2

There are two questions I have seen that seem genuinely bad for the site. How should these questions and others like them be handled? As a mod, I am tempted to close/delete them, but I go back and forth about whether or not this is too heavy-handed.

Specifically, I am talking about: Are there times when your bets are more important than your cards at poker? and Inactive player problem: Where should the money be distributed in this situation?

3 Answers 3

1

I agree that they aren't good questions. I tried to salvage one of them by editing a bit, hoping it would result in some better responses.

I'm personally trying to be liberal with regard to moderating questions as our user-base is quite small and some content is better than none. I suspect you're thinking the same John? If not, I'd appreciate your thoughts.

The only thing that really stopped me from closing them myself was that moderator votes are binding (as I'm sure you know). I was hoping the community would start to vote but it hasn't materialised. That said, closing these is something I'd vote for.

3
  • Not sure we have many folks in the community that know they can vote for closings. IMO, although we do have a small community, for now, I'd rather have a good amount of solid questions and answers than a mess of questionable content. If you guys feel it's junk, I trust your instincts.
    – AlG
    Apr 5, 2012 at 18:16
  • 2
    It takes 500 reputation to vote to close. There are only 3 non-moderators who have reached this point, so this means it's currently impossible for a question to be closed unless a moderator steps in. Apr 25, 2012 at 2:55
  • @michaelmcgowan Fair point (+1). Its a minor problem that will eventually be solved by the passing of time. Until then...
    – Toby Booth
    Apr 25, 2012 at 3:10
0

I feel that the recent edit to Are there times when your bets are more important than your cards at poker? makes it a question worth allowing. However, as Toby alluded to, I am hesitant to flex moderator muscle to forcefully reopen a closed, downvoted question. How do we resurrect questions that have been redeemed? Just pull the trigger, and let the greater SE community mods come break it up if war breaks out?

2
  • Honestly, I don't think that the recent edits were enough to make it a worthwhile question. Better, yes. But enough? Not in my humble opinion. As such, I'd just leave it and let the community decide if it's worth reopening. Apr 19, 2012 at 13:32
  • Yes, the first "fix" moved the question from lousy to "borderline" (where there was room for reasonable disagreement on its merits). It was the second fix that removed the close vote.
    – Tom Au
    May 12, 2013 at 14:37
0

I don't consider either of those "bad" questions at their core. Badly WORDED questions, definitely. In that case, the solution would be to re-write them so that they read better.

With some help from a moderator, I managed to fix both questions to the point where they are probably answerable (and one of them was actually reopened). This is not easy, and one of them took two or three tries. But as a former professor once said (in a different context), "the result was worth the effort."

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .