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I've just reached 3k reputation today and earned the close and reopen votes privilege.

Before I had this privilege, I was able to flag many questions as Blatantly off-topic, if they had nothing to do with videogames or didn't have their own off-topic reason (e.g. modded Minecraft tech support).

Flag reason from Meta.SE

(Meta.SE flagging reason)

This produces a close reason like the following:

reason: This question does not appear to be about videogames or videogame consoles within the scope defined in the help center.

Today I stumbled upon a question that was titled something along the lines of 'Why 1+1=5' and contained some absurdly wrong mathematical theory in the body. Naturally I would have closed it as blatantly off-topic, because it obviously has nothing to do with videogames.

However there is no off-topic reason. The closest appropriate selection would have been the 'Other' option, where I would have left a comment along the lines of

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it has nothing to do with videogames.

How can I vote to close as blatantly off-topic?

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  • 3
    Just use the last 'others' catchall option and say it is completely off-topic. We don't get many questions of that type here, so it is not one of the options, but feel free to use the last option if none of the others are good enough
    – Private Pansy
    Dec 28, 2015 at 2:12

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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With the ability to vote to close or reopen, you can effectivley vote to close a question for any reason what so ever, so the removal of a pre-set option is rather trivial.

Simply select Close > Off topic because.. > Other (add a comment explaining what is wrong).

At this point, a text box will open up, allowing you to provide your close reason. If you are wishing to include helpful hyperlinking, simply follow the format of [words to hyperlink](actual hyperlink).

So by typing

This question does not appear to be about videogames or videogame consoles within the scope defined in the [helpcenter](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/help).

the close reason would be listed as

This question does not appear to be about videogames or videogame consoles within the scope defined in the helpcenter.

The only thing you have to keep in mind is that you are still expected to use this system appropriately. There are a few good things to keep in mind, here, but it is all common sense. Vote for what the community considers off-topic, not just on things you do not personally like. Always be clear with your reasoning, and always consider meta arguments, when other users object. Remember, it takes 5 votes to close a question, and a vote to close can easily be retracted.

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