I have now experienced it too often to stay silent. People vote to close a question they don't know the answer to. The question itself is clear and easy to answer, but some people prefer to put others off by arbitrarily closing questions because they don't understand them.
Case in point: Bell Lift distribution
We are asked to make the site more inviting to newbies. Then why are we happy with some people closing valid questions because they have the power to do so?
I'm generally a little on the users-over-rules side, so it'll be hard for me to give an unbiased answer, but I'll present some research I did.
I put together a Data Explorer query to look for questions that were closed then reopened, filter only ones reopened under suspicious circumstances like reopens without edits, and print the list of close votes for each question.
The query can be found here: https://data.stackexchange.com/aviation/query/edit/1037498 . There's a quick summary of count per user here too, but I'd advise you to look at the questions first before jumping to conclusions based on user statistics.
It's not very pretty but without some serious string magic that's the best I can get.
I realize there's some grey area and debate about these criteria for a "suspicious" or "overturned" close vote. We need some debate on both sides about the quality standards on this site, so I'll avoid calling these overturned closure votes "bad" or "incorrect".
First, while every user is important, it's clear this isn't a huge problem in the scope of the site. I could only track down 32 cases of overturned question closures where the OP was a new user and the question was marked off-topic or unclear. Second, there don't seem to be any users whose close votes are usually overturned, as almost all voters have only a 3-10% rate of suspicious close-votes. The number of overturned close votes is only high (as in, greater than fifteen) for a handful of users who are voting to close and reopen hundreds of questions already.
We could focus on the power-users, because about half the overturned close-votes come from about a dozen users. However, with a few outliers, most power-users average about a 7% suspicious close vote rate- and that's including duplicates and other closure reasons not brought up by the original question. Most of these users are already voting to reopen hundreds of questions as well. Definitely room for improvement, but hardly a case of toxic users.
We could also focus on the ~20% of suspicious close votes that come from users who don't have many other closure votes. There are some definite outliers here, but I don't know any good way to address them. The low percentage coming from these infrequent users also suggest the already-high reputation threshold is sufficient.
Pareto graph of closure votes by user
My advice for voters: in my experience obscure questions are actually less annoying and less likely to distract from better questions than questions on common topics. Vote based on whether an expert could answer the question, not just a generalist. Also, remember to keep an eye on questions you've voted to close and if the question is edited, remove your vote. Several of these questions were closed just minutes after being edited to fix the issues.
My advice for askers: I know you're likely not reading this, but if you are, please avoid using acronyms and explain things so that even the new guy on your job would understand.
Unfortunately there are limited ways to address this. This thread is a great way to start discussion. However, most of the posts here come from users with low rates of suspicious closure like Peter Kämpf and ymb1. Mods could PM the outliers, but that seems to be standoffish and I know directed guidance on how to vote is normally reserved for extreme situations.
It'd be helpful if the language for "unclear what you're asking" made it clear that we're talking about clarity to a subject matter expert, not just to a generalist, but I can't think of a clearer syntax off the top of my head and I believe changing it would involve a change to all of Stack Exchange.
Here's question closures I cherry-picked where obscure subject matter is a factor
What is the difference between frequency wild AC system and other AC systems?
What's the EPNdB for large turbofan engines for stage 5 noise regulations?
Is there a standard for the trip paperwork packages that are used by the airlines?
How to get the fuel on board reading on UVdatalink via Honeywell ACARS system?
Need more volume with my aviation headset (David Clark OneX). I wear hearing aids
I have said it before, there is an option to skip. In the review queue the reviewer is presented with leave open, close, and skip.
I use skip a lot when I don't know about the subject, so this answer is merely a reminder to others that it is okay to skip.
I also find comments that explain the down-vote/vote-to-close because the asker didn't expand an acronym.
This is also not a good excuse. Does everyone understand every question on Stack Overflow? Of course not. There are fields, and a term or acronym that is not clear to someone, does not mean it is an unclear question.
The Help Center says:
When should I vote to close a question?
Questions should be closed by casting close votes if:
- they are sufficiently similar to existing questions and would be answered identically to them.
- they are unclear, too broad, or otherwise problematic to identifying the problem in a way that can be properly addressed by answerers
- they are sufficiently off-topic, as outlined in the help center.
The Bell Lift distribution question is closed as unclear. Unclear means a question was not asked (problem was not identified) – but here a question was asked.
Do I know anything about that subject? No.
Would that make it [objectively] unclear? No.
Notwithstanding ymb1 very well put response I just wanted to add that even though I personally do not know the answer to that question it just feels very broad.
It does not specify what the actual problem trying to be solved is, which is a core tenet of questions in a QA format.
If you ask a vague question, you’ll get a vague answer. But if you give us details and context, we can provide a useful answer.
source: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask
To me, that question seemed vague. This might be my lack of understanding of the topic.
This question was asked 8 months 3 yers ago, and nothing has changed. It is beyond me why questions should be closed when they are not understood by the voter. @ymb1’s advise is sound.
---Update--- There is now a post on requiring only 3 votes for closing a question. Plus no more inputs from some of the above highly respected users, with @ymb1 having completely left the building out of protest.
Yes I would like to see more time to give others in the community a chance to also answer. Closing, deleting and down voting questions can drive novice users in Aviation into a question ban that lasts for 6 months and years. I almost think that users can be filtered and driven out this way by a handful of people even though their questions are not so bad?
