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?
- 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.
- 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.
