-4
$\begingroup$

This question is closed as "too broad". Yet, I found several other similar questions, and the first seems like a good question, has a good answer, has lots of votes, and has an accepted answers. Several more similar questions fall in the same category.

I think it should be re-opened.

$\endgroup$
1
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I think all the mods and well basically all the established users on the site will admit that we do not catch all questions that are off topic. Its a difficult task to keep up with the volume of information on the site. While I get how it can feel like certain items are targeted that is not the case, its more a matter of just not catching everything, also a bad question not being closed doesn't mean another bad question shouldn't be closed. In fact it means we should keep trying to catch all the bad ones and close them. $\endgroup$
    – James
    Nov 28, 2018 at 21:01

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
8
$\begingroup$

What too broad means

Assume that the internet fails (semi-permanent or otherwise). What would happen?

You could write an answer talking about:

  • How multi-national businesses would re-shape their internal communications networks after cloud based e-mail and Slack, et al., go away.
  • How people would react to not being able to post on or check Facebook, Instagram, et al.
  • How credit card companies and banks would process transactions without the internet.
  • How local television and print news would ramp up production to deal with the removal of competition of internet news sites.
  • How people who didn't have cable would deal with no longer being able to watch movies and TV shows via Netflix, Hulu, et al.
  • How local businesses would respond to the surge in demand after Amazon purchases become impossible.

Each of those answers could be 1000 characters long and extremely well written. Which one would be correct? There is no way to determine what the correct answer is; in fact, all of them could be correct.

Therefore, the question is too broad.

Why that question was closed

That question was closed almost exactly two years after it was written. Why so long?

The pressures and attitude of the younger site were different than they were for the more mature site. A younger Worldbuilding was somewhat more focused on becoming and remaining a viable website. The site launched September 2014 out of closed Beta (our first question!), and graduated from a Beta to an open site November 2015.

At the time that question was posted, the site needed more participation to graduate from Beta. Here, for example, are the statistics for the Conlang.SE, which is currently in Beta. So at the time, questions that got lots of views and votes and reputation were a good thing.

Now, we are a stable site, we have graduated, and we have an awesome girl-and-robot logo. The focus now is on long-term sustainability, which means developing a philosophy that will make this site a unique and valuable Internet resource. Our long term strategy is to be a site for good and possibly technical answers to narrow questions. We explicitly reject fishing for ideas, story generation and discussion questions. The question you linked falls into one or more of those categories. Therefore, to show that we, as a site, are consistent with our rules for new questions, it is best to go back and close old questions that are too broad.

$\endgroup$
1
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ aka 'We found what works and then we changed it.' $\endgroup$
    – Giu Piete
    Dec 4, 2018 at 18:30
-1
$\begingroup$

I believe that the community should have a chance to answer. if the question is down voted 5 times it will be closed. But the community should have a choice, sometimes I have really good answers to what I think are really good questions but are closed before i have a chance to share. Isn't world-building all about sharing knowledge!

$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ Questions can be closed and reopened by members of the community. The Mods don't really close questions unless they are way off target and not suitable for this site (This is a question and answer site after all). That being said, the community can always vote to reopen a question if they think it was wrongly closed and help the OP identify why their question was closed and address those problems. $\endgroup$
    – Shadowzee
    Nov 28, 2018 at 3:40
  • $\begingroup$ The community does have a choice. When you have enough rep, you can review the close queues, and then you will have a choice too. $\endgroup$
    – kingledion
    Nov 28, 2018 at 4:57
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ FYI, downvotes do not close questions. Downvotes address the quality/research of a question, the close votes address the fit with the site. $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch Mod
    Nov 28, 2018 at 11:37

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .