With "How should we handle "any" (list) questions", the highest voted (+9, -3) answer right now (by a mod) is:
Since we're debating the issue right now, I'm not going to wield the mod close hammer
The next highest (+3, -0, also by a mod) is:
It seems to me pretty clear that the word "Any" in a question doesn't warrant immediate closing, but it does signal that the question should be watched.
I don't see any answers there that suggest that these questions are "by definition" off-topic, but this question was closed (by a mod, with no other close votes). My flag querying this was declined (I flagged initially rather than asking this question because we already have two meta questions about this, where I see no justification for the closure, and I don't see the merit in having a third):
I thought we had a consensus against list questions. If you object to this closing, please explain your reasoning on meta.
The question is from April 2011, so it includes the sadly-too-common clarification that it's not a list question:
(Please note I don't want a list of every time this has been used. If it's actually common, then a single example, or the first example, is enough, thanks).
The question has no satisfactory answers - either this is extremely rare, or the answer is that "no", there are no other examples of this. There's certainly no evidence at all that this question has led to "one work per answer" style answering or poll-style voting, which are the usual indications of a problematic list question (again: it doesn't want a list).
I found something new to me in this story. I'd like to know if this is a particular conceit of the author's, or if this is something that's based on either real-world research or a common (or at least not new) fictional-world idea. Considering the author's work, it's reasonable to consider that either of those is true. A list is not needed to answer this question; a list has not been provided (in any form) for this question.
The second previous meta question related here is: Are questions looking to simply prove or disprove a premise with a yes/no answer a good fit for our site?
Here, we have the highest voted answer (+7, -0):
These are some great answers posted, and it seems (so far) that the consensus is that these types of questions do have a place here.
I again see no answers to that post that suggest that these questions should be immediately considered off-topic - i.e. so much so that a moderator should (with no other prompting) close them.
Why was this question closed?