What’s really being taken in consideration to close a question? Is it based on how "ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form" or how dumb/stupid the "voters" think the question is?
I asked this question, which I think is pretty valid. Even one of the mods thought "it had value in it" and even answered it. What happened? Close about 12 hours later.
While the question could be a little "broad" you don’t actually need to read "whole lots of books" to answer it, its current answers prove it. I think it’s a valid question that most starting professionals did to themselves at one point in their career. But hey, who voted to close down the thread?
A 20 years SysAdmin , Principal IT Engineer at a company, a SysAdmin with 15kRep a 6krep user and a 20years + Linux user.
Since it got closed I copied all the answers into a file because I found useful every single answer and I don’t want to wait for all of them to vote delete the question sending all that valuable information to the trash can.
I believe the quality of the information that’s being asked/posted should be taken in consideration before closing a post. Five users bookmarked the question which leads to me think that at least 5 people are interested in the answers or did have the same question themselves.
Isnt this question broad? Our security auditor is an idiot. How do I give him the information he wants? I dont think it has a specific answer, everyone will have "different ways" to give the auditor the information. Why it hasnt been closed as too broad? Because of the user? I'm sure it was kept for the quality of the information thats been discussed.
EDIT: 07/17/2012
And just like I thought. The question was deleted and all those smart/valuable suggestions went to the trash. Thanks to all those who answered it. If you are interested in the suggestions given in the question let me know and I will gladly email the information to you.