Are we able to change the "off-topic" flagging reasons, and would it be wise to do so?

Question

I recently got access to the question closure stats (yay?), and I've been thinking about the reasons why we close questions.

About 56% of closed questions, over the last 90 days, are closed as either "unclear what you're asking" or "off-topic - Questions on problems in code you've written must describe the specific problem...". I'm wondering whether we can invest work on our off-topic reasons to help make expectations for questioners clearer, while also providing more relevant and structured feedback on question closure. (I'm assuming we have some way to modify these, since they're customized for Salesforce?)

Would it be worthwhile to see about changing or adding to our roster of off-topic reasons? A few suggestions that occur to me:

• "You've asked a question about your code, but didn't provide the relevant code. Please edit your question to add this information, but consider including only affected lines rather than pasting your entire class." (We don't really insist on "short, self-contained syntactically-valid examples", so perhaps we can be more direct and specific?)
• "You've asked a question about an error, but you didn't include the error or its location. Please provide the verbatim error message, line number, and affected code."
• "Questions about testing and code coverage should focus on testing specific lines of code or areas of functionality. For help getting started with a test class, see (Trailhead link)."
• "Questions about how to achieve specific requirements or tasks should show your own research and work towards that goal. Requests for sample code or complete implementations are off-topic."

These are just some thoughts; feel free to shoot them down independently of the broader question of whether this is a tree up which it's worth barking.

I think it'd do us good to be able to express some of our more common question issues structurally, rather than leaving it up to individual commenters.

Answer 1

We are limited to three custom close reasons.

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For reference, below is the current state of the close reasons:

Currently Active:

• Questions on problems in code you've written must describe the specific problem and include valid code to reproduce it. For help writing short, self-contained syntactically-valid examples, see: SSCCE.org.

  This close reason is our catch-all for good reason. It describes in a compact way many of the most common problems with bad questions on this site:

  • Short
    • When a post contains hundreds of lines of code, for example, it is simply too much to scan through for the question to be of any value to the broader community.
  • Self-contained
    • When a post does not contain enough information to reproduce the issue in another org, it becomes difficult or impossible to verify an answer with certainty. Posting answers as a guess is not really what we're after.
  • Syntactically-valid
    • When a post contains numerous syntax errors, it again becomes very difficult to post one concise, clear answer which can address all issues. Incorrect paraphrasing or pseudo-code is worse than excessive length.

  So I disagree with your contention we do not require SSCCE. Another name for this concept that we bandy about more regularly in these parts is Minimum Viable Reproduction (MVR). I haven't been able to find a good online resource to explain this concept but would be happy to include one if it's out there.

• Programming questions not specific to Salesforce are off-topic here, but can be asked on Stack Overflow.

  This tag is completely redundant and can be safely removed. There is a standard close reason which reads:

  belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network

  Once you select this reason, you can just type in Stack Overflow.

• Question that are intended to propose ideas, solicit opinion or provoke discussion are better asked in an alternative forum.

  I think this reason would be improved by linking to a specific forum. Perhaps this one?

Pending approval:
(Before this reason can be approved, one of the currently active reasons must be deactivated.)

• This question shows zero evidence of any research, and can be answered through a quick internet search.

Deactivated:

• This question appears to be spam.

• Questions specific to a unique user scenario are off-topic because they will be of no use to anybody else. A good example of this is asking for people to write the test coverage for a particular class or trigger.

Answer 2

My observation over the course of my participation in this forum is that someone will vote to close a question without making a comment to ask for the relevant information. If that were to happen consistently and a reasonable amount of time allowed for updates to a question, I believe the number of questions closed for the reasons you've cited would be dramatically reduced. At times it almost appears as though there's a "race" to see how quickly a question can be voted for closure. To me, that's something that can make this place seem unfriendly to new users.

Seeing a question voted for closure before a user has been given a chance to clarify their question, add relevant code, etc seems "unfriendly" to me, esp when it's a new user who's asking. I'd like to see some kind of limit on how quickly a question can be voted for closure (e.g. an hour minimum) to allow for those kinds of comments to surface but don't know if the system could support that.

In the past, we've had similar discussions about users downvoting without making comments. It's a similar kind of thing. It's not helpful to close a question without commenting on what a new user could do to improve their question so it could be answered. I don't know of a way to require a comment before the first vote to close a question can be cast. Yet, it seems that it's exactly that kind of thing that would be helpful to reduce this problem.

I appreciate you bringing up this topic and agree that it shouldn't be happening.