideration in whether to close a question

Question

I raised a previous question, and it revealed what I see as a very troubling tendency in close votes.

I voted to close as too story-based because it's an open-ended question where an infinite number of story conditions could be applied to answer the question. That was the point about my link to the movie The Core concerning Xena tapes and hot pockets. What does your crack hacker group need?

Answer: whatever it is that makes them efficient at their job — including Xena tapes and hot pockets. They need couches and free soda and subdued lighting and massages and the right kind of background music....

JBH

I heartily sustain JBH's answer. The question was not about IT. It literally asked "what equipment" was needed. Years ago in my day job I actually did this, for part of the equipment; it was not about hacking, just plain enterprise IT, but believe me the list of equipment is long. Lighting. HVAC. Special lighting and special HVAC for the data center. Desks. Fire suppression. Electric power, complete with UPSes and backup generators. Special floors for the data center. False ceilings for the work rooms. Etc. etc. The computers themselves are a very small part.

AlexP

I think this shows a problematic trend in voting which is likely to close many questions. On literally any question you can always look at an essentially infinite array of outside factors that could influence the core issue, and those two people used their experience in IT as guidance on whether to close.

E.g. "Take What goods yield the best profit for time-travel arbitrage?" sales depends on food, on lighting on how you sell it with music, on an essentially infinite variation of sales pitches. Advertising is a billion dollar business.

"Why would radio-capable transhumans still vocalise to each-other?" Communication relies on nutrition and there's an essentially infinite array of foods and exercises which determine the strength of vocalization and the nature.

The reason why my and other posts got closed and theirs didn't is likely because those two people above and others have experience in IT and so are interested in the infinite variety of conditions that can apply for optimizing efficiency and nuanced details of how you do it, but do not have experience in time travel and radio capable transhumanism and so didn't care about the variations in those.

Close votes shouldn't be based on you having a more in depth knowledge of a subject, or an interest in films and therefore a good concept of narrative logic on the subject and therefore knowing that there are an infinite variation of things you can do for a subject. It's the job of people making answers to narrow down on key interesting world building elements. Unless there's a specific request like "Tell me every possible technology needed to enable this feature" which would be basically build my world for me and closeworthy, then you shouldn't assume they care about support technologies like lighting, or narrative logic in how it was shown on tv- you should assume they want key salient details, not supporting technology.

Answer 1

I was one of those who VTC'd the original question and did so entirely on the basis that the usefulness of any answer is totally story dependent. For a start the term "modern technology" when dealing with computers is worse than useless as any "cutting edge" equipment isn't by the time it ships.

Then in no particular order:

• Where are they working out of? If they have access to an existing data centre then their new equipment needs are relatively low, if starting from scratch that's a different story, if working from someone's basement that's yet another.
• What timeframe do they have? If they need to information yesterday hacking may simply not be effective at all, if they have a year or two then they could get away with off the shelf, or even secondhand, hardware and mum's dial up connection.
• How exposed are they comfortable getting? If they can afford to do things the quick and dirty way such that their opposite numbers know they're getting done over then that's completely different from a stealth hack that leaves no trace.
• How much firepower does the "not hacking in" side of the operation have access to? You've said "basically unlimited resources", if you can roll tanks and run drones, hell for the kind of money you mentioned they could bribe their way into an actionable volume of fissile material or even some working nuclear warheads. Different assumptions around various options here changes the whole dynamic/balance of the overall team and totally alters the role of the IT department in the operation.

In short your question lacks the limitations to be answerable, because we don't know where or how the outcome sits in your story.

And for the record I only know enough about computers to get myself in serious trouble before I yell for IT support. I have no clue what goes in to a large scale computer lab/operation and I still see vast issues with the scope of the question you have asked.

Answer 2

Who defines what an "outside factor" is?

When you say "outside factors" what you mean is, "influences, conditions, or restrictions that I, the OP, deem irrelevant to the question." The problem, of course, is if you don't explain what you consider "outside factors" to be, the rest of us, who might actually be experts in the premise of the question who exceed your own experience, will choose how to react to your question based on our own experience rather than your undefined and undeclared expectations.

Because we can't read your mind

The simple reality is that no user can read the OP's mind. What seems to you like an obvious outside factor may be judged substantially influential by someone more experienced in the subject. In such cases, the only option the OP has is to specifically explain what they expect in an answer. Not surprisingly, that's actually a requirement for a good question on Stack Exchange. Said another way, the more you assume your intentions should be obvious, the more your question should be closed.

How do Frame Challenges fit into all this?

In the case of a well-defined question that is based on a faulty premise, we have the tradition of a Frame Challenge. Simply, Frame Challenges propose an alternative solution after pointing out and correcting the faulty premise. But a Frame Challenge couldn't be used here because the question has a systemic flaw: it's too broad. Even if we all were to agree that equipment is the only rational way to answer the question there are simply too many factors involving the programmer's personal taste. Monitors are the worst offender. One or many? Large or small? Which brand? There's no way to use a Frame Challenge because there isn't one, definitive answer.

Worse still is the equipment that isn't within range of the programmer's sense of touch — equipment you may deem to be "outside factors" because they aren't the proverbial hammer in the programmer's hand. Networking and biometric security come to mind. And then there's the personal choices of what software to use because there is no library of software (and it's a library, not just one title) that's in any way "the best."

Conclusion

This is why I down voted this post. An "outside factor" as defined by and assumed by the OP will never be applicable to the entirety of the community and there will never be a single definition we all can or will agree on. If the OP is unwilling to explain how they'll choose a best answer, then the OP is stuck dealing with what the rest of us assume the answer can be.

And I've voted to close a great many quesitons based on the issue of "how will you judge a best answer?" In this case, however, I did fail you. Rather than clearly explaining my issue at the beginning, I left you with a movie quote and assumed you'd understand the problem. In that regard you and I made the same mistake.

But here we are now, two Meta questions and a great deal of explanation later and we're still debating the issue. It's the OP's job to be specific and to set expectations, not the community's job to figure out what the OP thinks the minimum set of valid answers should be.

Answer 3

An Exercise in Reinventing the Wheel!

If I understand your argument properly, you're advocating, essentially, for respondents to be constrained by either arbitrary or non-arbitrary conditions that you as querent have determined are irrelevant. For example, you list a number of things that JBH mentioned as fulfilling your question, but are in fact "outside factors" that you feel have no bearing on your question.

I'll list the outside factors you gave- 1. Whether they have food. 2. Whether they have lighting. 3. Whether they have music. 4. Whether they have free massages. 5. Whether they have lesbian homoerotic tv to watch. 5. Whether they have furniture. And for others. 6. Fire suppression. 7. Ceilings. 8. Floors. 9. AC units. 10. Nuclear bombs. 11. Whether they can buy things. Most of the factors, while important, are not closely related to the task at hand. They are moderately challenging tasks to fulfill sure, but you don't need to close a question over whether they can buy hotpockets.

What makes your point very interesting to me is that, in essence, you've just reinvented (in part) our policy on how to write a good worldbuilding question! These questions come up here in Meta from time to time, and I've answered a share.

It's too late to edit your question now, because it has answers, but for future reference I think there are a couple key take away points:

1. Always ask the question you actually want to have answered. Writing the question the right way will avoid many VTCs. When a question is closed, don't seek to blame those who VTCed. Look at the question first!

2. Always define terms and set expectations. The respondent rarely has much insight into your world or your story. She can only answer your question based on what you write in that question. She can only give you an exceptional answer if you are clear as to what you're really looking for and what your expectations are.

3. How you write a question affects how we write answers. The text of your question is your chance to constrain our cadre of excitable and eager respondents! You happened to ask a question that several people have real life experience with. They're going to write you a text book on the topic if you don't restrain them within your question! As a querent, it really is up to you to write a question in such a way that you'll get results that are useful to you!

4. "It's the job of people making answers to narrow down on key interesting world building elements". This is most certainly NOT the case! As a respondent, it is NOT my job to figure out what the querent really means when she writes a question! My job as respondent is to take the question I'm asked, apply it to the context of the fictional world presented in the query and devise an answer that a) satisfies the constraints of the question, b) displays creativity, c) offers content that is both useful and engaging to both the present querent and also anyone else who comes here in the future. Honestly, JBH's quip about Xena movies and HotPockets could have been parlayed into a truly creative answer to the question you actually asked!

5. "You shouldn't assume they care about support technologies like lighting, or narrative logic in how it was shown on tv- you should assume they want key salient details, not supporting technology". This is also NOT the case! It is not the job of the respondent to make assumptions about what the querent thinks is relevant or important. It is not even our job to make assumptions about anything relating to your fictional world. Reason being, we didn't make your world or write your story. We don't know it the way you do!

6. Write a question about your world, not your story. This should go without saying, but we are in fact a forum whose purpose is to help you build your fictional world. Think of us as another set of eyes that can help you with a problem you're facing or an issue you're experiencing with the nature of your world or setting. Many times, querents do confuse story with setting. We must always keep in mind that elements of storycraft --- characters & plot --- are considered separate from setting, which falls under our domain. A story's setting is the "world" the story happens in, and that's what we deal with.

Answer 4

There are two problems involved here:

(A) [Closed] has a very finite connotation

(B) VTC is easier than suggesting improvements or (help to) rephrase the question. The option to VTC being offered invites to think that "this is the right way to do it"

Using the VTC feature mainly and justifying it with "upholding holy principles" is the culture of WB:SE right now and it is nothing short of being toxic (imho)

ACTUALLY: "Closed" is not too bad. There is a large box inviting everyone to "improve" the question, that is essentially what we all want: improved "good" questions.

Problem 1: There is no way of improving the answer without getting in contact with the OP.

Problem 2: "Closed" right now implies "This question is done. No further work needed/wanted/required". This sends the wrong message to anybody who would be willing and able to help bring the question into shape. It also discourages any and all questioneers to continue using WB:SE if they experienced this once.

I think there should be new rules for VTC and downvote; Essentially there should be a sandbox stage like this:

• If there is a new question and you downvote it to get it to -1, you are obliged to edit the question and add a [SANDBOX] tag in front of the title. Then your deed is done. Please refrain from VTC.
• Everyone who is not willing to help on [SANDBOX] tags is requested to ignore those questions. Do not downvote, VTC or something else. Be patient.
• All others will try help the OP to improve the question via comments and flagging "done" comments with "outdated" to remove them. If OP is responsive and the question therefore is likely being improved, voting the question up (at least to 0) is mandatory (actually, goes without saying).
• Once done and the question is regarded as "well-formed", the [SANDBOX] tag is removed and the show begins.
• If after a month of no updates the [SANDBOX] tag is still present, the question can be closed or deleted because of missing updates/interest.
• Everyone profits.

And for Etiquette:

• It is considered rude to contribute nothing but to downvote the question or the only answer on a question to negative or post a VTC without prior contribution. To contribute provide either improvements to the question or post an answer or a comment ("Here is a way to rephrase your question: ...") or tag with [SANDBOX] as seen above.
• It is considered rude to just state "This is too XY" without also stating what could be done to avoid that "trap" or asking OP constructive questions in the comments. In this case you just want to [SANDBOX] as seen above probably.