Isn't it an insult to contributors to close answered questions?

Question

There are many questions on this forum that have been commented on and answered, only later to be voted "on hold" and then subsequently closed. Reasons for holding are irrelevant. The issue is that good people have devoted their precious time to answering, sometimes at considerable length. Some of these examples have several answers, each with multiple comments that might overall comprise 10+ unique contributors.

Some might consider it as a slap in the face to then be told by the chattering classes that their contributions are useless and better deleted. Whilst a question remains unanswered, then a hold vote is fine for whatever reason. If a question is held due to being too broad or off topic after people have posted answers, how can it be voted such? Remember that's just one bunch of guys' opinions vs another bunch of guys' opinions, yet time and effort has been expended in answering and commenting. The comments themselves contain significant useful knowledge. Unless you're listing the digits of pi, then other's opinions are as worthless as mine.

I'm not quite sure of the solution, but respecting the multiple member's efforts might be a start...

Answer 1

The main point you are missing is that closing questions is about the question, not the answers.

People that write bad questions must not get the desired result (a good answer), else they will be back doing the same again. Even worse, it shows others that writing crappy questions works. We don't want a site with a bunch of crappy questions, even if sometimes they have good answers.

Unfortunately, all too often there are wannabes that can't resist looking smart and answer bad questions. They don't care that they hurt the site for a little personal gain. This is why we have the close mechanism. If 5 users with enough rep agree (or one mod), others are prevented from answering a question. It's unfortunate that this is necessary, but experience has shown that it is. Your question is further proof that it is, and even that closing is sometimes too late to prevent rewarding bad questions.

Yes, it's frustrating when you write a good answer and the question gets closed. But, there are some things you can do about that:

1. Don't answer bad questions. Especially after you've been around here a while, you get reasonably good at recognizing questions that will probably be closed. In fact, then you can help the site and contribute your own close vote.

2. If you are thinking "Oo oo, this is something I really want to respond to!", first step back and take a deep breath. Carefully evaluate the question. If you think it might get closed, write your own question, properly, and then write your awesome answer.

3. In some cases, if the question is bad because of non-English-speaking wording, for example, you can edit the question to fix it, then write your answer. Another example might be changing something too broad into a narrower more answerable question.

   However, this should be done sparingly. The problem is that this still rewards the OP for a bad question. They dump slop here and get the desired result. We really don't want that happening.

   If a question is bad because it exhibits sloppiness, lack of attention to detail, uses text-speak, or in any other way is disrespectful of the volunteers here, do not fix it. Let it die a natural death, which of course includes not answering it. Don't edit it because that deprives others of seeing the OP's bad attitude. That is relevant information others might want to take into account in how or if they answer the question, downvote it, or vote to close it.

Think of it this way. Every time you write a answer, you are betting your time on the quality of the question. If you don't want your time wasted, don't answer bad questions.

Every once in a while, you will think a question is OK and others close it anyway. It happens, learn from it, then get over it. If you really want to preserve your work and think it's a valuable contribution to the site, write a good version of the question yourself, then copy your answer to it. Self-answering is allowed, even specifically mentioned, in the site rules.

Answer 2

There are many questions on this forum that have been commented on and answered, only later to be voted "on hold" and then subsequently closed.

Please read this: What does it mean if a question is "closed" or "on hold"? Getting a question closed means that it is off topic or a few other reasons like a duplicate or if the answer is unclear. Closing a question:
1) Does nothing to the answers that people have already written
2) It does prevent further answers from being created
3) And I believe it makes the question not searchable, google picks up questions, why would you want the world to see bad ones?
4) Realize that the moderation system comes from years of experience with SE, the system works and is put in place for SE's goals.

Reasons for holding are irrelevant. Reasons for holding are relevant, there are reasons why the moderation system was put into place by SE. It works and if it doesn't work you can always talk to a moderator or get it re-opened. Users ask bad questions, it is just plain wrong for people to barge in here and expect an answer to their question with doing little or no work and\or writing a bad question. Bad questions lead to needless discussion. A lot of the closed questions have much discussion about clarification of what the OP meant. Yes there are some people who do not follow the 'be nice' policy, if its a really bad comment then flag it or talk to a moderator.

From the help center:

What types of questions should I avoid asking?

First, make sure that your question is on-topic for this site.

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

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To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where …

every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?”
your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use ______ for ______, what do you use?”
there is no actual problem to be solved: “I’m curious if other people feel like I do.”
you are asking an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if ______ happened?”
your question is just a rant in disguise: “______ sucks, am I right?”

(The above section was adapted from MetaFilter’s FAQ.)

Some subjective questions are allowed, but “subjective” does not mean “anything goes”. All subjective questions are expected to be constructive. What does that mean? Constructive subjective questions:

inspire answers that explain “why” and “how”
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