Replacing our "research" close reason: Completed

Question

Update: Closing remarks

The phrasing I suggested in an answer below is now live:

Background

We have a massive problem with close votes. There's no sense in placing blame — we've been on this path since before even I joined the site, and we all thought what we were doing was best for the site. However, that doesn't change the fact that there's real damage being done. And we need to fix it.

We closed 63.49% of the questions asked in 2022 according to the big list of close stats, which tracks closures across all SE sites. We've consistently been at the top of this chart year after year. Lately, when I look at close tools (10k only), I see that we are usually closing 80% or more of questions (but sometimes exceeding even 100%). When I look at questions that are being closed, I see so many questions that were not answered by a "general reference", some of which did include their "research" and got closed anyway (example: "Unrelentless" to mean "relentless"?). I see questions that were closed in spite of the expert answers that were posted to them, and questions that were closed before an expert answer could be posted. This isn't improving the internet. And I see what it's doing to the people here.

We've fostered a site where so many people who I respect greatly just don't like asking questions. This includes users who are native speakers, and even users who on top of that are also active on other Stack Exchange sites (and therefore know how this SE thing works), including moderators. Even users who have been around on this site for a really long time struggle to avoid close votes. That should be rare. It should also be rare for questions to be closed and reopened without significant edits. It shouldn't be the case where getting 1 or 2 close votes is an inevitability for almost every question. But all of these things are regular occurrences on this site and it causes many of our regulars (myself included) to spend way too much time on getting questions reopened instead of answering them. If you have an expert answer to an English question, your main obstacle to answering it should be the fact that you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom — you shouldn't have to beg and plead for it to be reopened or add "oh but these five dictionaries don't answer this question" or wait for a queue that might not even reopen the question at all without further intervention.

Now, I expect this may be hard for some of you to hear, and even harder to put into practice: We need to change.

The policy change

The policy is as follows: The "research" close reason should be used on questions which are answered in a reputable online dictionary. And no, you can't use the "other" close reason to get around this.

Dictionaries are great. There are so many comprehensive ones out there online from reputable sources. And they're simple to use. It makes sense to require our users to use one before asking. (For an idea of what dictionaries this covers, take a look at the main section under "General Dictionaries" and the section for "Learner's Dictionaries".)

How can I justify not allowing "Google" as a general reference? Relying on a search engine is the antithesis of our site. The best quality answer will not rise to the top of the search results, only the content with the best SEO keywords. Our experts cannot provide a better answer, or downvote the crap out there, or even leave comments on it. Nothing of value is guaranteed to stay on the internet either, as links go dead. And with one simple invention, suddenly all these problems can get worse quicker: Generative AI. Blogs will go from being one person's opinion to being no person's opinion and in record quantity. But answers here will be moderated for AI content; I'm making sure of it.

But how then do we differentiate ourselves from ELL? I think it's all in the answers. On ELL, most of the information in an answer will be stuff that a native speaker is likely to know already — it's just enough English to make it to the end of the day. But here, on English Language and Usage, an answer like that shouldn't be enough: We want enough depth to our answers that we can party all night. This is even possible with a question that looks easy on the surface, since an answer could draw from corpus evidence, for example.

A note on (up/down) voting

On other sites, bad questions that don't break any particular rule get downvoted instead of being closed. That works well, but before we become a site where everything is downvoted instead, please remember that short doesn't have to mean bad:

Questions that seed interesting answers should be rewarded. Questions that include their research should be rewarded (even if it wasn't perfect). Questions that cover something you don't think is covered anywhere else on the internet should be rewarded.

While moderators can't see your upvotes and downvotes, I hope that you'll keep an open mind and look out for what value could be under the surface.

The tech change

In order to reinforce the rules, there needs to be a change in the system. Years ago, close reasons got an upgrade. We never took advantage of this, but it's not too late now. We have 5 different "slots" to fill, according to Catija, most of which have a 500 character limit:

1. Brief description (100 characters but should be just a few words) - this is the Bold part of the close reason that appears in the close vote UI when closers are voting to close the post.
2. Usage guidance - this tells close voters when to use this close reason. It should clarify any edge cases and help voters feel certain they're choosing the correct reason
3. Post notice close description - visible to all users. This is a general note about why the question was closed. It can include links to resources that explain the site's policy. It should always start and end with the same thing "This question was closed because it is... It is not currently accepting answers."
4. Post owner guidance - this additional information appears in the post notice but only for the asker of the question. It should contain detailed information about how they can improve their post and may also include links to help here on meta or in the help center.
5. Privileged user guidance - this additional information appears in the post notice but only for users with the close/reopen privilege. It is designed to help them know how to guide the asker in improving their question or inform them when the question should be reopened.

The "Usage guidance" will change

This is my vision:

Plain text:

Answered by a dictionary
This question has been answered by a free, publicly available dictionary. Make sure a link to that dictionary has been provided in the comments before closing.

This is a quick draft, so it could afford to be changed a little. I think this would be a sensible place to include specific guidance on when to migrate to ELL (if we had any; we don't).

The other parts of the close reason should also be updated, both in light of these changes and also because I think it would be better to provide askers different help than the rest of the community. I figure that's something we can work on drafting here.

---

Further discussions (TODO)

• Adding a tag warning to etymology and related tags pointing to Etymonline as a preliminary point of research.
• Adding guidance on the Ask Question page that actually explains how to ask a question here instead of telling people to just not ask questions here if they can avoid it.
• Switching over the other close reasons to the new format. We could be providing a lot more guidance to askers than we do. (We could mention thesauruses in our single-word-requests close reason.)
• How to write better answers. I can share how to do corpus research, and if you have another technique please consider posting your own discussion.

Answer 1

There are two distinct, although related, questions here: (1) Is the show-research reason for closing used too much, and, if so, how should its use be limited; (2) Should that reason (perhaps narrowed down, as a result of answering the first question) be relabelled?

So far as (2) is concerned, this question, as Cerberus has already pointed out, essentially amounts to the proposal that the site revert to the old general-reference reason for closing. Regardless of what may be argued about (1), which I shall not address in this answer, I wholeheartedly support this reversal.

As I have argued before, the current boilerplate formulations of the reasons for closing, including the show-research one, often obfuscate the real reasons. In the overwhelming majority of cases, people who vote to close a question by using the show-research reason do not really think that the question could be improved by showing research. Rather, they think that, if the OP spends two minutes with a dictionary, the OP will find the answer, and realise that there is no question left that would need to be asked here. The old general-reference wording articulated that reason clearly. At some point, somebody thought that this wording was too brusque, and introduced show-research as a euphemism of sorts. That was, I believe, a mistake, as those who come to this site to ask a single question in good faith (but are not immersed in its culture) cannot be expected to 'get' the real reason behind the euphemism that they see in the closing banner, which then leaves them confused and alienated (probably far more so than if they were told the real reason in plain English).

I realise that it may not be easy to explicitly formulate the precise criteria of what constitutes general reference, but I don't think that it is necessary to do so for the reason to be understood. When it is debatable whether something is really a matter of general reference, that can be dealt with case-by-case, in the comments, and/or by the OP's editing the question, and/or by voting to reopen.

Answer 2

Dictionaries don't necessarily answer super basic grammar questions, so the new close-reason wouldn't easily apply to those types of 'too-easy' questions. Are we just going to migrate all of those? AFAIK, ELL doesn't want our 'trash'.

Today this question was asked:

How to use comparatives with processive nouns?

I wonder which of the following is/are correct?

a. The national flag of Malaysia has more colours than Japan's.
b. The national flag of Malaysia has more colours than Japan.
c. Malaysia's national flag has more colours than Japan's.

The dictionary wouldn't answer it; is this sort of question on-topic now? (This is a basic example quoted for its recency and brevity, but there are many similar questions out there.)

The current close-reason doesn't forbid trivial etymology questions, either, and not all dictionaries include the relevant information, even if it's readily googleable. Irrespective of dupe-status, is a question like "What is the origin of the phrase 'to rest on one's laurels'"? really the type of query we crave to answer? (The point still stands, even if this is not a great example, as the comments point out.)

---

Many SE sites have a 'too basic' close-reason. Right now, we have an extremely versatile 'general reference' close-reason that acts as an equivalent; as you said, we kinda overuse it.

The plan here, however, seems to be to take that high-utility close-reason and localize it to only being applicable to only a few types of questions. Is that really what we want?

(not really objecting to the plan, just putting this out there.)

---

Somewhat off-topic, but since you sorta brought it up...re:

We've fostered a site where so many people who I respect greatly just don't like asking questions.

High-rep users really should ask more questions. Their answers stink of brilliance and thought, and I bet their questions would as well.

Answer 3

I created What resources do I need to consult before asking a question? and while that might not be the final revision of that post, I think it's good enough to move forward with the rest of this. Without further ado (sorry, there's been a lot of ado to get to this point), I copied Cat's suggestions with tweaks. Good? Good enough to use? Nothing will ever be perfect, but we could potentially edit this close reason again if we see anything that's a big enough problem later on.

Since Cat said this is a very big change, the CMs will likely not edit the old reason to retroactively apply it to already closed questions. I guess what to do with old questions could be its own discussion too.

I think all of these are under the 500 character limit.

Close modal text (title+body)

(Shown to close voters as they go to close the question)

Answered by a dictionary

Questions that can be easily answered by consulting a reputable online dictionary should be closed with this reason unless the question includes an explanation of why the dictionary wasn't helpful. When using this close reason, consider providing a link to a relevant reference in a comment.

I went with Cat's suggestion to not require a comment. However, I still don't want to see this close reason used unless you're actually certain that the answer exists in a "reputable online dictionary". I've really had enough of seeing questions closed with this when there is no resource in existence (at least not one in Google or on our full list) that answers the question, much less one that's a dictionary.

I added "easily" at the suggestion of jsw29 in the comments.

This still shouldn't be used to close questions which are only answered by the OED, but that's perhaps (hopefully?) too rare an event to require any space here.

Post notice description

(Shown in the post notice banner above the more specific guidance.)

This question was closed because it should be answered by consulting a dictionary. It is not currently accepting answers.

This is fine. It's only half of the banner anyway, if I'm understanding correctly.

Post owner guidance

(Shown under "Post notice description" to the post owner.)

We expect askers to use a dictionary to learn a word's basic meaning, pronunciation and usage. If you've already consulted a dictionary and it didn't answer your question, edit this post to explain what you found and what you still don't understand. If you're learning English as a foreign language, consider asking on English Language Learners, a site for speakers of other languages learning English.

Added a link to help/on-topic and changed the wording according to Colleen's suggestion

General user guidance

(Shown under "Post notice description" to anyone who's not the original poster.)

We expect askers to use a dictionary to learn a word's basic meaning, pronunciation and usage. If an edit to this question adds sufficient detail or explanation such that this close reason no longer applies, vote to reopen or request reopening on our Meta site. If comments from the author convey such information, edit them into the question and recommend reopening.

I'm struggling with this one a little. I removed the suggestion to flag because I don't really want to get a lot of moderator flags, but I felt like something should replace it. Maybe "...vote to reopen, if possible" if we didn't want to mention Meta. (Again, linking to a homepage feels weird.) In any case, the best option should come first, which is voting to reopen. Currently, meta requires 5 rep to use, which is less than flagging, though I can't imagine us getting a lot of unwanted meta questions in any case.

Answer 4

As my name was invoked regarding drafting text for the close modal and post notices, I thought I might offer some guidance in addition to what y'all have already discussed. What's presented below is intended to be presented as the experience of someone who's been there before and literally wrote the guide on close reasons.

My guidance is not necessarily going to be the precise final text you will want to use as (despite my history here) I don't necessarily comprehend all aspects of this as well as you do. That said, remember that most people who have their questions closed will know less than I do, so it's important that the information we build into the UI takes that into consideration.

The policy changes - a good idea, some thoughts

The first thing I'd like to state is that I appreciate and support this discussion and the change it recommends. While it may be difficult to finalize text for these site elements, I very strongly believe that we should avoid closing questions because the asker doesn't give any indication of having done research before asking the question. Our intention on Stack Exchange is to be a place for depth and breadth in a subject. Only allowing questions that can't be easily answered through an existing resource guarantees that the site will never contain that full library of information.

Closing a question because someone didn't specifically state that they were unable to find the answer somewhere else on the internet - or by extension because it can be answered elsewhere on the internet - means that this site won't have the answers to those questions, which leads to it being a less-useful resource because there are community-imposed gaps in the content.

Now, this adjustment has limits but where you draw those limits is what this question is about. I can think of at least two y'all should consider:

1. The subject of the English language is split in two between ELU and ELL. Provided that doesn't change, it's fair to enforce that separation. If the question indicates the user needs support to understand concepts that the average (not expert!) native speaker may not even recognize require explanation, it's likely better suited to ELL. I'd put the example in Heartspring's answer in this category. A native speaker may not even understand why someone would ask or know how to explain why any of the options are "better" or where some may fail.
   • While I haven't been active there in quite a long time, my feelings about the difference between ELL and ELU are not quite the same as Laurel's. I recognize there's a need to keep the sites separate but because I feel the more valuable reasoning is because a learner may need a different sort of explanation than a native speaker. I often couldn't answer ELL questions because my native English brain has no clue what the various verb forms and modes are.
   • This can be difficult to ascertain so I'd recommend following the standard practice for migration: consider whether the question is "good" -i.e. complete enough to be answered - and only then migrate to ELL. Otherwise, close as unclear.
2. Narrowly restrict the use of the research close reason to questions that could have been answered by a dictionary. As with thoughtful policy, there's reasons to allow exceptions where the user indicates they don't understand what the dictionary says or want a deeper understanding than found in the dictionaries they've checked.
   • This is what the updated close reason would be used to define and it should be thoughtful in how it's phrased to avoid overuse.
   • This should be coupled with guidance to the asker that guides them to the resources available on the internet or invites them to improve their question by adding more information.

At this point, I'll transition to my specific area of expertise, how to write good close reason text. While y'all are welcome to discuss what I've written above in the comments, I'd prefer discussion of #1 be separated off. While it's an integral part of this discussion, it feels like it needs an entire Q&A thread of its own and would benefit from ELL's participation.

The close reason changes - some recommendations

Treat this as a new close reason rather than editing the existing one. It's unclear which you were planning but I wanted to make this recommendation clear. This close text will not make sense when used on so many of the questions that have currently been closed with it, so editing the existing reason will create a very confusing state of affairs here. In this case, you're better off walking away and not looking back, even if it means you start over when it comes to statistics. I feel like it's been too long since the old version of this was retired (2014) to reuse it.

The Dictionary close reason text

Close modal text:

Questions that can be answered by consulting a reputable online dictionary should be closed with this reason unless they indicate why a dictionary couldn't address their question. When using this close reason, consider leaving a comment pointing the user to a reference.

While mostly similar to the recommendation in the question, I find it's often as important to explain when not to use a close reason as when it should be used. I swapped "free" out for "reputable" because the list y'all have should likely be free anyway, and I'd imagine the emphasis should be on the resource being trustworthy.

As with Laurel's example, I feel that it's important to point askers to resources rather than merely shutting the door in their face but I'm concerned about implying that it's required. At the bare minimum, the Meta post will be linked once the question is actually closed, so putting the onus on close voters to find a dictionary entry for the word in question and leave a comment linking to it may risk people just not voting to close at all out of fear that they'll be reprimanded for failing to do so.

Honestly, it also feels a bit like they'd be bitten for answering in comments, which is another issue I hear a lot about on ELU. I'd be hesitant to encourage y'all down a path where the site starts looking like answering in comments is the de facto way of participating.

Post notice description

This question was closed because it should be answered by consulting a dictionary. It is not currently accepting answers.

This is a pretty simple bit. Probably not much room for discussion but feel free to debate could/should/can. The link to the explanatory meta post can go here or in the longer explanation text but it should likely just be in one or the other.

Post owner guidance

This site expects that askers use a dictionary to understand basic definition, pronunciation, and usage of words. If you've already consulted a dictionary and it doesn't resolve your issue, edit this question to add more details about what you found and still don't understand. If you're new to English, consider asking on English Language Learners, our site designed for non-fluent speakers.

I generally recommend that asker instructions explain the policy in a minimal way and even link to it in some situations. I think this one is simple enough that it doesn't necessitate a link but feel free to do so if you wish. I also very much recommend giving the user some guidance on what else to do - either how to fix the question or where else it may be in scope.

If there's additional info or guidance that can be added/linked here, feel free to include it. For example, I know that ELL has a "Details, Please" meta question they link to that explains how to provide enough detail for a question to be answerable. If y'all don't have this, it might be useful in situations like this, similar to the tag wiki you have for single word requests.

General user guidance

(This is technically shown to anyone not the asker any more rather than high-rep users only)

This site expects that askers use a dictionary to understand basic definition, pronunciation, and usage of words. If an edit to this question adds sufficient detail or explanation such that this close reason no longer applies, flag or vote to reopen. If comments from the author convey such information, edit them into the question and recommend reopening.

As with the guidance to the author, the main focus here is a brief explanation paired with encouragement to work towards reopening the question if the close reason no longer applies. In as much as curbing misuse of close reasons is important, it's also important to ensure users recognize when to reopen and are reminded to do so. If you do have guidance you might add to the asker version, it may be worth including here as it can inform newer users who may not be aware of site policy.

---

At this point I'll reiterate - the specifics of my recommendations above may not be sensible in practice here on ELU. If that's the case, take the examples as scaffolding you can use as a framework to revise my versions or devise something else that's a better fit. While I may be slow to respond, I'm happy to review future drafts if I can be of help.

Supporting this policy

After having reviewed all of this, there is one thing I'm concerned about and it's built on what you've already got going here in this meta post and answers and in your list of references. Beyond updating/replacing the close reason, in the end I'd encourage you to make a simplified version of What good reference works on English are available? that can also serve as an introduction to why this policy exists.

If I were sent to that list, I'd immediately just give up. It's an amazing list of resources and I think it's wonderful that you have it, it has 13 answers with dozens of links in each. While it's reasonable to ask for simple dictionary research, looking things up in Corpora and historical references and other such things is way beyond the scope of this close reason as I understand it.

While you should link to that longer list for reference in this new Q&A, I don't think you should use it as the actual target for more information. Instead, ask a new question along the lines of "My question was closed as being answerable by a dictionary, what does that mean?" and cover a few key points:

1. A brief explanation of the policy and its history.
   • Keep it short and digestible, remember the audience is likely to be people who have their questions closed and also people learning how/when to vote to close.
2. A brief discussion of the expectations for askers are.
   • Give additional detail about what questions should include and guide them in how to improve their question if the dictionary is insufficient. Give before/after examples.
   • Mention how to ask for help on meta if they still can't figure out how to improve the question.
   • Feel free to give more info about when ELL may be a better option while also being clear about ELL policies that may be relevant.
3. A pared-down list of resources.
   • What you include should be only the sorts of resources y'all want to see questions closed for. So if that's dictionaries only, the list should only be dictionaries. If it also includes thesauruses or other grammar guides, they can be included but I'd recommend paring any lists you include down to a few high quality, free options.
   • By limiting this list, you remove ambiguity for close voters who may feel like this new close reason can still be used if the answer is found in any of those links in the existing resource thread.

Feel free to adjust however it makes sense - but work towards a goal where it's as short and visually inviting as possible while being informative and helpful and framed in a way that shows the community wants to point people in the right direction and that closure isn't necessarily a bad state for their question. I love the FAQ format y'all have used before where the question is actually several sections and each answer addresses one, so you can take advantage of page anchors to link to specific information.

Hopefully this has been helpful to you all - I understand this is a big project with several pieces but I hope that this change has a positive impact on the site and leads to people feeling more able to participate here than they may have in the past.

Answer 5

I wholeheartedly support this observation and the proposed change.

It should be noted that this is very close to how that very closing-reason was originally devised here, as General Reference.

Heartspring's suggestion, adding "or in a beginner's grammar book", is also worth thinking about.

Answer 6

In one of your suggested CV reasons (I guess it would be "usage guidance"?), you included this text:

Make sure a link to that dictionary has been provided in the comments before closing.

I very much recommend against requiring a CV'er to leave a comment unless it was anonymized somehow. Otherwise it would help the OP to identify the CV'er, which I believe is generally frowned upon by SE.

Answer 7

I also wholeheartedly support this change. I think that the high closure rates can make ELU appear hostile or unhelpful for new users. "Difficulty" per se is a completely arbitrary and unreasonable standard, as shown by the presence of questions that cycle back and forth between closed and reopened.

Answer 8

This is a welcome change!

It is very important, nonetheless, that it is not only expressly understood but also expressly stated that dictionaries are not authorities on grammatical information, and that they are on the meaning of words and phrases.

This is a site for linguists, etymologists and serious language enthusiasts. Because all of us (linguists, etymologists and serious English language enthusiasts) know that dictionaries are not authoritative sources in terms of grammatical information, for example part of speech information, it should be very clearly stated somewhere that "answerable by a dictionary" only applies to "meaning", or "single word requests" and similar, and not to requests relating to parts of speech or other grammatical information.

Answer 9

“However, that doesn't change the fact that there's real damage being done. And we need to fix it.”

I find it unsatisfactory that the nature of this “real damage” is not explained. It is certainly not apparent to me. My own impression is that, despite the existence of ELL, this site attracts scores of basic questions from non-native speakers, who either don’t read or ignore the purpose of this SE group.

Furthermore, I think it quite reasonable to expect anyone who posts here to own a decent dictionary — Chambers for the iPhone and I imagine Android is cheap enough — so codifying “free dictionaries” is wrong, in my opinion.

Arguments not polemics, please.