An okay question (I thought) from a 1-rep user was closed in maybe 1/2 an hour, give or take. I triggered a successful reopen of it.

In later debate with one of the people who voted to close, he said the close vote was basically warranted because of lack of response to requests for clarification. When I expressed puzzlement about justifying that under such a narrow time window, I mentioned that sometimes I will hit a block and post and go to bed. He said "you shouldn't do that." Moreover he said:

It's a FACT that question[s] only get early attention, then a quick fade phase, and after that, there isn't much activity. CONSEQUENTLY, it's a bad idea to post when you cannot read the immediate feedback.

Is Stack Overflow's trigger-happy need to curate getting to the point where this level of "real-time" has become an intrinsic expectation? During the same discussion, the close-voter expressed a clear level of dissatisfaction with Stack Overflow's realtime features; comparing it as lacking to (for instance) the immediacy of feedback from compilers.

The upshot becomes something I might attempt to paraphrase as: "Sure... if they'd stayed glued to their keyboard, we would have left it open had they gotten back to us. BUT we commented, they didn't comment back within a few minutes, hence the prompt close. Lots of questions to tend to... their loss. Try again next time, and if you don't want to try, toughen up kid."

I'm always thinking about someone who wants to learn, but who might be easily intimidated--being very puzzled at the dogpile response and rapid close. I might well not come back. And taking another direct quote:

I just don't care if a single bad experience deters somebody.

So there's more than one disagreement encoded in the whole thing. :-/

But sticking to the time-sensitivity... with this kind of moderation starting to become more common, I suggest at least fair warning is in order. There's already a lot of invisible rules and the timing one is just one more, before an unwitting user gets slapped with a wet fish and sent back from whence they came.

Perhaps before allowing low-rep users to post, prompt them:

Stack Overflow gets lots of questions! Yours may need requests for clarification to get it processed properly, and you have to be around to respond. So don't post and take a lunch-break! Wait until you are available to help us, help you. Maybe print out a copy of the How To Ask FAQ and take it with you to read while you're having that sandwich, because moderation here is taken pretty seriously.

You can avoid having a bad first experience if you take a little extra care with that first post! And dn't forgett to spelchek!

Alternatively, ask those who want to live in realtime to focus on services that clearly advertise themselves as realtime. Of which there are several; with one-on-one video chats and such. I know, because I keep getting mail about people wanting me to sign up for them.

UPDATE: Regardless of how this one belief splits people, moderation will never agree completely. This has led a lot of people to say "so toughen up until you get used to the vibe of the tag you're in". Instead of a static warning that may or may not work, here's an adaptive approach:


The immediacy advice is a good candidate for throwing into the pool to see how well it does in raising upvotes and reducing closevotes, in a satisfying phrasing.

I seem to remember something related to this by Jeff Atwood or another mod. I think it was for some kind of notifications for OP for the question -- either for VTCs, actual closing, etc. His response was something along the lines of "It's your question, so you should be watching it, especially right after you post it", followed by some suggestions for how frequently to check back. I'm holding off on my opinion for now, but perhaps that's something to think about... It would really help if I could find the actual thing, but I've got to run so I can't do that myself at the moment –  user3580294 Jul 14 at 22:21
@user3580294 It would really help if I could find the actual thing, but I've got to run so I can't do that myself at the moment. Hope you didn't run too far...because I don't see how this comment is useful unless you provide the actual I'm flagging it as unconstructive if you don't do so in under 20 minutes. :-) –  HostileFork Jul 14 at 22:27
The time window when posting a question is very important. Aside from the perfect question, it will more than likely need at the very least a comment to provide clarification for an interested user. If you are going to ask something, it helps to be ready to give a little. –  Travis J Jul 14 at 22:50
Well, here's the Jeff Atwood response. Seems my memory was faulty and there isn't a mention of how frequently to check back, though... I'm convinced it exists somewhere; I just have no clue where. I'll keep looking... There's also this response by Shog9. As you can see, it isn't always a popular position... –  user3580294 Jul 14 at 22:55
This is not a new phenomena. People where commenting about how the blazing speed of Stack Overflow changed the way they asked the internet back when the site was only a year old. You really do have to have fifteen minutes of so to monitor and respond to the immediate feedback on your post to get the most out of Stack Overflow. –  dmckee Jul 15 at 0:47
Encouraging new users to waste paper? What a joke... –  Jeremy Jul 15 at 1:11
Some related topic How long should I wait to cast a vote? –  Braiam Jul 16 at 4:51
Your suggestion is highly related to: add-a-hint-to-stay-put-after-posting-a-question –  juergen d Jul 17 at 21:48

5 Answers 5

Your debater is correct, although not about "failure to provide clarification" as a justification for closing.

Unless you possess the rare ability to post a question on the first try that is clear, answerable, on-topic and adequately scoped, you should hang around for the few critical minutes after it is posted to respond to comments about your question.

If you expect a slow burn, your question should be interesting. If it's an interesting question, people will think about it, come back to it, and eventually give it a proper answer. Most questions are rather mundane troubleshooting questions that will only benefit the OP. Yes, they need to have the courtesy to stick around for a few minutes to address comments posted to their question.

Note that Stack Overflow was specifically and deliberately designed to get rapid responses to posted questions. Timeliness is very important. Ambivalence about how long it will take for folks to respond to your question means that it isn't all that important of a question in the first place.

Also note that already specifically addresses this. It says:

Post the question and respond to feedback


Definitely an assortment of places to read to get this information. Another point I might add to your answer is that new users tend to skip over documentation regardless of how in their face it is. –  Travis J Jul 14 at 22:52
Doesn't sound like a warning, there. It tells you what to do in a passive way, not what you shouldn't do. That would be more effective as DO NOT post and then wander off for a lunch break! Moreover, I think it has to show up in the process at the appropriate moment; as well as be in the process as the close reason. Again; I don't have a problem with there being such a rule but really the ergonomics of the system are not keeping pace with the "rule creep"...and I think new users deserve help with it. –  HostileFork Jul 14 at 22:58
@HostileFork: Everything about the Help Center is passive. None of it says "This isn't a request; it is a requirement." –  Robert Harvey Jul 14 at 22:58
Um, yes? But that's where I'd suggest tweaking the process so it's not. Someone decided to write a thing that looks for the word "you" in titles and says "Your question appears subjective and may be closed". A pre-first-post checklist screen where you have to tick boxes saying "yup, I'm going to be around for at least an hour to answer requests for clarification" and maybe a few other things would be less nonsensical. –  HostileFork Jul 14 at 23:03
Any such list would have hundreds of items in it. Remember WSOiN? –  Robert Harvey Jul 14 at 23:04
Well this site isn't afraid of data and metrics. Couldn't it be adaptive? Pick three checklist items out of the hundred in different sampling groups. Measure effect on close rates and close reasons. –  HostileFork Jul 14 at 23:06
@HostileFork: Sounds like decent fodder for a Feature request, if you can adequately describe it. FWIW, I have editing rights for the help/On Topic article, and I've done my best to articulate there (in an active voice) some reasons why a question might get closed, and how those can be avoided. Alas, people still manage to get their questions closed. –  Robert Harvey Jul 14 at 23:10
Would it help to give recently reopened questions a good strong bump? This would 1. Encourage users to fix their closed questions, 2. Avoid pressure not to close rapidly, and 3. Encourage reopen reviewers to only reopen if the question is actually good. –  dfeuer Jul 15 at 1:15
@dfeur: That already happens. –  Robert Harvey Jul 15 at 1:54
I have never received an answer to any of my questions in couple of minutes in my favourite tag except one quite obvious one in the heavy-traffic python tag. Sometimes I got first answer or comment in many days but normally it takes couple of hours at least. –  Vladimir F Jul 15 at 9:09
"Note that Stack Overflow was specifically and deliberately designed to get rapid responses to posted questions", I wasn't aware of that. This approach would seem more appropriate for a "helpline" site, as opposed to somewhere where we try to gather the best knowledge for developers and all that (which would generally require a bit more time to think). This, along with the gamification rules, would certainly explain why the objective of a quality knowledge base is difficult to reach with that model (and this would explain the FGITW problem too). –  Bruno Jul 15 at 12:48

A question is closed/left open based on how it currently is. Not how it could be after the OP provides just a little bit more feedback.

The whole purpose of closing a question is so that it can be set aside and potentially reopened when it is brought up to standard.

And lo and behold this question actually did get reopened, so now, all is well in the world.

Well, the not-well-with-the-world part is that the user is likely scared off now. I might well be too. –  HostileFork Jul 14 at 23:00
Agreed. If a question does not meet the standard, you vote to close. Immediately. Period. Seems relevant, (one of my most favorite SE posts):… If you feel it's appropriate, feel free to leave suggestions for clarification or whatever is necessary to bring it up to standard. There is no requirement to do so, and the close vote inherently does. The problem I have on the tag I watch is not enough closing hordes, not too many. Then Barber/Harvey come along once in a blue moon and make my day with the hammer. –  Robert Crovella Jul 15 at 2:05
@RobertCrovella, I've had the same problem (regarding not enough), but somehow there seems to be a split between two categories of extremes. Some seem to enter the close queue and are shot at straight away with little effort from the reviewers, other can wait forever (especially for the ones that could be migrated). –  Bruno Jul 15 at 2:40
Yes, close voting is very unpredictable IMHO. It would happen quite infrequently on the tag I care about except for random "angels" who come along, and probably don't care a bit about the tag. I would be miserable trying to help out on a tag that had even less traffic. One of the big problems with the close voting system that I see is that it is not scaled to the traffic on a particular tag. –  Robert Crovella Jul 15 at 2:48
@RobertCrovella There is very little intervention on my pet tags. But I have noted that c++ is very harsh, which motivated this. The closed question from 1 rep user as "not clear what you're asking" that got me cranky was this one. I do wonder if, # of required close votes should be scaled to the attention on the tag? 5 may be a magic number for how many tags, but should close votes be a function of views or something? I also notice the C people are far more "hello noob may I help you with your nonsense" –  HostileFork Jul 15 at 2:54
@RobertCrovella, adapting to the traffic on the tag would be interesting, but probably be difficult. I guess there would be problems for questions that have both a popular tag and a more specialised one. Those who don't understand the speciality would probably be more likely to vote to close quickly. –  Bruno Jul 15 at 9:59
The idea is to simply take the tag with the highest number of followers on a given question, and scale the number of close votes required to close the question according to that. Your stated concerns are valid today ("Those who don't understand the speciality would probably be more likely to vote to close quickly.") and would not be affected by this. If a question has a tag like c++ on it, which has a lot of followers, it will require more close votes than if the most-followed tag is bonobo. And I'm not talking about a huge change. Maybe 5 votes for c++ and 3 for bonobo. –  Robert Crovella Jul 15 at 12:33
@RobertCrovella, you still get the problem that questions can belong to multiple tags. I've been following regularly the ssl tag, which I'd consider low-traffic. Some questions are tagged with both ssl and java for example, and Java generalists might not always get the subtlety of the problem in the question. You'd then get some imbalance between the language/platform generalists and those who are more specialised, voting on the same questions. This could happen for any language tag where the question applies to a specific domain with another tag. –  Bruno Jul 15 at 18:35
You comments apply today, without any changes. They are not specific to my proposal. Questions can belong to multiple tags today. Java generalists might not always get the subtlety of the problem in question today. A question tagged with java (= high traffic tag) regardless of other tags would need 5 close votes, just as it does today. Only in the instance where the question is only tagged with ssl (= low traffic tag), would the close vote requirement be reduced. –  Robert Crovella Jul 15 at 18:41


I think it has indeed. Rather, the "benefit of the doubt" is something that seems to have gone away from Stack Overflow. There used to be a time where people came to SO trying to help and provide interesting answers, hoping whoever might read the Q&A exchange might find its content interesting. It seems it has now become increasingly dominated by users who are trigger-happy, trying to close and downvote whatever they feel isn't right, sometimes without adequate justification or understanding of the problem stated.

I'm not sure whether these are new users who have recently crossed the requirements to vote for closure, showing the same behaviour towards others as whatever negative experience they've just received themselves. Some might also be high-rep users who are fed up with seeing bad questions (some of this loss of patience can be understandable, I'm sure it has happened to me, but it shouldn't become the norm).

Expecting the asker to respond to comments immediately or stay around for an hour or so is unrealistic. There are circumstances in real life when you can't just attend to the question you've just asked. Besides exceptional events, people can be called for meetings or have other work obligations. Even programmers need food and toilet breaks.

The main problem with your suggestion "don't post and take a lunch-break!" is actually an unreasonable demand. Many times I've seen questions asked, say up to a couple of hours ago, not really noticed by anyone during that time, and I've asked for clarification. Should I have expected the OP to stay there for two hours?

I mean, you ask the question, get no feedback for 45 minutes (well, no constructive feedback at least, you might get comment-less downvotes) even if you've checked and not gone anywhere. You then need to leave for a few hours (for whatever good reason), then someone finally notices the question when you're away. You get comments and votes for closure during that time. You just have no chance to address any of these comments.

Neither parties can assume the other one is right there available to answer the comments straight away. This is entirely unreasonable. We also live in different time zones. Sometimes, you just have to give it a day or two at least if you want anything useful to come out of this exchange.

Stack Overflow is not IRC or a chat room. It is not meant to be used like a real-time system or anything close to that.

The other problem is that some close voters don't understand (or just don't like) the question, whereas the question can be understood and answered by someone who knows the subject a bit better. In this case, it becomes increasingly difficult for a reasonable question to get an answer, since early closure makes the whole process more difficult: it discourages potential knowledgeable answers, and it also discourages the asker to come back to try to improve the question.

Many (if not most) closure cases are justified, but early sentencing is of no benefit to askers who are actually willing to make an effort.

+1 for "whatever happened to benefit of the doubt", and the rest. I think the culture is facing aaaaa too many questions we cannot be all things to all people must stop mongol hordes. Some might point out "well, we don't even close questions any more, we put them 'on hold', that doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, right?" But I've seen the same people with 44karat rep bellyache over one downvote like "WHO DID THAT!". I'm all for metrics and keeping the information good, but it shouldn't be a matter of "we can't be both nice and have good institutional knowledge" dichotomy. You can. –  HostileFork Jul 15 at 1:53
FYI, the motivating scenario getting me on this discussion was this question, and it took a while to bring it back up from closure to consideration, by which time the user may well be gone from here for life. We don't know anything about them and probably never will. The thing is, I like my response quite a lot better than a raw URL to "The X Y problem"... to me it's not a map for learning, it's just... like, a pack of wolves or something. I know they think they're curating, but. Not really. –  HostileFork Jul 15 at 1:59
I find there seems to be very little difference between "on hold" and actually closed. Once a question has been tarred with the closure brush (i.e. one vote has made it enter the close queue), it seems hard to alter its trajectory, unless the asker really does something outstanding. I'd agree there is a herd effect with votes to close. With down or closure votes without feedback, there's little incentive to teach the user what was wrong with their question, they're either likely not to come back, or come back and make the same mistakes. –  Bruno Jul 15 at 2:26
@Bruno We have a game here and can make the incentive if we like. E.g. giving rep for helping to re-open questions or giving rep for explaining downvotes or giving rep for whatever. I'm sure that would change the situation if we wanted that. –  Trilarion Jul 15 at 13:47
We could even have a minimal time before closure (let's say 30 minutes is the minimal time). –  Trilarion Jul 15 at 13:48
@Trilarion: There's already a well-reasoned couter-proposal to your non-closeable for 30 minutes: Make it non-answereable for 30 minutes, so FGITW does not keep so much crap alive, nor encourage so much more. –  Deduplicator Jul 15 at 15:16
@Deduplicator I like my proposal more. For fighting FGITW 5 minutes would probably be enough to kill 90% of FGITW. Also I guess people would then race for the 30 minutes limit which would result in quite some frustration. –  Trilarion Jul 15 at 18:00
@Trilarion, not sure about the 30-minute minimal period. This doesn't really change the problem. If no one has looked at the question within 30 minutes (quite possible in less popular tags) and asked for clarification, the asker won't necessarily have had to clarify anything by then, and after that, they may have gone. It's very difficult to estimate what a reasonable time period is, either way. –  Bruno Jul 15 at 18:25
Perhaps a more radical idea would be to move all the closed question to a secondary site ("Stack Overflow School/Academy/...", branding to be debated by SE...), with linked accounts of course, where users are encouraged to help askers to improve their questions, and have an easy way to migrate back to the main site once the question is in a reasonable shape. (Perhaps with slight changes to make that secondary site more comments oriented, but without the ability to answer.) All with linked rep to the main site, but points you can earn by assisting to improve the question. –  Bruno Jul 15 at 18:30
@Bruno You don't need another site. Another category with their own searches would be enough. But this probably goes against the vision of SE or many current active users. I guess they wouldn't want that. For example all attempts on area51 to have a SO for beginners are blocked by SE and they prefer to improve SO instead. But improving currently means more like faster closing. –  Trilarion Jul 15 at 20:13
@Bruno Actually you wouldn't even need another category. Just stop closing questions and have a filter that by default only shows questions with positive scores, then teach google to ignore the questions with negative scores. Those who want to help can then look at the negative questions and improve them. For convenience questions that are still negative after one year could be autodeleted in order to keep the site lean - if this is needed. Maybe I make this proposal just for the fun of it. Additonally I should probably wait for 1 hour and then ask "why the downvotes"? :) –  Trilarion Jul 15 at 20:13
@Trilarion, actually, I don't mind Google indexing questions with a negative score or closed ones. If I type keywords that lead me to those, they're generally at least partly interesting. A filter would be more useful for potential answerers, or people who are already looking at lists of question on the site itself. –  Bruno Jul 16 at 18:07
@Bruno It seems we both can well imagine an SO where closing doesn't exist. If people don't want to see negatively voted questions they could just turn on a filter, not waste their time voting for closing. –  Trilarion Jul 16 at 19:27
@Trilarion, I'm not sure, I'm still in favour of closing (and even deleting) some questions. It's just that I'm not sure the current system works in a way that gives any incentive to improve these questions. Perhaps questions on hold should still be open for answers, but anyone answering them once they're on hold wouldn't get any points until they're re-opened (but could still get pointless up or down votes to give an indication whether the answer was good). Then, reviewers checking whether it's worth re-opening should check the Q&A as a whole. –  Bruno Jul 16 at 21:58

It's simply a matter of practicality. Questions are first encountered when they are freshly posted. That first impression counts. The question is evaluated based on its merits right after it was posted. If it doesn't meet the expected standards (clear, answerable etc.), it gets closed. As simple as that. If we are closing to keep the system clean, there's no other action we can do. What's the alternative? We can't keep tabs on all questions that could possibly maybe become good in the future and only close them after a longer grace period. Who's going to do that? How is that practical? Waiting for half an hour already is a grace period. Nobody is going to keep coming back to a mediocre question for a few days to see whether it has improved or not.

The failure was already to post a question which didn't meet the expected standards. If the question had met the standards, it wouldn't (shouldn't) be eligible for closing in the first place. The protocol for sub-standard questions is to put them On Hold. This explicitly gives the OP a chance to improve the question. The question cannot be deleted while it is on hold for the first few days (unless it has been voted to be utter crap). If the OP does improve the question within that period, it's eligible for a re-open and enters a special queue to bring it to the attention of potential voters. That's the grace period build into the system. That is the practical way how questions go through the post-feedback-improve-answer cycle. Expecting everyone to do this "manually" without actually putting the question on hold just because it's "not nice" to put it on hold is unrealistic for the volume of questions SO receives.

I think the very first question needs a special bit of treatment in particular. Efficiency should be balanced against what impressions are made in making enemies of potential contributors, in that "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" way. I think this idea would help –  HostileFork Jul 16 at 13:22
Sure, we don't need to needlessly hammer a newbie into the ground. However, there's no need to make an impractical exception just because they're new. It's not like we're robbing them of their chance to ask a question. The system works as designed. They get their chance as long as they can post an acceptable question, now or later. On the contrary, I'd think an early close sends the right signals to the OP, so he can learn what is and is not acceptable ASAP, instead of being judged on a sliding scale over time. –  deceze Jul 16 at 13:31
You're right, but I think the problem has more to do with question that some consider unclear (let's just say, a majority of user with "average" knowledge of that subject), who just happen to be there at about any time during the day/week (collectively), and where more "expert" users would actually understand the question fairly well, but are not there during the right time frame. Preventing questions to be answered (on hold or closed) doesn't seem to be a great way to go (and getting it re-opened can be tricky if the majority of reviewers just don't get it). –  Bruno Jul 16 at 18:13
@Bruno Interestingly, in my experience the opposite is true. In questions I vote to close because they're vague at best, often a bunch of low-rep users rush in to post some nonsense which ultimately never solves anything. Maybe that varies by tags. –  deceze Jul 16 at 18:53
@deceze, you're probably right. It must depend on whether it's a niche tag or something more popular. –  Bruno Jul 16 at 18:56

All this critically depends on the popularity of the tags/topics. I frequently see questions that are one day old and have no answer but some days later they have. When I see a question and I don't really understand it I leave a comment and maybe the next day I get a response and then I can answer the question or not.

This might not be true for C, Java, php, mobile plattforms, ... or if the downvote squad is after you. In these case you better be able to react within the second in order to avoid unnecessary complications.

But if the question is of sufficient quality and if the topic is a bit off the main stream I think that time is much less critical.

There are questions from former years on SO that still get (better) answers. This already tells us that the relevant time scales (except for closures) can be extremely long.


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