This thread has been quiet for a while, so I’d like to propose MVP functionality (based mainly on this answer and this addition):
- Some questions cannot or should not be answered as written, so we need a mechanism to put them on hold. (Called “closed” here but not necessarily in the UI.)
- Closed questions may be edited into something answerable. Questions may be closed by mistake. So we need a way to reopen questions.
- There’s no way to salvage a question or to learn how to write better questions if you don’t know why your question was rejected. Therefore closing a question must state a reason which is visible to everyone.
- We will provide initial close reasons, including “duplicate of (link)”, “completely off-topic”, and “other” (write-in). (Not MVP: Sites can customize the built-in reasons.)
- Users with trust level X (need to resolve trust levels) can close or reopen questions. (Yes for MVP I’m proposing unilateral actions, like mods, until we work out voting. If we do that and it’s easy we can update this point.)
- Closed questions display one of the following messages, depending on close reason:
- Duplicate: This question has been answered already; see (link(s)).
- Needs your attention: We aren’t able to answer this question in its current form. It requires further information from the author. (This is the default message if one of the others does not apply.)
- Off topic: This question does not relate to the topic of this site, cannot be made to fit, and should be removed.
“Completely off-topic” is for things like jQuery questions on the cooking site, not for the kinds of things SE sites write custom off-topic reasons for. I’m reluctant to include it out of concern that it’ll be misused, but we need some way to distinguish “please fix this” and “no this really isn’t going to work here at all”.