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I have heard about cases where people have voted for the closing of a question based on different reasons than the one they clicked on when close-voting. The reason for this is because their reason wasn't listed. This, to me at least, is a very bad problem. The ability to close question's main function is to remove bad questions from the site, but isn't it (if minorly) negatively affecting the site when the listed reason for the close doesn't coincide with the actual reason. How are the OPs supposed to know what they did wrong?

Now, this is only scratching the surface, but there is an option I think should be added to the list: "there is no discernible research done before asking the question". It doesn't need to be written exactly like that.

I believe a sizable amount of questions are closed for this reason, and having a close-vote being labeled as such would be good. I believe the options there already are too vague to be substitutes for this, especially if new users are in the picture.

Now, if you disagree, please enlighten me.

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    The Closing > Off-Topic window already has an option stating: Other (add a comment explaining what is wrong). So, whatever your reason for closing may be, you always have that as an option.
    – J.R.
    Commented Jun 11, 2019 at 18:23

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Now, this is only scratching the surface, but there is an option I think should be added to the list: "there is no discernible research done before asking the question". It doesn't need to be written exactly like that.

There is such a reason:

"Please include the research you’ve done, or consider if your question suits our English Language Learners site better. Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references are off-topic."

Indeed, it can be seen as one of the close reasons on this question. As you can see, because two different reasons were given by at least two users each, both reasons are shown:

enter image description here

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  • I see. When I pressed the close button, it didn't show me this option. I think it was because I pressed the close button on my own question. I couldn't check to see if it was different on other people's post because the option isn't available to me, think I have too little reputation. Anyways, I guess I should delete the question.
    – A. Kvåle
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 21:03
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    Also, bear in mind that for users with less than 3000 rep, the close vote reasons are actually close flag reasons. That may make a difference. But it might also provide an impetus to get to 3000.
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 21:21
  • @JJJ The reasons aren't different, except for the fact that "Blatantly off-topic" is an option for those who can only flag for closure; this is replaced by "Other (add a comment explaining what is wrong)" for anyone with close vote privileges.
    – Laurel Mod
    Commented Jun 10, 2019 at 21:48

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