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Comments on Give actionable feedback when closing questions
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Give actionable feedback when closing questions
Having had the dubious honor of experiencing the closing process from the perspective of a question author, it seems to me that closing does not adequately communicate why the question was closed, and which aspects need improving in order to make the question work here.
Specifically, for feedback to be actionable, it needs to
- specifically identify the problem
- explain why it is a problem
- and ideally explain a way to move forward
So, how did our process measure up? The close reason given was:
This post contains multiple questions or has many possible indistinguishable correct answers or requires extraordinary long answers.
That lists 3 different reasons for closure, leaving it unclear which one applies to the question.
Also, the second possible reason is not conveyed clearly, because "many possible indistinguishable answers" does not make grammatical sense: if the answers are indistinguishable, they are duplicates - why is that a fault of the question?
And it doesn't explain why that is a problem.
And it most definitely doesn't show a way forward.
Of course, people are smart. They can ask for further information if they care, and then wait a day for that further information to arrive.
I did, and received:
I closed this post because it's asking for personal anecdotes; there's an infinite number of possible answers to such a question, and as such doesn't fit so well into a Q&A format. It might be better suited to chat, or possibly a series of blog posts (which you might want to discuss in the Meta category). See also How to ask a great question in the Help Center.
That's much better:
- It clearly identifies the problem.
- It attempts to explain why it is a problem (but doesn't quite succeed, because it doesn't explain why "many answers" make a question "a bad fit for Q&A")
- It attempts to show a way forward (but doesn't quite succeed: why chat? how do I blog? Does he mean the currently disabled article feature?)
but it also shows how challenging it can be to communicate and explain site policy in a comment box. And how time consuming. And that's probably why Mythical gave that link to the help center. Alas, as the "how to ask" page does not appear to mention "many answers" at all, the link didn't help me much ...
So ... can we find a better way to give feedback when closing a question?
Post
I think the best solution is to have specific canned close reasons, with vetted messages clearly communicating what was bad, why that is bad, and specific tips for improving it.
Here are some attempts how this could look:
This post contains multiple unrelated questions.
[explanation why that is a problem]
Please split it into separate questions.
Or
There are many potential answers to this question, but we can't tell which ones apply in your case.
Please provide additional information as requested below.
Or
Doing justice to this question would require very long answers.
Unfortunately, few of our contributors have the time to write such long answers.
Could you make your question more specific?
The above suggestions are just first drafts, I am sure they could be improved further.
I am also not sure that closing is the ideal process here. Our aim should be to give feedback, and reduce the visibility of poorly received questions, but not every feedback necessarily justifies preventing answers.
A lot of close reasons are matters of judgment. Just how long is too long? Just how broad is too broad? People have different thresholds, and rounding that gradual scale into a boolean presumes a degree of objectivity that can not exist. (Case in point: my second-most popular answer on stackoverflow was on a question that received informal "too long" feedback)
Put differently, I think there can be value in communicating why I won't answer while still allowing other people to answer.
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