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Some of the questions that have been closed lately are closed because they're off-topic even though they're still relevant to sci-fi/fantasy fans such as ourselves. For these sorts of 'good discussion' questions that aren't suitable for the site's format, can we have the block of text that states the question is closed have a link to chat? I think it would be a more positive message to new people if they're told they can discuss that on the site, just not as a question.

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  • People get pretty discouraged when they see their question in the negatives. I think this would be great, to emphasize that subjective questions are welcomed....in the chat.
    – riv_rec
    Apr 29, 2011 at 15:17

1 Answer 1

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We are working on major changes to the closing system right now. You as a community will be able to set up "sub-reasons" for off-topic questions. So once this is rolled out, you can add a close reason that explicitly addresses "off-topic because this is a discussion, but please visit our chat" kind of situations.

Keep in mind, though, that folks need 20 reputation to be able to participate in an SE chatroom. It will probably turn out that if you do introduce this close reason, it'll only add more problems since brand new users will be put off by being pointed to a chat system they can't use.

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  • In all fairness, gaining 20 rep points on SFF is beyond trivial. One not-too-crappy Story-ID question is typically enough, and there's an endless supply of those.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    May 28, 2013 at 14:08
  • Is there a rough timeline for the next changes? I understood the changes to duplicates was one of them.
    – user1027
    May 28, 2013 at 20:18
  • @Keen No clear ETA right now, but I hear we're starting testing the off-topic changes soon.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    May 28, 2013 at 20:26

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