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When a question is closed, the asker often doesn't realize that they can edit their question and get it re-opened. I've often seen well-intentioned people just re-post their question when they should have edited the original. I suggest we add some text on the page (perhaps only for the asker?) that spells out what their next steps should be.

For example, if the close reason was "Not a real question", it should say

  • edit this question by clicking the edit link to make it clearer what you are asking

If the close reason was "Too subjective" it could say

  • edit this question [blah blah blah] to make it more objectively answerable

etc

There should be an attempt to make it blindingly clear exactly how the user is expected to go about solving their problem. Telling them to read the faq is apparently not sufficient.

It would also be nice if there was a way for new users, with closed questions, to ask for help in the chat room. They can't do this now if they have no rep.

2 Answers 2

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I would be nice to have a feature where users who actually have stake in a question to be able to suggest the OP a better version of the question in order to get their question reopen. I didn't know you could edit a question to be reopen, I always figured that was just the way it was here, if you get closed too bad, accept the rejection and try again.

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    Anyone can edit your question even if its closed.
    – simchona
    Dec 6, 2011 at 23:14
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    Editing somebody's question, (if it is a complete restructure) can be a little invasive at times. Well I guess my answer is moot now hehe. Good.
    – Mallow
    Dec 6, 2011 at 23:18
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I take it this OP is prompted to ask partly because of this question. In fact, that OP has asked the same question twice, but still not clarified what exactly he want to know, or why.

Personally, I think that's someone asking ELU to provide some weasly form of words that might prompt people to give him money (which he wants), but doesn't overtly ask for money (because he probably wants to do it in a context where requests for payment aren't allowed).

Thus from my point of view that particular question isn't a desirable one in the first place. Which is why I didn't give the OP any advice on how to make it more acceptable.

In my experience, people don't routinely vote to close questions for reasons which can be overcome by trivial edits. On the odd occasion when enough people do, and the question gets unnecessarily closed, it's usually patched up and re-opened soon enough anyway.

TL;DR: Although it's irritating to be re-asked the same rejected question, this doesn't happen often enough to justify bothering the back-room boys or cluttering the UI.

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    That question was one example, there have been others recently. And I don't think the desirability of one of the samples says anything about the feature unless all the questions were like that (which I don't think they are). Lots of questions get closed and never fixed. Nov 16, 2011 at 17:21
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    I don't hold the above position strongly - I just thought it would be a good idea to have an answer endorsing the status quo so people could vote for it, rather than just not voting at all. But I'll make time to trawl through a sampling of past closed questions, to re-evaluate what I really think. That particular question is unusual, so I shouldn't let it influence me so much. Nov 16, 2011 at 19:13

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