Has the insufficient research close reason been retired?

Question

I don't mean to pick on any of our users or mods, but I must admit that I do not see the merit in answering this question when it showed zero evidence of research: Within or inside? (it has since been edited by someone else.)

We all know that a lot of questions are contentious, with no clear amount of required research or no easy way to try to do that pre-asking research. But "Within or Inside?" is not one of those. It's a very simple question. Maybe not all dictionaries would raise the issue of the different parts of speech, but we don't require question askers to be successful in their research, only that they show they've attempted to do some. (That's why it's different from the old general reference close reason, which was about the intrinsic merits of the question, and was necessarily much more subjective and harder to judge.)

There are lots of high rep users who disagree with closing these questions. They have the right to disagree and also to answer them if they wish. But shouldn't the mods be modeling the site standards? Shouldn't mods raise an issue on Meta if they disagree with them, rather than blatantly ignoring them? If a mod has answered that question then we can only conclude that the standards have in effect been changed, in which case, let's just remove the close reason entirely.

Answer 1

There are lots of high rep users who disagree with closing these questions. They have the right to disagree and also to answer them if they wish. But shouldn't the mods be modeling the site standards? Shouldn't mods raise an issue on Meta if they disagree with them, rather than blatantly ignoring them?

I don’t think it’s obligatory for any user, and definitely not for mods, to close a question just because an applicable close reason exists. To paraphrase Jesus, “the close reasons were made for the voters, and not the voters for the close reasons.” Everyone is expected to use judgment and not just robotically vote to close a question. The standards are set by the community; as that linked post says, the text was changed because the "new reason more adequately conveys why the community was closing general reference questions." My interpretation of that: it's descriptive, not prescriptive. The way the community sets standards is by its actual voting patterns. Our site has plenty of high-rep users with closing privileges; I don't think we need to rely on mods to close questions that break the rules.

In addition, the system is set up to allow anyone to post an answer to an open question. This is the standard for ordinary users. I don’t see why mods should be held to a different, stricter standard, when as you point out, there is not even a consensus among high rep users that having such a strict standard is a good thing.

I think raising issues on Meta is good for mod actions that go against an established community consensus or that are unremediable by ordinary users. But a mod answering an open question that other people think should be closed is neither of these. After the mod's answer is posted, if you still think the question is not useful, you’re able to vote to close it, and then vote to delete it. If you don’t think the mod’s answer is useful, you can always downvote it.

I think it would be legitimate to object if the community closed a question like this, and then a mod re-opened it without discussion to post an answer. But that would be a different situation.

If a mod has answered that question then we can only conclude that the standards have in effect been changed, in which case, let's just remove the close reason entirely.

I think this close reason should remain. It seems to be used fairly often; I don't understand how it would benefit anyone to remove it.

Answer 2

The close-reason "more research required" is meant to be a means of closing questions that require more research to be useful and interesting questions. When users ask questions that are self-eminently useful and or of interest to any linguists or language enthusiasts, these questions should not be closed.

It is NOT the case, that reviewers should look at every question and ask has the Original Poster shown their research?, but rather, does this question require more research to become a decent question.

None of this is a comment on whether the question in question should have been closed or not.

Close-reasons are not meant to stand in for common sense. We are still required to apply some critical evaluation of a question's merits in terms of their benefit to the site and to other users.

Answer 3

While I generally agree with Araucaria's opinion that a certain leeway is necessary in judging the required research for a question I do think that any research effort should go past this:

I've read a lot of letters with these words and the people say that[sic] mean the same.

That last half of the sentence is just not a valid basis for a question. It's certainly not any sort of herculean effort to at least look at a dictionary. That should in my view be the minimum bar for any word meaning questions: Have at least one look at a dictionary.

I admit there is a bit of impression about the asker's effort involved. If there had been the added sentence, I looked in the dictionary and the definitions didn't help me, I would likely not have voted to close. In my opinion a question regarding meaning of a word should include information about why looking at a dictionary did not help the asker.

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_{P.S. I happily voted to reopen the question with the added research. After all, post improvements are always a good thing.}