I came across this question. And its answer. Exactly the answer I would have given:

Is there a system verilog task which returns the length of a reg / logic?

Yet, it has been put on hold due to it being "unclear what you're asking". It is crystal clear what is being asked and a clear answer has been given.

However, what seems absolutely extra-ordinary is that none of the people who have voted to close the question seem to have any expertise in its subject matter (System-Verilog). Ought someone interfering with someone else's attempt to seek guidance at least have some expertise in the subject matter concerned?

  • 3
    Its certainly not unclear what you are asking, so reopened it. Next, IMHO I think that question was put on hold because it shows lack of research. A quick search might have given you some direction. – TheLostMind Mar 28 '16 at 8:07

Some people vote to close when they come across short questions that don't include code snippets in it, or don't actually have a question. It's probably that the first voter didn't take much time reviewing the question, voted to close, and other users blindly followed him.

While I disagree with the closure vote, I still think it should be closed - but for another reason; OP doesn't show minimal research efforts before asking, the linked section suggests a very similar question that addresses his issue.

Side note: While the answer works, I would have been happy to see explanation or at least a reference rather than "this is what you want".

  • You're right that the answer is easily found by Google. Ironically, though, the first hit is another answer on Stack Overflow, which wouldn't have been there had that question been closed for the same reason... – Matthew Taylor Mar 28 '16 at 10:49
  • What should we use then as there is no close reason for lack of research? – NathanOliver Mar 28 '16 at 19:12


In regard to the specific question:

  • Should the question have been left closed until there were enough people with expertise voting to reopen it (considering that the moderator who reopened your question had no tag score for those particular tags)?

  • Should the person who recommended to leave the question open not have voted, since they also didn't have expertise with the subject matter?

If you expect to restrict reviews to people who have some expertise (e.g., tag score), it would make it very difficult to review questions for those specific tags which don't have much interest, activity, or followers. More close votes would expire, and more questions wouldn't get closed as quickly as they needed to be (leading to more bad answers to bad questions).

While you can review for a given tag, most people just don't review that way. Until people review differently, requiring particular expertise would only cause the close vote queue to back up even further than it does now.

In general, requiring expertise would:

  • Increase time spent reviewing: Consider how much additional time it would take to close 40 (or 60) questions a day, if most reviews had to be skipped due to lack of subject expertise.

  • Further burden experts: Having a limited number of people who could actively review questions due to their expertise would place an additional responsibility on them to review as well as to answer questions.

  • Make it difficult to close enough questions: Someone who volunteers to close questions may not even be able to close many questions in a day if there aren't enough questions being asked in their areas of expertise.

  • Create double standards: If we expect people to have expertise before they can vote to close, we should also require people to have expertise before they can reopen.

While a limited number of questions may inappropriately get closed, it's simply easier to reopen them by bringing attention to the matter.

Let's be careful not to shoot ourselves in the foot by making reviewing more difficult across the board.

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