How can we streamline the close flagging and voting dialogues?

Question

^{If you can bear with these premium graphic artworks.}

The current flagging system on questions has 3 or more dialog boxes to be navigated through to close for specific reasons or to use the "other" reason. The close vote dialog boxes have two or more to navigate through.

The UI is also inconsistent. The reasons all start with bold on the first dialog boxes and on the final one, the bold is scattered part way through sentences making them less obvious.

The flags modal has a duplicated duplicate close reason, on two dialog boxes (irony is noted).

We have problems with declining migration flags, as other sites usually don't want our stuff. So I recommend removing those suggestions altogether on flags and keep them only for the close voters, as they've had time to get to know how the site works (well some of them have). There's no real need to have the options for particular sites for migration within the main flag dialog, we could include them when the user selects on "belongs on another stack exchange site" or they could just be typed in, as they so often do for code review and in the comments.

Lastly, the broad and unclear reasons are on the flip side of the same coin, there's no real harm in combining these.

So my proposal is to reduce the number of dialog boxes by 1, by trimming the reasons, and putting the last two boxes into one box and making the format consistent with the use of bold titles.

Please give your suggestions. We may be able to come to a consensus, even if that may be leaving it as it is.

NB out of scope: Personally they're a little wordy and I would think would be improved with shorter reasons, less clutter with a good link in each for usage. Though this is out of the scope of this request.

The current flagging dialogues

1st Flag dialog

2nd Flag dialog - new question (< 60 days)

2nd Flag dialog - older question

3rd Flag dialog - new question (< 60 days)

Why not simplify question flags to two dialog boxes?

1st New flag dialog

^{I'd recommend Stack Exchange engaged in their own graphic artist.}

2nd New flag dialog

Without including the repetition between the flags.

Instead of two Close dialogs

One Close dialog

^{Optional when to mod flag link ^^^.}

a downvote in seconds, it's too long to read in seconds... is that why?? It's the pictures isn't it? :) — user3956566, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 17:09
Those close reasons you scratched out because other sites don't like taking our crap aren't principally about migration; they are custom close reasons that just happen to offer alternative sites as suggestions. — Robert Harvey, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 19:30
As for the wording legislation, I've spent more time of my life than I care to admit obsessing over proper wording, only to find out that the impact achieved from tuning words is very minimal because people don't read anyway. — Robert Harvey, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 19:30
Finally, merging close reasons such as "Too Broad" and "Unclear" is ill-advised. The close reasons each have a very specific meaning, purpose, and a boatload of history and culture behind them. Merge them, and you basically burn that book. — Robert Harvey, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 19:34
While too broad, unclear and maybe opinion-based can be used interchangeably in a lot of cases, there are still plenty of questions where only one applies, and trying to group 2 of those might make the close reason less useful for askers and others. We don't really want people to think their unclear question is too broad or their too broad question is unclear, and perform an edit that doesn't address the close reason. Although I'm not sure how much it really matters. — Bernhard Barker, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 19:38
Is it possible to get statistics on which of the duplicate options gets used more often? Would possibly help determine if one of the two could go. — André Kool, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 19:51
"Recommendation requests for books, tools, software libraries, tutorials or other off-site resources are off-topic for Stack Overflow as they tend to attract opinionated answers and spam. Instead, ask about a specific problem you're trying to solve and what has been done so far to solve it." — Bernhard Barker, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 19:54
Maybe it's just me, but I'd much prefer a simple list of proposed changes instead of images with scattered text and graphics to show them. — Bernhard Barker, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 19:56
I agree with making "recommendations" and "debugging" the first words in the reasons. But there needs to be some version of "questions" in the reason for recommendations and debugging, because questions asking for recommendations and help with debugging are not recommendations and debugging, they're questions asking for that. I'm not sure if that's what you're proposing, but "Debugging must include..." doesn't really make logical sense and, similarly, recommendations aren't off topic, but questions asking for them are. — Bernhard Barker, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 20:03
@RobertHarvey yes I'm suspecting people don't read - let's face it, we're all hit with so much fine print online these days, we're passively taught to ignore stuff. Ergo the idea of simpler == better with a link for those who really are interested in investigating it — user3956566, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 20:08
@AndréKool yes good thinking. We need Shog. I have exams in two days (hence all the meta activity to avoid studying), but I really am studying now. — user3956566, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 20:09
@Dukeling you don't like my professional images? Of course it's chaotic. Sorry about that. If I have time, I'll edit it for readability. Until then, anyone else feel free to edit it. I'm not possessive of my posts. Or perhaps write an answer? — user3956566, Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 20:10
You might want to split the suggestion to merge "unclear" and "too broad" into a separate discussion, as it is a deeper and, I hazard, far more contentious change than the other ones being fielded here. (On that specific topic, here is a not very long discussion about it from a few weeks ago.) — duplode, Commented Jun 2, 2018 at 6:00
@duplode thanks for that link. Meta is hard to keep up with. I put too many things in together, it was an idea to simplify it, but it's something that needs more community input on the individual components. So it hasn't served the best way to find out what that is. Maybe some individual answers might help. — user3956566, Commented Jun 2, 2018 at 9:29

duplode · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-03 18:30:06Z

A few remarks about the individual changes outlined in the graphics:

That "should be closed..." and "a duplicate..." are separate options in the first flag dialog likely has to do with discoverability by new users.
Removing the pseudo-migration ("general computing" and "professional administration") and actual migration options from the flag dialog is an appealing move, given the well known issues involving moving questions elsewhere. On the pseudo-migration reasons, there might be some value in keeping "general computing", as it seems plausible to assume there is a large class of questions of this sort that are easily identified as off-topic (in particular, more easily than those that are associated with more specialised sites). If it is kept, perhaps the reference to Super User could be removed from the flag dialog text. (See also: the 10k stats about close reasons.)
Merging the pseudo-migration options with the migration ones in the close dialogs might be tricky, because pseudo-migration closures don't actually migrate anything. (Note that, in addition to "general computing", there is an actual Super User migration option.) In any case, looking at migration volumes and success rates (cf. the 10k stats) might help in deciding exactly what to do about it. (It must be said that the rarity of migrations doesn't speak well of their usefulness as a prominent option.)
The wording suggestions feel like steps in the right direction. One possibility for the off-topic dialogs would be changing the title to something like "This question is off-topic because..." and then completing the sentence with the options, in a similar way to the first flag dialog (e.g. "... it is about general computing [...]", "... it asks us to recommend [...]", "... it seeks debugging help but does not include [...]").
Merging "unclear" and "too broad" is a thornier issue, and I don't think it should be done. To avoid an unwieldy digression here, I have posted my view about it as an answer to a recent question about the matter.

Dukeling has a point in that, by looking at the changes individually, I'm not engaging with your overarching goal of getting rid of some of the dialogs -- in particular, doing that might be unfeasible without carrying out all of the aforementioned mergers and eliminations of options. Still, I believe the individual suggestions are worth considering on their own merits (some improvement is better than no improvement). Furthermore, removing some of the clutter, even if in a rather superficial way, might make it possible for us to see further improvements that are currently obscured.

10k+ users can see migration stats. 22 and 12 questions migrated to SU and SF in the last 90 days, with less than 10% rejection. Those numbers seem way too low to justify having migration options (even the top migration target doesn't even have 2 migrations a day). For the non-migration close reasons, the best I could find was this query, which I'm not completely sure how to interpret. — Bernhard Barker, Commented Jun 3, 2018 at 10:01
@Dukeling Thanks for the link to the 10k stats. I'm quite surprised by how infrequent migrations are overall, and I agree that calls the relevance of the "off-topic/migration" close reason into question. As for the pseudo-migration reasons, the 10k tools also have some nice data about them. The "general computing" one, at least, is used fairly often (more than e.g. "off-topic/typo"). — duplode, Commented Jun 3, 2018 at 16:50
@Dukeling thanks for that info, it confirms what I suspected. There's so much info on these sites, it's hard to find it. — user3956566, Commented Jun 3, 2018 at 18:08
I'd like to accept this, I just don't think we need to keep the Super User option, as we don't often migrate there and it's a bum steer of sorts. — user3956566, Commented Jun 3, 2018 at 18:09
@YvetteColomb I tend to agree with respect to migration to Super User; however, "off-topic/general computing" closure doesn't need to involve that. As I alluded to, we might just remove the "You may be able to get help on Super User" part of the message instead. — duplode, Commented Jun 3, 2018 at 18:13
@duplode From those stats, it's also worth noting that unclear + too broad makes up 30% of the total number of closures, which would make combining them a fairly big deal. — Bernhard Barker, Commented Jun 3, 2018 at 18:18

Machavity · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-01 20:42:15Z

19

I have a few quibbles with the proposed stuff

New users are not likely to understand that Duplicate = Closure. In this case, it makes sense to leave it in the initial flag window
The debate about the SU/SF OT closure can be had elsewhere. But understand I use custom close reasons to point people to other sites all the time. I agree migration is a poor choice but we still get a lot of people who want to ask those questions here. Telling them where they can potentially get an answer is one of those welcoming things we should still do
The closure reason the OP sees is the one that the voter/flagger should see as well. Trying to make them something different is to invite confusion.
Unclear and Too Broad are distinct reasons and need to remain so

Unclear

How I mine for array?

Too Broad

How can I build an array that holds the names of all the people in the world?

That having been said, migration should be a single unified box only offered to 3k+ users opening a close dialogue. I agree that letting them close-flag for migration for a mere 15 rep user is an invitation to get a decline. Leave it to custom mod flags if they feel that strongly.

edited Jun 1, 2018 at 20:42

answered Jun 1, 2018 at 17:46

MachavityMod

31.6k38 gold badges283 silver badges382 bronze badges

For point 1. Are you saying keep both or get rid of the second instead of the first?
– André Kool
Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 19:33
1

@AndréKool I'm saying keep the flag window Dupe reason. New users aren't going to realize that dupe flags are a subset of close
– Machavity Mod
Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 19:40
1

I agree with 1 and 3, sort of 2 (but it may be a bum steer if they go and ask an off topic question elsewhere). Agree with last point. Don't agree with 4th point. Can't decide whether or not to upvote. hm...
– user3956566
Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 20:12
@YvetteColomb Well, if it's closable for some other reason I try to pick that first (I don't want bad questions to just keep getting re-asked across the network). Closers do bear some responsibility for choosing wisely. I elaborated some on #4 to clarify
– Machavity Mod
Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 20:42
1

@Machavity I'd be curious to see the number of questions closed as with too broad or unclear that are reopened. If it's minimal, then combining the reasons doesn't matter, as the OP is not really understanding where they went wrong anyway. "Unclear or Too broad" does make sense to people who are paying attention
– user3956566
Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 20:47
5

@YvetteColomb regarding "Unclear or Too broad", looks like you want to go back to "Not Constructive" instead, which is the reason why we have the current close reasons?
– Andrew T.
Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 20:55
@AndrewT. no not at all. I want to combine the "Unclear or Too broad" two reasons that are often on the same spectrum.
– user3956566
Commented Jun 1, 2018 at 21:36
@YvetteColomb Other than a slightly less cluttered flagging dialogue, what's the advantage of combining two distinct reasons into one?
– Tim
Commented Jun 3, 2018 at 14:16
@Tim I find myself frequently pondering how both close reasons could apply to the same question. To me, they're closely related in that they're generic problems.
– user3956566
Commented Jun 3, 2018 at 18:16

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How can we streamline the close flagging and voting dialogues?

The current flagging dialogues