1
$\begingroup$

We have 3 off topic close reasons: the defaults (migration, "off topic as described in the help center" and other). Great.

But, some new users might try to ask questions that have nothing to do with Computer Science Education. To use Stack Overflow's wording:

Blatantly Off topic

I am talking about this one.

To save you the bother of going to the link, here's the entire content of the question:

can you help me

The codes I wrote do not work

Mighty informative, ain't it?.

Jokes aside, this is clearly blatantly off topic, unclear and too broad, all at once.

So: How should we go about adding off topic close reasons? I assume Moderators are the ones who actually do it, but I am wondering if we should add a "Blatantly off topic". It doesn't belong anywhere in SE.

What are the thoughts about adding this close reason? If I remember correctly, there have been 2 more questions that were blatantly off topic. They got closed using the second reason out of the three.

UPDATE: While I was ranting writing this post, the owner asked me how to delete the question. I told them. This doesn't mean we shouldn't prepare for more questions such as this one.

(Maybe OP responded to my tip to read the [tour]. Yay!)

$\endgroup$
2
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I think there's no reason for that close reason yet. Those can be deleted by high rep users/mods. Answer coming. $\endgroup$
    – thesecretmaster Mod
    Commented Jul 24, 2017 at 11:41
  • $\begingroup$ @thesecretmaster don't bother :P. Ben explained it perfectly in chat. So, my question is not relevant, in a way. $\endgroup$
    – ItamarG3
    Commented Jul 24, 2017 at 11:42

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6
$\begingroup$

To answer the 'how are they added' question: A mod goes to https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/admin/flags/close-as-off-topic, adds a new reason, and a different mod approves it.

To respond to your specific request: ...no, I'd say that's a bad idea.

Here's what a <500 rep user sees when going to flag as off topic:

enter image description here

Someone who can VTC should see something more like this:

enter image description here

That 'does not appear' works perfectly fine for blatantly off topic.

Custom close reasons should only be used for topics that one might assume were on topic but aren't, or that keep popping up, and other such situations. Such as, on Anime.SE, identifications used to be on topic, but now they aren't - so now they have a custom reason. Over on Literature.SE, we keep getting recommendation requests - we now have a custom reason.

So, my advice is, don't go create a Blatantly off topic close reason.

$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ I didn't know that <500 rep users see that. Ok... o.o $\endgroup$
    – ItamarG3
    Commented Jul 24, 2017 at 12:21

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .