Over-use of Off-Topic Closure

Question

I'm getting more than a little tired of anything that can possibly be asked on some other site being marked as Off-Topic here. Since when is user account management off topic for SF?

This one, for example, may not be a great question by any measure, but I'd hardly consider user account management to be off-topic.

Another example, concerning a broken FTP service, has 2 Off-Topic close votes. And the comment suggestion was to go to AskUbuntu?

Simply because a question CAN be asked on another site is NOT a valid reason to close it as OT here and send them elsewhere.

Update 1:

This one is definitely on-topic for SF, yet got sent to StackOverflow. If it can be solved with Aptitude or a config file change, that's perfectly reasonable for ServerFault.

Monitoring is definitely On-Topic. As is Kerberos Administration. Both should've been closed as NC for Shopping, not merely Off-Topic as that gives the impression that ALL questions about those topics are not welcome here.

If we don't even bother to select the appropriate close reason when VTC'ing, how are the users going to learn?

Update 2:

And another one that's abusing 'Off-Topic'. And yet another. While perhaps not be terribly constructive on SF or well-written, we are the right place.

And how is troubleshooting an RSA Key Authentication deployment off-topic?

Answer 1

You have a lot of questions here, and most of them were closed for entirely different reasons. I suspect your real reason for asking is that you feel some people are closing questions as off topic too aggressively.

So let's take them in order and see what we get:

• How do I make it so that files created in a directory have a certain group ownership?

  I don't think this should have been closed for any reason. It's complete and understandable, and a "right answer" can be presumed to exist for it. While it's a very basic question, it's obviously on topic at Server Fault, even if it might get better answers at Unix.SE or Ask Ubuntu. I gave it a reopen vote.

• Ubuntu 12.04 updates broke VSFTP

  I don't think this should be closed, either. It seems to be complete, and seems to be on topic. I see no sign of a "home user" here. So I can't even begin to guess why anybody voted to close it.

• https://serverfault.com/q/460257/126632

  This was, in my opinion, inappropriately migrated. Worse, it was done by a diamond moderator. As a server configuration issue, rather than a programming or obviously development environment issue, this should be on Server Fault.

• https://serverfault.com/q/460047/126632

• https://serverfault.com/q/460019/126632

  The shopping questions. While, technically, these could be closed as off topic because "Product, service and learning material recommendations" is specifically disallowed in the FAQ, it's not very useful to do so. The "not constructive" close reason is better used for such questions, as it better describes the real problems with shopping questions.

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Apparently there is an issue with overuse of the off topic close reason. While these specific cases don't really give us a good idea of the scope and extent of the problem, it does seem to indicate that there is a problem. People would be well advised to take additional care when using their close votes, and to use their reopen votes whenever something is inappropriately closed (and should be open). It would also be a good idea to leave a comment when voting to close, especially for new users who may not know their way around Stack Exchange yet.

Answer 2

I do agree that "Off Topic" is used frequently where "Not Constructive" may be a better choice (particularly for shopping questions), but I don't think your examples really make the case. Only two of them are strong candidates for "Not Constructive" closes.

You did however bring up what I consider to be a very important point:

If we don't even bother to select the appropriate close reason when VTC'ing, how are the users going to learn?

Close reasons shouldn't be the only instrument of education. When closing a question people should really be leaving comments explaining what's wrong, and how it could be corrected.
This is not mandatory (nor do I think it should be), but if you're casting the deciding vote and nobody else has explained what's wrong with the question it is very helpful to the mod staff and the person whose question was closed) if you explain the reason behind the closure.

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Looking at your examples quickly:

• How do I make it so that files created in a directory have a certain group ownership?
  This is a basic Unix question. While it can be answered here it can also be answered by Google or Wikipedia. If there were some indication of the reason behind this question being related in some way to professional system administration I might have more sympathy for it, but right now to me it looks like a lazy "gimmie" question.
  I think closed, with two correct answers, is an appropriate fate, but a pointer to Unix & Linux wouldn't go amiss either.

• Ubuntu 12.04 updates broke VSFTP
  I agree this question is on-topic, and should be kept open.
  This is why it takes 5 people to close a question, and also why we have reopen votes.

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14006455/mongo-php-on-ubuntu-12-04
  I reject the premise of the statement: "If it can be solved with aptitude" is not an acceptable standard for "Belongs on Server Fault". We have Unix & Linux and Ask Ubuntu for many of these questions.
  Incidentally I also reject the question - I would have closed it outright and sent them to the How can I ask better questions on Server Fault? question, told them to do more troubleshooting, and submit the question for reopening with more detail. It's a good start, and may be on topic, but it needs work.

• https://serverfault.com/questions/460047/open-source-freeware-server-availability-monitoring-app-for-windows-with-web-d and
  https://serverfault.com/questions/460019/are-there-any-guis-for-managing-kerberos-principals-on-enterprise-linux should be closed as "Not Constructive". I agree that using "Off Topic" here is confusing.
  There is a long-standing precedent for using off-topic for these questions (in fact the standard comment is that shopping questions are "off topic on all Stack Exchange sites"), but Not Constructive better describes the reason the question is being closed.

Answer 3

Since most of the questions quoted by you are "fixed" now, I would conclude that the part of the community which is reading the Meta agrees with you on the problem of excessive use of OT-close-votes.

As for the reasons, I would blame the review system. The "Close votes" part of it for example offers options to "Leave open", "Close" or "Skip" where the counterweight to a close vote is rather weak (i.e. the "Leave open" votes are not counted to neutralize close votes), so closing questions is just made too easy. Once closed, the questions typically disappear from the front page rather quickly and unless the original poster (or you) complain on meta, are not looked at any more.

Changes to the close vote and/or review system might mitigate this issue and suggestions have been discussed on meta.SO, even years ago, and changes seem to have been implemented as Shog9 states in his answer:

• Voting against closing does not override anyone's close vote. However, a sufficient number of "Do Not Close" responses (currently 3) will kick the question out of the review queue and start aging the close votes - regardless of how many views the question has had.

I suppose we should simply make more use of this feature and see how it is working out. Other than that, Shog9 has a non-technical suggestion of dealing with the problem, although I would doubt its efficacy:

• If you see a question being closed that shouldn't be, leave a comment expressing your rationale. Make it constructive - "I like this question, therefore it should stay, close-voters are stupid" accomplishes little.

And of course the reference to the moderator activity which I would argue against - moderators should not step in for every simple disagreement on whether to close or not to close / migrate a question:

• If you see a good, on-topic question in danger of being migrated, flag it - a moderator can always step in to prevent the migration.

Answer 4

You need to learn to read the questions properly, as well as the FAQ. What you have overlooked in your examples is context. It is the context of the question more than the subject material that determines if it's on topic. Here are my interpretations of your examples:

1. There is nothing in the question to suggest that it's being asked within the context of a system being administered by an IT professional and could just as easily be about a workstation. It's therefore far more appropriate for the Unix site.

2. Borderline. The question again has no context. It could just as easily be referring to someone's workstation, trying to set it up to allow his/her friends to FTP (we get that a lot).

3. I agree with you on that one.

4. A clear-cut shopping question, which is always off topic.

5. Another shopping question.

6. Same as the first two examples - a much better fit for the Unix site.

7. Should not have been closed.

I'll repeat, you need to read both the questions and the FAQ much more carefully.

Answer 5

I have to tell you. I am active on and off on StackOverflow. I have spent days documenting issues, posting a relevant question and then providing an answer. This helps everyone.

Then I tried to use ServerFault. My first experience was with a question that was migrated from SO to SF. It was closed immediately. It seems that there's some kind of a rift between SO and SF. That's the sense I get at least. Dumb.

After another couple of attempts I have just given up. I'm done with ServerFault.

Answer 6

After seeing this question in Meta, I've started watching the votes to close in /review and have come to the following conclusion -

The bar for "Information Technology Professionals" is being set too high for new members of the site, and "newbie" questions are being closed instead of answered. That's certainly not a great way to welcome people to the community or the profession.

For example, here's a question by someone who is clearly inexperienced, and the question is poorly written due to that, but it is certainly not off-topic for ServerFault: https://serverfault.com/questions/462225/sql-server-2000-export-database-to-csv

At this time, the question has 4 off-topic close votes, but no comments.

It's also the same case with this question: MS small business server 2003 with exchange 2003 routing issues

How do we fix this?

1. Require a comment for any votes to close, similar to what voretaq7 mentioned, except duplicates (which already require a question URL). This would likely mean fewer close votes and more down votes, which is for the best in my opinion. It also helps new members by explaining why their question was inappropriate instead of just seeing the default message.
2. Update the Off-topic VTC text to be more inclusive and less vague as to what is meant by professional administration. The FAQ could also be updated in such a manner.