While there are certainly some people outside the scope of SF who have asked and/or answered questions well, and sometimes extremely well, the reality is that they are very few and far between. I do however agree with your first sentence.

Now that you've had your rant, what's the question?

It's worth noting that your first example hasn't just been closed, it has been migrated to a much more appropriate site. Perhaps if you had checked the close reasons already cast you might not have made such an incorrect assumption. Your second example has just a single close vote and I'd personally be surprised if it gets the other 4 required to close it. I really think you've had a poorly timed knee-jerk reaction. I suggest you pay more attention to your examples in future.

I'd rather not commit too heavily on the topic of Windows and professionalism but I am very happy that I started a job yesterday where I will be moving away from Microsoft to Linux and other Open Source products. I haven't been so happy to go to work for a long time.

As I've said elsewhere, professionalism is a state of mind, not a pay packet.

At > 20K I've only just learned why we have that faq tag. I may have seen mention of it at some stage but it's purpose was certainly not clear to me. There is no way on Earth that any newcomer, the very ones who need it most, is going to learn about it by anything other than accident.

It is not elitism to expect a professional to have and apply a professional attitude. Using single install *AMP is highly unprofessional and therefore cannot be considered to fit within the scope of SF. Professionalism is a state of mind, not a pay packet. We all do unprofessional things from time to time but most of us wouldn't ask questions about it on SF.

+1 for all of it but especially the temper tantrum comment.

Every time I've flagged a post for being particularly bad, especially those which encourage illegal or immoral activity, that flag has been declined, so there's precious little incentive to do so again. It's unfortunate that we can't see who declines flags, as I have often suspected that it's not one of our elected mods. The automatic deletion is effectively disabled when people who cast close votes also answer the question (I'm guilty of that too) and get upvotes for it. Overall, very little gets deleted.

The side effect of your logic, which I agree with, is that it does just what I'd like to prevent. i.e. It encourages others to post the same crap. So although we may never get a delete queue there's nothing stopping us from doing it manually.

Good theory but there's no evidence to suggest that it's working

In the vast majority of cases when questions are closed the only comment worth posting is "read the FAQ" but since the powers that be have decided we shouldn't do that I don't feel any need to leave a comment. On those occasions where I have left a comment I often get somebody arguing with me about it.

Now read the rest. Once again, you're completely ignoring context. You really do have a problem with that.

That very issue merely highlights what I said about his need to read more carefully. If people misinterpret the votes then it merely highlights the fact that they have not properly acquainted themselves with how the site works.

As shopping questions are explicitly off topic it makes sense to me to vote them as such, regardless of the text accompanying the reason. Either way, they get closed, which is the key point being discussed here.