Why exactly was this closed as "not constructive"?

Question

This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion

What specifically was "not constructive" about the following question based on the definition above? I think this was a completely baseless closure.

Was Eric Flint's 1632 the only SF&F work/universe where fan fiction is considered canon?

The question did NOT generate "opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion". It did, however, generate a very precise solitary answer, which completely answered it and provided useful information.

The only discussion it generated - in comments - was definition of "fanfic," which I think most reasonable SciFi&F people don't consider controversial and was very precisely defined in the question itself to avoid any ambiguity; and, moreover, fanfic questions were explicitly agreed on meta to be on topic previously.

Answer 1

My main beef against this question is that I have no idea what is meant precisely by “considered canon”, yet the question hinges on a very precise definition since it's asking for a yes or no answer. Even with the given definition of “fan fiction”, there's room for interpretation. I don't see how an answer could not depend on its author's interpretation of the definitions, meaning that the correctness of the answer would be decided on a whim — does the author's interpretation look sufficiently close to what the asker had in mind? If yes, upvote; if not, downvote.

This is exactly the kind of pointless bickering that the “not constructive” close reason (formerly “subjective and argumentative”) seeks to avoid. Case, and question, closed.

Additionally, asking for a single example is not a way to save a bad question; more on that in When voting to close list questions, which VTC reason should I choose?

Furthermore, I take exception to this:

I'm looking for just one example of (…), NOT a list. If there's already an accepted answer, please be kind enough not to post extra examples - I will flag them for moderator deletions.

As a moderator, I would not agree to such deletions. If a first answer cites an example, and a second answer cites another example, then either both answers are valid or none are. Your restriction seems to constrain the answers not to be interesting, and we certainly don't want that.

Answer 2

If you have to add this text to your question:

NOTE: I'm looking for just one example of such universe aside from 1632 (to see if Flint was unique), NOT a list. If there's already an accepted answer, please be kind enough not to post extra examples - I will flag them for moderator deletions.

...it's a sign that even you feel that there is a good chance that other people will be tempted to respond as if this were a polling/list question.

It's part of the nature of the platform that people want to post answers (which is, of course, a good thing!), especially if their answer is fundamentally different than any others there. While you may argue that in this case, examples of different works wouldn't really be significantly different to the basic question of "do any exist?", other users looking to answer would quite possibly disagree, especially if there's a personal favorite that might fit the bill "better" than existing answers.

At the most basic, no question should be asked that would require the OP to have to preemptively threaten to flag for moderator deletions. Answers should only be deleted when they don't attempt to address the question at all, contain dangerous advice (not likely on our site, given the nature of the topics), or when they contain spam, offensive, or otherwise inappropriate content that can't or shouldn't be edited to leave useful information. "I have too many answers" is not a sufficient reason to ask moderators to delete answers.