How should we handle disagreements on question closure within comments?

Question

This question came up as another attempt by the user to get their map scale question answered.

There were already two Meta Qs about it that didn't have much engagement from OP:

• How to ask about Map Scales
• Will this question about mapping not get put on hold as opinion-based

OP posted the latest question last night that I (and others) felt was in need of closure until it was better defined.

There was a comment thread which attempted to reignite the discussion and get OPs feedback to help them define their problem so we could have better answers, but a mod came in and broke up the discussion.

All comments were deleted (not moved to chat, but deleted) and two new comments were put in countering the arguments from those deleted.

Is this the best way to handle closure votes that mods don't agree with?

Answer 1

Something the mod team has observed is that there seems to be a lot of sensitivity among the community to detecting hints of designer-reasons in questions. Possibly more detection than is really there.

In that context, my perception is that that’s what happened here. I can’t speak for the acting mod there, but I personally see some over-detection of designer-reasons.

As mods, we sometimes step in to override what we see as a clear error. For closes or reopens, we do that where we can with confidence say that an override is correct.

We also use mod actions sometimes to nudge the community as a whole entity away from spiralling into vicious cycles. Establishing a community-wide precedent where any hint of designer-reasons makes a question close-worthy is beyond the consensus established on meta, and is the sort of thing likely to feed on itself and/or change how closes in general are handled, so I see nudging away from hints becoming the working precedent as useful intervention. (For context, the consensus, at least as I recognise it, is that questions with a core problem that is “why is this designed this way?” is what was made off topic.) A nudge at community scale can look like a hammer at the scale of one post or one comment trail, but hammers are a normal tool in the mod toolbox too that we use judiciously.

So I can’t speak for the acting mod, but I can say that as mods we do step in to take corrective measures when something appears to be going wrong, so this example (wiping an argument and then making a statement, possibly with a close/open action) isn’t unusual in that regard and at question scale. I can say also say that at the community scale we’re not keen on overdoing designer-reasons close votes, and it looks to me that this is an example of going beyond what meta has established, and that’s part of the environment of this event.

Answer 2

The amount of discussion sprawl for a single question was in my opinion excessive.

There were 2 questions each with comment threads (What map scales have you found useful? (closed), Do the map scales suggested in the DMG tie into any rules? (with 10 deleted comments)) and then 2 meta questions also with discussion (How to ask about map scales?, Will this question about mapping not get put on hold as too opinion-based?).

As a result, instead of continuing comment discussion, I re-linked the latest meta question and deleted the rest.

If they choose not to engage in meta (and you don't really know they're not, they posted the meta and can read your replies, they don't have to turn it into a discussion), then you vote your conscience, you don't sprawl the discussion further.

Related to the specific area of concern for the original question, the community is in my opinion being excessively overzealous about identifying questions as designer-reasons questions. Someone explicitly asking for designer reasons is a designer-reasons question. Or just bellyaching about "Why did they do it this way I loved descending AC!?!". But it's entirely reasonable to explore, in a complex ruleset, why something might be the way it is. This is not a problem with the question, it's a problem with answers. If there is not an answer within the ruleset, then don't answer, and it's not a designer-reasons question.

This isn't just about that question, it's been happening a good bit lately and the mod team in general isn't very happy about it. And it's not just about overzealous identification of questions as designer-reasons. There's been a weird uptick in a particularly legalistic approach to community closure and activity lately which fails to recognize the organic nature of the community. We do kinda want to allow as much content on the site as we can that's not problematic. There's not always a "hard rule" and we expect people to use their judgement.

We certainly do, which is why there's not always some black-letter law underlying our actions and guidance to the community. This is an example of that kind of time. As @sevensideddie points out well in his answer, "it depends." Sometimes deleting comments, sometimes moving to chat, sometimes posting on meta, sometimes doing nothing is the right thing to do. In this case, the combination of discussion sprawl, on a topic that seems to need some guidance in general in the community, resulted in a specific set of actions (comment deletion and comment guidance to a) use meta and b) lay off the over-diagnosing of designer-reasons).

A similar situation in the future might indeed generate different actions. That is a feature, not a bug.