Why is this question closed as off topic?

Question

The question: Why did I lose a Flush in Omaha?

The reasons it was closed:

closed as off-topic by Radu Murzea♦ Sep 22 at 6:50

This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason: •"This question does not appear to be about poker within the scope defined in the help center." – Radu Murzea

If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question or leave a comment

The question appears to be off topic, how so? Please be precise here. Because I am ok at critical reads and what exactly is off topic in this question cannot be found at Help Center > Asking / What topics can I ask about here? or What types of questions should I avoid asking?.

Closing because the user did not do enough research, what does that mean, what does that achieve. This is the site that is supposed to becoming a resource. If we do not already have an answer here, and a user asks the question, that is great. That is how this site gains value, that how this site gets SEO and thus more users. What do you care if it is on Yahoo or Wikipedia or two plus two. I can guarantee that I can find an answer to every question asked at Poker Meta somewhere online. Was the question answered here, if it wasn't then they have done their research.

If you could please point me to the correct resource, please don't, save it for the next post you close, so that user understands.

I am very serious what were you thinking? Where exactly is this question off topic? Where is your due diligence on this one? How in the world could the OP in this case figure why you closed this? Was it off topic, no. Was there even a vague description of what might be off topic about this question in the link provided by the moderator? Nope. Was this question perhaps answered in other questions here, maybe. But did the moderator indicate that, did the moderator or anybody provide a link to such a question?

This question is on topic, easily answered, with relevant precise answers, and had great value to the OP and other poker players. The confusion suffered from the original OP is common among first time Omaha players. Did you close the question because you perhaps did not know that?

I think the OP's question is inane, low grade and not really a great question. I speculate that the moderator had the same type of thoughts about this question. However the OP's question is a question that fits, it is not a bad question within the context of Stack Exchange.

The judgment of the quality of this question is the domain of the community, not of the moderators. By declaring this question off topic, you abused your moderation privilege's. Saying the question was off topic was simple justification to close it, when you cannot define good reason to close it within the rules. The moderator manipulated, the moderator denied us our voice, the moderator was elitist. By doing this you take away the communities stake in the community.

Answer 1

Constructive criticism is always welcome and even encouraged, so thank you for speaking up when something seems to not be quite right.

Just like you, I would really love Poker.SE to grow in size and have more users, questions, answers, views, traffic etc. However, we must maintain a minimum level of quality for the questions.

What I mean by that is that questions that are essentially asking "What is a full house?" or "What is the small blind and big blind?" or something similar are just too simple. It's like asking on StackOverflow how to write a "Hello world" program in language X. These are just extremely simple factual things that are accessible via a 30-second Google search. If a user is unwilling to make that small research effort, then I don't think it's a question worth having.

I'm not saying that Poker.SE should be only about experts talking about more sophisticated strategy concepts. That would be absurd. But there's a limit and a line that has to be drawn. Yes, it would generate some extra traffic, but I don't think it's worth it. Poker.SE would not be something very pleasant to skim through if it would be filled and spammed with such questions.

Fortunately, such questions are not that common.

The off-topic reason that I chose when closing those questions is indeed incorrect. The question are ontopic. However, we don't currently have a close reason that better matches the actual reason. This is why, in all of those instances, I added a comment explaining why I did what I did. It kind of "overrules" the close reason.

I don't think I'm abusing my moderator privileges with this. I would never do this intentionally. If I would consistently do this and if it would be regularly pointed out, then I would definitely consider stepping down as moderator because it would harm the site and community and I definitely don't want that.

@Jon please tell me what you think about my answer/reasons/explanations.