Seeking explanation as to why question is too broad?

Question

I've been a member here on SO for a long time now, and in that time I've seen many things I disagree with by some of the Admins, for the most part I've voiced my opinion then let it lie.

In some cases I've disagreed, but then thought, well yes I can see why they thought what they did, and left it at that.

That was until PolyGeo decided after 5 years that a question I asked, suddenly needed to be closed because it was too broad, and when I nicely attempted to contact him and ask why, I was ignored.

So I voiced my opinion in the comments on my question, and guess what, I was ignored not only by him, but none of the other admins in Gis either.

So I voted to re-open, as did my colleague and a few others, we got 6 votes, but guess what, not re-opened, votes where ignored, question was closed.

There is no way on this earth that my question was too broad, as it is (or at least was) a very specific problem.

Admittedly, I've not seen it re-occur in more modern versions of the QGis software, but as far as the question goes with versions in the 2.x.x range the problem is still apparent, and I've never been able to find an explanation for it.

So the question sat there for a number of years, in case anyone did manage to find an answer, with nothing more than a few pointers on it as to what the causes may have been.

This is not asking for a book review, it's not asking for software recommendations, it's asking if anyone has any ideas on a very specific problem in a very specific scenario on a very specific piece of software, and I do not believe that it should have been close with the reason given.

I'm holding my tongue here and not saying what I really think (Very unusual for me) but this is NOT the first time I've seen this in the stack overflow GIS section.

Once over Stack GIS was a very vibrant place, the Admins and Mods where always around and there was always quality answers on the questions, we all helped each other, users, admins, mods alike.

In the past couple of years however, the admins in GIS are often no where to be seen. All they seem to spend their time doing is editing posts (Presumably to collect points) and closing questions for no apparent reason.

I'm not the only one who's voiced my opinion on this either, I know quite a few other users who have similar concerns.

This Question however is not about my concerns on Stack GIS in general, it's about a question that should never have been closed, and if the Admins wanted an answer of some kind to give it closure, all they had to do was reach out and ask me, I would have been more than happy to update it in any way requested.

The original Question is at : Getting bands on Height/DEM/Raster?

Answer 1

Looking at the question, I agree it is not too broad, so I reopened it. I then reclosed it as unreproducible since I doubt anyone is still using version 2.2.

Answer 2

The comments you made on your question were not ignored by me (and presumably not by any of our eight elected moderators) because I had not seen them until I followed the link in your question here just now.

You could have brought them to my attention by placing "@PolyGeo" anywhere in any of those comments. That comment would then have appeared in my inbox, and I try to address all questions asked of me even if I only see them in comments.

When I voted to place it On Hold as Too Broad the state I saw your question in was https://gis.stackexchange.com/revisions/98470/6 and I looked hard to try and find what you were asking without any question mark(s) to guide me. It looked to me like you were using the question as a scratchpad into which to write notes about an issue that you had using QGIS 2.2.

Since no answer had been accepted, and no new answers or comments had been added to your question in over 5 years I concluded that the post needed to be improved in order to try and attract another answerer.

I made quite a few edits as a re-starting point in that process, and then voted to place it On Hold, so that you could review them, and I thought overhaul your question to make what you were asking more clear and concise.

Choosing a close reason is not an exact science as you can see by me choosing "Too Broad" (because I thought it was impossible to digest what you were asking) and @IanTurton choosing "Non-reproducible". I could just as easily have chosen "Unclear what you are asking" because there was no question mark in its body.

I am sorry now that I did not make an additional comment on your question, besides the standard explanation that goes with the Too Broad close reason, but I thought your experience of the site would have led to you simply overhauling your question (if it remained important to you) so that either the review queue (or a ping to me) could then re-open it.

It went to the review queue anyway and there I can see that your re-open vote led to two other users issuing re-open votes and three voting to leave it closed.

I am always happy to try and address any concerns you may have with my actions as either an engaged user or elected moderator via this Meta, but if you are unhappy with my responses, then the Stack Exchange network provides a Contact button on the bottom of every page of every site. It is the Community Managers who read those submissions and I suspect it is they that you are referring to as "Admins" in your question.