Are we needlessly scaring people off?

Question

As a newish user I want to give some feedback to veterans who close questions by brand new users. It can be pretty intimidating to have one's question shut down as off topic or opinion-based when one is not used to the culture of SE. In this case the poor person wasn't even welcomed to the group and invited to take the tour before their question was closed. I've noticed some new users never pop their heads up again once their questions have been shut down. Seems to me it's better to let such questions alone and close or delete them later rather than risk scaring off good people.

So to define the question more: what are we gaining by quickly closing imperfect questions by new users? And is that gain greater than what we lose by the chilling effect on potentially valuable new contributors to the group?

Answer 1

Dan, I want you to know that I agree with you about the friendliness. It is an issue on other SE sites as well. I've discussed this also with staff.

What's happening is the workflow of self-management. SE is "managed by the community". So, hundreds and thousands of high-rep users review new posts. It's all voluntary. They want to see "good quality". When something isn't "good quality" (whatever that means to each person), they take action against the post. There are many, many new posts constantly being reviewed, so they get in a bit of a hurry.

The issue is with the tools to review and address "low quality" posts from new users. There aren't always the right buttons to click right now. Only, downvote or close or comment, which makes it difficult to review the load of many new posts while being both fast and friendly and helpful for new users to understand. So, it is the friendliness that may often get dropped.

That's not any excuse, that's just the status quo explained in a nutshell.

For me, I want to lean on the side of being too friendly, not cold and callous. I went through the challenge and unfriendliness on many SE sites. It did make me better at asking questions, but the unfriendliness is indeed a problem.

The best thing to do for now is:

1. Continue asking specific questions and raise awareness like this meta post does
2. Do your own review and comment, being the friendly person the site needs
3. Talk with other users on Hermeneutics in the site chat room
4. Wait for updates for SE software to introduce tools that will make empower a friendlier welcoming party
5. Use flags: If you see a post being treated badly, click "Flag" and explain to the moderators your concern. If moderators have already reviewed it, bring it up in the chat or make a meta question about it here

Thank you for this. I hope you continue to contribute and be part of the solution. And, please comment.

Answer 2

thanks for raising this!

New user experience is super important and an area most stacks struggle with. In this case the user has been on the site for a year and a half, and has asked 17 questions, so I don't see a huge problem with closing off topic questions quickly. I do agree with your general concern and would encourage all community members to be welcoming and helpful.

One of the major problems of the site is a lack of community engagement with the review queues - most community members don't Vote to Close on Questions, and so this occasionally leads to quicker interventions by the Moderator team, as if we don't intervene sometimes things just don't get Closed or Reopened. So we value every bit of help we get from the community on all these fronts.