Are too many questions being closed by a moderator alone rather than the community?

Question

The user Zypher has very little reputation, but is able to close questions without reaching the limit because he works for SE. By not letting the community vote (i.e. 5 of the top 17 users) it seems that he is taking away from the development of the community. Many closed questions are not even old (the site itself is not even old, of course), so have not had a chance to be improved (e.g. through editing).

Do others share this opinion? If so, could Zypher please let the burgeoning community do more of its own clean-up? If not, perhaps following the community's request to include a comment explaining the close (when not obvious, as is the case with many of these) would be polite?

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Hard data, as requested: I compiled a list of all the questions that are currently closed (I don't know if there's a way to just search for these, until the data hits the public dump).

• 29 questions have been closed by the community (defined as 3+ members). I think this in fact shows that the community is policing itself, given a chance.
• 3 questions were closed by Zypher after one other user voted for closure. It seems likely that the community would have closed these too (but IMO should have been given that chance).
• 13 questions have been closed by Zypher alone. Every one of these was closed three hours ago, unlike the other examples here, which are spread over the brief life of the site. (5% of the site's questions were closed in about a 10 minute period).
• 2 questions were closed by moderator Rebecca Chernoff.
• 2 questions were closed by one moderator other than Zypher and one other member.
• 4 questions were closed because they were moved to meta. I don't think these are relevant here.

Please note that I am not saying that all the questions that Zypher closed should not have been closed. FWIW, none were my questions.

If the community is not given a chance to police itself (because a moderator does the work), then how will the community grow to do this? Teach a man to fish, etc.

Answer 1

EDIT
From reading the reactions here, I get the feeling people think this will become the norm, which it will not.

From what I had seen, and what the other SE moderators had seen this site needed a shot in the arm to survive. I did not just fly in and close down these post on a whim.

From what I was seeing - as well as the other SE mods - the site was not quite policing well enough to get rid of the low quality questions and needed a human exception handler to come in and help.

If i didn't care about this community I would not even be a mod right now, I would just have let the toxic questions persist and write it off, but I didn't I do want to see the site succeed.

Also note, I didn't delete the posts, I closed them.

/EDIT

So, first my reasons for doing this are pretty much covered by the answers given by Mark Trapp, Eight Days of Malaise and neilfein's answers so I won't go back and re-hash everything. As neilfein said:

Close 'em quickly, before answers pile up.

I let them pile up just because it is an early stage site, and I didn't want to just have every question on the front page be [closed] - arguably that could have been the case. Last night I went through and close a good deal of questions that while taken as a question you ask a friend over the water cooler there wasn't much wrong with them BUT taken as a stackexchange question they didn't really add up. Most of them where from the opinion tag or a combination of the opinion and list which at the time where the number ONE and TWO tags on the site!

Now this isn't something I decided to just go and do because I was bored, I solicited other moderator's opinions in our chat room and the consensus was that there was something toxic on the site and something need to be done about it. So yes I knew it wouldn't make me popular, but as a mod you need to be thick skinned.

What I've seen while on this site is most of the questions are:

• What books fit criteria X (List of X questions)
• Opinion questions

Both of these types of question do not make for a good Stack Exchange questions.

To Address some specific questions that have been brought up:

What two TNG episodes does Ashley Judd appear in and does she say she didn't?

How is this making the internet a better place? This answer is trivially easy to find, I mean it's right there on the IMDB page. Just because a question CAN be answered doesn't make it automatically a good question.

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Name the book where the setting is a giant ship with a planet inside.

Help me remember this questions HAVE BEEN BANED BY JEFF as pointed out the specific quote is:

It is my opinion that these "help me remember this {thing}" or "help me identify this >{thing}" questions should be banned from all sites as a matter of policy.

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What are the different types and classes of FTL engines?

Is a list of X question that really can't have a correct or complete answer - I admit this is one of the borderline ones I closed.

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Now, to those saying "Well just make it community wiki!" community wiki is NOT a panacea for everything, we made it a mod only function for a reason. The act of making these types of questions community wiki does not automatically make them OK. These types of questions are ok every now and again, but when most of the site consists of them something needs to change.

Don't take these things as being against the community - I am a scifi lover (I don't have high rep here because of the type of questions - i don't particularly enjoy answering List of X questions so .. I don't answer them much) - and would love to see the site succeed but in the shape it's in it wont.

As far as commenting on the closures - my moderation style has always been "Close them and if they ask on meta give them your reasons"

Answer 2

Not adding discipline to a community during its initial formative stages is toxic to its success, and there are currently not enough people to effectively police the community.

Realize that there are overarching policies codified into three blog posts that guide all Stack Exchange sites, regardless of the current community's idea of what's on-topic:

• Good Subjective, Bad Subjective
• No Artificial Intelligence in Area 51
• Real Questions Have Answers

Zypher's closures seem to be in line with the guidelines set out in those posts.

Answer 3

I'm really confused on how Real Questions Have Real Answers applies to some of the things he closed. Some of them were obviously questions with actual answers. It seems he applied them to questions asking for lists ... which I see was brought up here. But that reason doesn't apply to questions asking for lists.

Answer 4

The book ID question that you closed was certainly not one that "can't have a correct or complete answer". There was more than enough information in the question to uniquely identify the book.

Answer 5

Yes. I believe he is.

As the OP of one the questions closed by Zypher, I'll chime in with my $0.02.

I feel that the closing of my question was a little inconsistent. If you view the other questions tagged story identification, you'll see that mine is the only one that was closed. Some have argued that the question wasn't in the form of a question, but a couple of other "story identification" questions aren't phrased in the form of a question. One even cheats and just puts a question mark at the end.

The reason my question was closed is completely unclear to me, so I have no idea how to make it better. If Zypher didn't like something about my question, I think the better approach would have been a comment suggesting improvements. If those improvements weren't forthcoming, fine, close the question. Education is critical in forming a community.

Also, if a user can't re-open a question, they should not be given the ability to close it. I don't care who he works for. Those rights/permissions should go hand in hand.

Answer 6

I think Zypher needs to re-examine his way of working. I've seen these questions closed today which I do not think should have been closed:

• Trying to identify “I will measure the dust” story
• Fantasy novel with all female characters
• Why the name Shepard? - (this one is borderline)
• SF novel with musical instruments as the only means of communication

Quote from the FAQ:

"At the high end of this reputation spectrum there is little difference between users with high reputation and ♦ moderators. That is very much intentional. We don’t run Science Fiction - Stack Exchange. The community does."

Zypher - can you please explain what is happening? I for one really do not appreciate this unilateral question closing.

Answer 7

Here's a few example questions that were recently closed, that I would argue probably shouldn't have been. After compiling this list, I think I understand why the first two were closed, but they should have had an explanation given as to why they were closed. Anyways, here goes.

• What two TNG episodes does Ashley Judd appear in and does she say she didn't? - Okay, the question itself isn't probably the clearest, but otherwise, it's fine.
• Name the book where the setting is a giant ship with a planet inside. - This might not pass the Jeopardy test of being a pure question, but it's very clear what's being asked.
• What are the different types and classes of FTL engines? This should at least suffice for a community wiki question. It has clear answers, adds value to the community, and is the type of thing that I would like to see more of on the site.

EDIT

I've been looking through the closed questions, seeing who closed them. I must say this much. While there's a few questions that Zypher has closed that had some merit, the vast majority he closed are devaluing the community. So I'm going to have to thank Zypher for making his sweep, even if he did close a few valuable questions in the process.

Answer 8

Sometimes closing a question is the only way to get users to pay attention to Stack Exchange standards. Many moderators agree with this: Close 'em quickly, before answers pile up. (This doesn't make the mod in question popular with the users, but it does achieve the desired result.

This isn't the same situation, but Aaronut makes a good analogy in this answer on cooking.se about closing-versus-editing-questions:

My silly but hopefully educational cooking analogy:

Vague/subjective questions are like a big pile of raw ground chuck. You want to make hamburgers, but just realized that you don't have any onions in the house, or eggs, or flour, or salt, or any of the things that are normally required to make a hamburger from scratch. What do you do?

Well, you can raid the pantry and start throwing a bunch of random crap into the pan with it and see if it comes out OK once it's cooked. It probably won't, though. Or, you can freeze it, go and get the ingredients you need, and then thaw it when you're actually ready to cook it.

So that's what we're doing here. When we close a question, we're saying that it can't be answered well because it's missing details (ingredients). Once those details are added, we can pick up where we left off. On the other hand, if that never happens, and the question just sits around forever and goes rancid, then we will actually delete it, and that is generally final.

Part of our mission here is not only to give people the right answers but also to teach them how to ask the right questions, because asking the right questions is crucial to become an expert oneself and subsequently a contributing member of the community. If we can do that without being rude or unfair (and I do not believe that any of this is rude or unfair), then we should do it as much and as often as possible.

(Emphasis from the original.) What we need is someone to close bad or unclear questions, then guide users into editing them into shape. We're lacking a bit on the second part; I think the site is flailing about just now, trying to find a good balance between interesting science-fiction questions and fitting into Stack Exchange.

Answer 9

Many closed questions are not even old (the site itself is not even old, of course), so have not had a chance to be improved (e.g. through editing). A question can be edited once it is closed. This is absolutely proper behavior. The community can then cast reopen votes.

The community has been casting close votes and we have also seen flags calling out questions. We are not taking anything away from the community. Use this as an example going forward with how you see the site. I've been closing questions for several days, and I have noticed a few people pick up on it. Close votes and flags have increased. This is great. The community is learning.

Stack Exchange is not a game of Trivial Pursuit, it isn't a discussion forum, it isn't a recommendation service, it isn't for conversations you would have standing around a water cooler at work. There have been numerous blog posts that I encourage you to read:

• Real Questions Have Real Answers
• No Artificial Intelligence in Area 51
• Good Subjective, Bad Subjective
• Robert's post on Meta Programmers discussing subjectivity (and also the other items he links to)

By leaving these questions open, someone new to the site comes in, sees these questions, thinks they are ok - and adds new questions that bring down the quality of the site. It is very important that we lead with our best foot forward during the early days of the site.

Please note that you also have chat rooms that you can use. Want to ask for a book recommendation? Hit up the chat room! Want to stand around the water cooler and have a conversation? That's what chat is for!

Answer 10

Zypher is not closing enough questions.

Just because someone can post an answer doesn't automatically validate a poor quality question.

If the community wants to continue asking questions that are yet another slab of lists or recommendations, then it has little hopes of holding its own head above the waters' mark.