Shall we make a list of Low-Quality-Questions regularly on Meta?

Question

As Mari-Lou A pinpointed in Extraordinary spike in low-quality questions by 1 rep users, we have been swamped with Low-Quality-questions (LQQs) recently and it has been overwhelmingly difficult to deal with them especially when high-rep users are not actively involved in close-voting them and informing new users of the rules and guidelines of this community.

We can't read all the questions on this community and some users might not notice some LQQs that should have been closed unless they use the moderator tool where you can see the questions with most close-votes.

I want to propose a weekly or bi-weekly (once in two weeks) Meta post to include LQQs that should be closed, but received not enough votes so that they could be closed more efficiently and effectively. If they don't receive enough votes, the existing close-votes will be cancelled and it would be more difficult to close them and ultimately delete them.

If we don't close a blatantly-off-topic question, it could be used as an excuse or justification for other uses to ask another similar off-topic question.

---

The format of a weekly or bi-weekly post would be like this:

Title: LQQs on the week 1 of 2016 Feb.

1. What does swing exactly mean?: Even though the OP says (s)he checked a dictionary, it is general reference.

2. The difference between the phrases “leave the house” and “leave home”: Lack of research, general reference. Better suited on ELL.

3. Another question: Brief reason why it should be closed.

and so on.

This post could be edited by any user who wants to include a question that should have been closed in the previous week and questions that are closed would be deleted from the post.

What is your opinion about this?

Edit: I am adding more questions that should have been closed in my opinion.

1. Shorter words for “likely to be IN apartment names”?: Unclear, no context. Received only 2 close-votes.

2. What preposition should be used with “map”, “in” or “on”? (please see my examples): General reference and could be a duplicate. All 3 close-votes were cancelled.

3. Usage of “take a step forward”: General reference, lack of research, better suited on ELL. All close-votes were cancelled.

4. Is “make a day” ok to use in an ad slogan?: Primarily opinion-based. The three votes could be cancelled soon.

5. Is it normal to struggle a lot trying to understand spoken English in a noisy environment?: Primarily opinion-based. The three votes could be cancelled soon.

6. Is WHO an acronym or an initialism?: Duplicate. The two close-votes could be cancelled soon.

7. Is that the correct use of past perfect?: No research. Why is that? type of question. The two close-votes could be cancelled soon.

8. Is this correct? “One of the things that makes him great is…”: Asked in Mar. 2015. Exact duplicate.

A few of them above could be still in a queue. The purpose of this suggested post would be prevent as many close-votes as possible from being cancelled and close/delete those questions.

Answer 1

As far as I know, there is no rule against posting on Meta an annotated list of questions that you would like other people to join you in close-voting, or against updating such a list as often as you like. Since questions that have been nominated for closure already appear in a list in the Review queue, I think it's fair to say that this standing or recurring list would amount to an ongoing lobbying effort designed to recruit Meta readers to support your (and presumably others') close preferences. Undoubtedly, precedent exists for such lobbying in the form of Meta posts that users submit in favor of reopening particular questions that they feel were incorrectly closed.

Your proposal differs from those one-off efforts in being a systematic attempt to rally opposition to the questions you (and other close voters) think should not be on the site. If successful as a lobbying tool, it would increase the number of closed questions on the site. So one question that other site participants might ask themselves is whether they share the view that the current system—lacking, as it does, the additional publicity of a weekly or biweekly hit list of questions identified on Meta as Low-Quality Questions—is unsatisfactory as a way of dealing with suspect questions.

My view is that any innovation that increases the likelihood that questions on the site will be closed also (though certainly not intentionally) increases the likelihood that good questions will get swept up in the dragnet and closed. And to me, few things are more counterproductive to the goals of this site than closing good questions because they superficially fit into one or another close category.

But there is a second issue with this proposal that I think deserves careful thought. EL&U's current review system requires reviewers to assess the merits of questions nominated for closure (or computer-identified as potentially being of low quality) in random order as they pop up in the Review queue. This arrangement works against targeted reviewing. Posting a list of particular questions on Meta under the heading "Low Quality Questions," in contrast, invites targeted close-voting. This undoubtedly makes close voting easier—because a person can jump straight to the question and click 'Close.' But I think it also throws the vetting process out of balance.

After all, there isn't a 'Leave Open' button on the post itself that a person who disagrees with the claimed LQQ status of that question can click. So a person who sees a post on the LQQ list of the week and agrees that it should be closed can click the link to jump directly to the question and vote to close it, but a person who thinks that it should stay open has to reach the question the old-fashioned way (through the randomly ordered Review queue) to vote to keep it open.

To equalize that system, it seems to me, we would have to add a 'Leave Open' button next to the 'Close' button on each posted question, so that voters could register their support or opposition to closing a particular question with equal ease. Otherwise, we skew the system in favor of closure.

---

Conclusion

If adopted, this proposal to establish a recurring list on Meta of posts recommended for closure might significantly increase the number of questions that get closed and the speed with which closure happens. Whether you think that result would be a good thing for EL&U depends in part on whether you think the site's current review system strikes a satisfactory or unsatisfactory balance between closing worthless questions and preserving valid ones. I am opposed to maintaining on Meta a standing list of questions that should be closed, because I think this approach would create a path to closure that sidesteps the existing closure system and enables pro-closure voters to exploit the fact that individual question pages have a 'Close' button but not a 'Leave Open' button.

I recognize that some site users may be deeply frustrated by the number of bad questions they see open on EL&U at any particular moment, and that they may not believe that closing good questions is much of a problem. If I shared that view, I might very well support this proposal. But I think that the current Review queue system for closing questions—random as it is—is a better and fairer way to deal with questions nominated for closure.