Why old question are being closed? (see SO)

English
,
#1

Some questions here are closed arbitrarily;

Some of which have no resolution.

The reason is usually not given. I suspect it’s because certain time elapsed.

  • In a dynamic world, there’s always development; There are always new solutions, existing answers become obsolete; updates to old solutions are found, or more accurate answers.

Moreover: some bugs / issues has no solution since version 3… 4… – why closing the question?

Can we ask @AlexKemp not to close questions ?

Can we ask for a link to duplicate answers?

For Reference, please take example from StackOverflow.

#2

This is a personal initiative without any endorsement by high-rated users. I remember a discussion here (but I can’t find the reference right now) about the opportunity to close questions or not. The conclusion was it was better to leave questions open because an improvement is always possible, for example due to version evolution in LO.

This goes for answered questions. However, I don’t know what should be the policy about unanswered old questions. Obviously, the OP didn’t care for an answer because he never refreshed the question.

The way to refresh a question is either to edit it (adding a space is enough) or to comment it. When a question is thus “refreshed”, it pops back at the head of unanswered questions.

Closing an outdated unanswered question may be legitimate but this has never been discussed.

I don’t remember if @AlexKemp participated in the discussion about closing/not closing. Obviously, he took personal initiative to “clean” the site.

#3

Are you sure about the “bumping” effect of comments? My experience seems to tell me there is none.

Bumping a question might better not be done by just appending a space. I would prefer to have the intention documented by (e.g.) a new paragraph containing the word “bump”.

#4

You’re right about comment. I didn’t remember it. Of course, adding a paragraph about the intent is much better than just “refreshing” the question.

#5

@Berry You should be prepared for your question “can I jump to a specific worksheet via keyboard shortcuts?” will also be closed over time. Five people spent time on New Year’s Eve to answer the question, and you did not even comment on it. Do you think that the question has not been answered? Are you bored of writing comments? The people who answered you expected at least some kind of feedback

#6

Hi Berry

I am currently going through more-than-3-year-old questions and closing each one that is not already closed (between a ⅓ and ½ of all such 3-year-old questions are already closed). The reason for closure is given within each & every close-notice, and is not ‘arbitrary’. In addition, here are some more considerations:–

  1. “Closing” a question does NOT mean “dismissing” a question.
    Closed questions still rise to the top in queries as long as one of the answers is marked as accepted (see “Related questions” in the sidebar on this page for examples of that at work; this site uses both Title & tags to find word-matches & multiple other factors to rank those matches; a similar process is at work whenever someone “Searches or asks a question”).

  2. Closed questions can always be re-opened
    Karma-200 required (thanks @LeroyG) - not huge.

  3. Not a lot of Windows-XP questions are relevant to today
    I certainly agree that some are

  4. How many 3-year-old unanswered questions have you responded to?
    I have made 29 answers to well-out-of-date questions.

  5. The AskLibO site gives high-karma users like myself the ability to moderate this site
    I’m sorry that you do not like my actions, but the site wants Questions to be closed when answered or ignored - that is how it is designed to work.

  6. This is NOT StackOverflow
    Many folks (and I have a lot of sympathy for this) wish that it was, but we all have to deal with what we have.

  7. You need to ask the Site Administrator to change the site rules if you do not like questions being closed
    If I - or any other user - cannot close a question then you can breathe a sigh of relief. In the meantime, that is how this site works, since it is not SO.

#7

You need to ask the Site Administrator to change the site rules…

Useless. As I understand, this site is going to be phased out in favor of some new forum(ish) site. Sad.

#8

karma 200 to close and reopen questions. Today 149 users have karma >= 200. Don’t know how many active.

#9

@Berry, You can use a comment in whatever question to ask an active user with karma >= 200 to reopen your question. Give the question number (shown in the address bar). These comment can be deleted later.

#10

@AlexKemp, You might have a narrative to explain your behavior and even permission to act as you choose, but I think the net effect is very destructive here, and I find your actions extremely unhelpful.

#11

This is a different site to the one the original question was asked on. There were a lot of questions closed just prior to transferring to this site, I assume this was to ease the load. 3 1/2 years later is too long ago to start criticisms of the volunteer work that happened then.

#12

Or it is the other way round: Your comment shows, why it would have been better to close this thread years ago.

Impressum (Legal Info) | Datenschutzerklärung (Privacy Policy)   Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.