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Is it possible to modify closing reasons menu? If so I would love to see a small addition, maybe others have other wishes too.

So, the last Granular off-topic close reasons lead to creating

This question arises due to a simple mistake such as a trivial syntax error, incorrect capitalization, spelling mistake, or other typographical error and is unlikely to help any future visitors, or else it is easily found in the documentation.

This question cannot be answered without additional information. Questions on problems in code must describe the specific problem and include valid code to reproduce it. Any data used for programming examples should be embedded in the question or code to generate the (fake) data must be included.

The question is out of scope for this site. The answer to this question requires either advice from Wolfram support or the services of a professional consultant.

What I'm missing is what is often done with "Off-topic / Other" and a comment:

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because in its form it is too localized and is unlikely to help future visitors.

It is about questions that OP didn't even bothered to drop specific strings/labels etc. just dumping their whole daily code to the question.

I'm using it quite often, and I've seen couple of users too. Can we include this in menu after reviewing the text?

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    I think you should read this meta-question
    – m_goldberg
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 5:29
  • @m_goldberg Thanks, so this was taken to agenda. Can't read everything now but it doesn't seem that mods agreed with top voted answers :-/ And if they didn't, there is not so much hope, right?
    – Kuba Mod
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 6:02
  • That policy change just means too-localized is just one of many reasons you can insert into the "I am voting to close ... because" choice on the off-topic panel. So just keep doing what you already doing.
    – m_goldberg
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 7:36

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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We (community moderators) can change the custom close reasons but I believe we are limited by the software to a total of three reasons, therefore to enact what you propose would require eliminating one of the existing and commonly used reasons. Any proposed change would need to clearly specify exactly how the other close reasons would be adapted to make room for this one before any meaningful community voting can take place.

Edit: It seems that there is precedent for the SE developers to extend the number of close reasons if there is a legitimate need; see:

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    That is, we can beg, and we can hope one of the SE employees sees this. Whether we'll be granted an extra close reason is a different kettle of fish, tho.
    – J. M.'s missing motivation Mod
    Commented Apr 20, 2016 at 16:05
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    I'd trade "out of scope, requires WRI consultant [..]" for "too localized". I don't use the former so much, yet I haven't checked global statistics. Moreover, usually things that require WRI support or proffesional consultant are answered here :) What's not answered is content about licenses etc but that's not frequent. Also W|A questions are not fitting this reason well so one have to write custom message anyway. Let's trade "out of scope"! p.s. additionaly I'd ask for more pages in "belongs to other site", like cross validated, computational science.
    – Kuba Mod
    Commented Apr 21, 2016 at 7:38
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No it shouldn't because then it will be used more often and I don't think that being "too localized and unlikely to help future visitors" is, by itself, a valid reason to close a question.

If it's localized and unlikely to help future visitors and not of interest to you, then leave it unanswered. If the question is useless for everyone except OP, then no one will answer it. I literally do not see any reason for deleting it over keeping it up, if it's written well enough, if it's complete enough to answer (has the necessary code, etc).

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  • One reason for closing such questions is to keep the number of unanswered questions down below 10% of the total number of questions on the site. SE See this question and many others like it.
    – m_goldberg
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 5:24
  • Also the more noise on the site the more difficult it will be to find useful answers.
    – Sjoerd C. de Vries
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 5:48
  • @m_goldberg I don't see how the percentage of unanswered questions should have any bearing on whether one question in particular should be closed or not. The reasons for closing it should be related to the question itself, not whether we have met an arbitrary site-wide statistic.
    – Jason B.
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 6:41
  • @SjoerdC.deVries If they are really noise, then there is bound to be a valid reason for closing it. And if it really is of interest only to the OP, then it is unlikely to come up in google searches for more of-interest question.
    – Jason B.
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 6:44
  • I can't think of any question that was closed as too-localized (and stayed closed for that reason) that had much merit. If you can find one that think was closed unfairly (for any reason), vote to reopen and bring it to attention of the community to get more reopen votes. That sort of action on behalf of a closed question has re-opened more than one. On the other hand, when we are on a search-and-destroy mission to reduce the number of unanswered question, such low value questions are obvious targets.
    – m_goldberg
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 7:22
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    Totally, low-quality questions can be removed, I just think if they are low quality then there's already going to be a valid reason to close (not clear what you are asking, too broad, not enough information to answer, etc). But if all those criteria have been met, but it's localized, as in this one guy is trying to make a figure for his thesis and he just can't find the bug in his code, then that isn't a good reason to delete it. Here is an example of a question that was extremely localized, but well-written (and fun to answer)
    – Jason B.
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 7:34
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    @JasonB I think I should be more precise with wording. I agree with you. I wouldn't nominte questions you are linking lately to closing as "too localized". They are well asked. But imagine those question + 2 times its code containing not important stuff, like styling options, comments in italian and half line long variables' names. And those are questions I would like to close. So something like "too localized due to the lack of minimal example". Hmm, that's sound better.
    – Kuba Mod
    Commented Apr 22, 2016 at 11:03

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