I think we are a little quick on the draw to close questions. I spend a lot of time looking at the close queue (I believe I am the 4th most prevalent close vote reviewer at the moment), and when I aggregate our collective requirements (as I observe, not as we intend), I get something like this:

• No abuse of terminology or use of incorrect or dated terminology. If you mention something obsolete, or use the wrong word for a basic concept, your question will be closed.
• No outdated software. Regardless of the problem you're experiencing and whether or not your use of old and out of support software is pivotal in it or even relevant, if we see you are using old software, your question will be closed.
• No theoretical questions. If your question is about how things work in a protocol, or in linux, rather than about a practical how-to application, your question will be closed.
• No how-to. If your question just asks about how to do something relatively easy or extremely complex, it will be closed (and you'll be told to read the docs or hire someone, respectively).
• Demonstrate extreme competency. If you don't point out your experience and if you even hint that you might be new to working with the thing you're asking about, you're a n00b and your question will be closed.
• Already know the right solution. If you ask about what you can apply to solve your problem, or ask how to apply the wrong solution, your question will be closed (and nobody will tell you what the correct solution might be).
• Never ask about cron, or anything else that's mentioned in a canonical question. If it is, no matter how much of a stretch it may be, your question will be closed as a duplicate.
• No crappy tools. If a crappy tool (like cPanel or phpMyAdmin) exists in your environment, whether it has anything to do with your problem or not, your question will be closed.
• No workarounds. If your question asks for a workaround because of artificial constraints, your question will be closed, and if anyone troubles to tell you why the workaround is lousy, it will come with a heavy dose of vitriol.
• No excessive information. If you include unnecessary information beyond a couple lines, your question will be closed.
• No formatting mistakes. If your formatting is messy, your question will be closed, even if you don't really know markdown yet; markdown is our shibboleth.
• No spelling or grammatical errors. Whether or not English is your first language, and especially if you speak a dialect of English associated with certain types of people, if you don't use the Queen's English (or no eagles take flight behind you when you speak), your question will be closed... and is that curry or borscht on your breath?

I don't think this list is complete. You can see, perhaps, how these de facto criteria (caricatures though they may be) are very stringent - even more stringent than the actual rules.

There is a lot of stuff we should close. But, I think we have a collective hair-trigger on some things we could easily afford to be more lenient on. Closing a question doesn't mean you won't be answering it (like a ticket) - it means nobody may answer it, ever (at least in its current form).

A lot of the questions I answer, I find in the close queue. This speaks to another, similar problem (SF should use the "interesting" home page since it is crap at showing me things I care about at the moment), but also speaks to our closure problem.

I think we are a little quick on the draw to close questions. I spend a lot of time looking at the close queue (I believe I am the 4th most prevalent close vote reviewer at the moment), and when I aggregate our collective requirements (as I observe, not as we intend), I get something like this:

• No abuse of terminology or use of incorrect or dated terminology. If you mention something obsolete, or use the wrong word for a basic concept, your question will be closed.
• No outdated software. Regardless of the problem you're experiencing and whether or not your use of old and out of support software is pivotal in it or even relevant, if we see you are using old software, your question will be closed.
• No theoretical questions. If your question is about how things work in a protocol, or in linux, rather than about a practical how-to application, your question will be closed.
• No how-to. If your question just asks about how to do something relatively easy or extremely complex, it will be closed (and you'll be told to read the docs or hire someone, respectively).
• Demonstrate extreme competency. If you don't point out your experience and if you even hint that you might be new to working with the thing you're asking about, you're a n00b and your question will be closed.
• Already know the right solution. If you ask about what you can apply to solve your problem, or ask how to apply the wrong solution, your question will be closed (and nobody will tell you what the correct solution might be).
• Never ask about cron, or anything else that's mentioned in a canonical question. If it is, no matter how much of a stretch it may be, your question will be closed as a duplicate.
• No crappy tools. If a crappy tool (like cPanel or phpMyAdmin) exists in your environment, whether it has anything to do with your problem or not, your question will be closed.
• No workarounds. If your question asks for a workaround because of artificial constraints, your question will be closed, and if anyone troubles to tell you why the workaround is lousy, it will come with a heavy dose of vitriol.
• No excessive information. If you include unnecessary information beyond a couple lines, your question will be closed.
• No formatting mistakes. If your formatting is messy, your question will be closed, even if you don't really know markdown yet; markdown is our shibboleth.
• No spelling or grammatical errors. Whether or not English is your first language, and especially if you speak a dialect of English associated with certain types of people, if you don't use the Queen's English (or no eagles take flight behind you when you speak), your question will be closed... and is that curry or borscht on your breath?

I don't think this list is complete. You can see, perhaps, how these de facto criteria (caricatures though they may be) are very stringent - even more stringent than the actual rules.

There is a lot of stuff we should close. But, I think we have a collective hair-trigger on some things we could easily afford to be more lenient on. Closing a question doesn't mean you won't be answering it (like a ticket) - it means nobody may answer it, ever (at least in its current form).

A lot of the questions I answer, I find in the close queue. This speaks to another, similar problem (SF should use the "interesting" home page since it is crap at showing me things I care about at the moment), but also speaks to our closure problem.