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Following on from this answer, I think a discussion of our custom close reasons would be helpful. We can currently only have 3 custom close reasons. If we want more we would have to ask/beg the SE team to create more for us. While it would be desirable to know the usage of the custom close reasons, usage data are unavailable.

The idea for each answer to have:

  • Proposed text of a custom close reason
  • A description of the kind of questions it would apply to
  • Some examples to demonstrate the need for this close reason
  • Links to any discussion threads on meta relevant to this close reason
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  • usage data are unavailable – That’s not true anymore (see also the comment on the linked question). You and all other users with more than 10 k can see extensive usage statistics here.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Jul 7, 2017 at 21:12
  • Also, is there a reason you are suggesting to revive close reasons that have been overhauled years ago?
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Jul 7, 2017 at 21:13
  • Finally, I am not sure what exactly you aim at with this question? Do you want to change our custom close reasons? If yes, then voting in this format is problematic as the ensemble is important and we have a clone problem. If you just want documentation, I think that individual FAQs per close reason are more useful.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Jul 7, 2017 at 21:18

3 Answers 3

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Close Reason:

This question appears to be off-topic because it seems to seek specific advice for a very specific situation, and it's likely that only someone with a good understanding of your situation will be able to provide an objectively correct answer.

Description of Questions:

Stealing from the previous discussion:

Every SE site seems to have a particular genre of questions that are essentially unanswerable. I've come to believe that the questions we get wherein someone asks, with an accompany tale of their career, coursework to date, interests, etc. "How do get into a top program in X" or "Should I apply to the University of Y".

These questions have, in my mind, three problems:

  1. Many are too specific - they only generalize to someone specific.
  2. They're also too broad, because they're not actually asking an actionable question.
  3. They're inherently unanswerable. The people who know (the admission committee of University of X's Department of Y) won't answer, and no one else knows.

Example Questions:

Another student used my completed work, what should I do?

Previous Discussions:

Discussion of the need

Discussion of the text

-1

Close Reason:

Questions about problems facing undergraduate students are off-topic unless they can also apply to graduate or post-graduate academicians as described in What topics can I ask about here?

Description of Questions:

Example Questions:

Previous Discussions:

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  • 1
    I'd happily nuke this close reason because I think that it's been misused too many times.
    – Massimo Ortolano
    Jul 8, 2017 at 7:04
-2

Close Reason:

Questions that cannot be generalized to apply to others in similar situations are off-topic. For assistance in writing questions that can apply to multiple people facing similar situations, see: What kinds of questions are too localized?

Description of Questions:

Example Questions:

Previous Discussions:

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