A question is closed that I think I can answer, what do I do?

Question

This question I believe is a good one, and I think is answerable as an overview of what XP systems are used for, both psychologically and game-design wise. I'm fine with the community's decision to put it on hold, if that's what they agree is correct (I lack the experience on this site to really determine something like that yet). But if I want to contend that the question is fine as is, where do I go to do that? Should I mention in a comment on the question that I think it's a fine question, come here on the meta, or something else?

Answer 1

You should help get the question opened, and be patient.

You can do this by:

1. Commenting to help the OP overcome the others' concerns
2. Editing to help clarify (rep allowing)
3. Post on meta about the specific question, but you should really only do this once 1 and 2 have run their course

In this case, as usual, some small tweaks to the question got it reopened so you can lay your wisdom down on us. I think we all survived going an extra 3 hours before you could post it.

Answer 2

I’d say there’s generally three categories of this, two of which are handled by editing the question, and one which probably just needs discussion on Meta.

In both of the editing cases, you are editing a question and changing the question – you should never do this unless the original question as it was written was not fit for the site. In all cases, the edit privilege should be used carefully, but with extreme care when you are actually changing what someone is saying. You have to be very certain that you know what they meant, and are actually helping them.

The question is extremely unclear... but you got it

This happens to me a fair amount in the 3.5 tag, because I am familiar with a very large amount of that system. Someone asks a question, usually in broken English and with only vague mentions of classes or feats or whatever, and it makes no sense to most people, and is rightfully put on hold. But since I recognize the classes or feats (even though the question-asker got the names wrong) and know what they do and what interaction could be confusing, I can fix that.

So the solution here is editing. Edit it so that the thing you understood, is clear to everyone else. It might mean just inserting the appropriate rules quote. It might mean cleaning up broken English. But whatever it is, you can fix it. A good example of this is this question.

The question doesn’t fit our site... but a very-similar one might

This is really common: someone asks how to do something big. There’s detail enough to narrow down answers, but any complete answer isn’t going to fit in our answer boxes. A very simple solution is to change the question from asking how?, to asking where can I find?.

Similar situations abound, too. Someone asks why did they write the rules this way? (which technically is a valid question, but almost certainly won’t draw any good answers because it’s almost impossible to back them up) when they really want to know does something bad happen if I change it?. This is generally what’s known as the XY Problem.

Just to reiterate, just because (you suspect) there’s an XY Problem, isn’t itself good enough to justify changing someone’s question. It’s only when there is a very small, subtle change between what was asked and what is valid on the site, that such an edit is justified. A (suspected) XY Problem is also not, itself, cause to close a question – if it’s a valid question, it shouldn’t be on hold even if you think it’s not really what they want to know. Turns out, most of the time, people know what they want better than you know what they want.

You disagree with the community about a question’s appropriateness

This is the case you have here. The only option, really, is to bring it up on Meta, make a case, and see if you can get people to cast Reopen votes.

Answer 3

Honestly, overview questions aren't great. Generally if you think that something needs an overview of an entire RPG concept to be answered well, that's a sure sign that the question is too broad.

In this particular case though, it's a pretty simple fix. He's asking a question that has system specific answers, and so we should give it a proper system tag (which has been done as of this writing). Thus the question is no longer too broad and can be reopened.