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UPDATE: As of 16/3/2012, Game Identification/ITG questions based only on the asker's memory are now prohibited on the site. See the following post:

What are the requirements for asking a game identification question?

It seems to me that the vast majority of ITG questions are asked by brand new users, I daresay people are making accounts specifically to ask these questions. I think personally that this is an excellent way to bring new people to the site.

The problem is with their inexperience with how we do things their questions tend more often than not to be extremely vague and are almost promptly closed every time. I don't think anyone needs me to point out that this (albeit necessary) act likely discourages them from future use of the website.

Now, many community members do attempt to be helpful by directing the asker to our FAQ and suggesting they edit their question to make it less vague, but often the question is closed within 15 minutes of such suggestions. That's not much time to fix it. (Yes they can edit it after it's closed to have it re-opened, but that's not the point of this post)

Should we give these new guys some kind of window to fix their question before we close it, therefore giving them more lee-way to do so, and hopefully keeping a new user while we are at it?

Since I'm the one that brought the idea up, I'll give a suggestion of perhaps 24 hours?

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    Closure is an edit window. That's the whole point of closure. It's a status where a question sits until it's fixed (via edits) or deleted (via inaction). Closure is not the final status.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    Mar 13, 2012 at 20:19
  • @LessPop_MoreFizz Having never thought of it in that matter, that certainly changes a great deal about how I was interpreting things.
    – Ender
    Mar 13, 2012 at 20:21
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    The problem is more that people don't realize closure is an edit window...
    – Ben Brocka
    Mar 13, 2012 at 20:35
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    I think in most cases where editing can save the question and the asker put some effort in, a comment is left to that effect.
    – Matthew Read
    Mar 13, 2012 at 21:30
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    -1 for "I think personally that this is an excellent way to bring new people to the site." Take a look at agent numbers's analysis. Users from ITG don't stick around, and don't become top contributors, in general.
    – Invader Skoodge
    Mar 13, 2012 at 23:18
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    I'm not quite following why having an opinion that turned out to be statistically incorrect warrents a -1.
    – Ender
    Mar 14, 2012 at 10:17
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    Don't worry about downvotes on meta, they just mean that people disagree
    – juan
    Mar 14, 2012 at 21:51

1 Answer 1

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Should we give these new guys some kind of window to fix their question before we close it, therefore giving them more lee-way to do so, and hopefully keeping a new user while we are at it?

Assuming we continue to allow them on the site, in my opinion, they should be closed immediately and kept closed until they fixed it, because

(... they can edit it after it's closed to have it re-opened ...)

And that way, we also minimize people spending time on a question that will be deleted for not conforming to the rules.

Besides, keep in mind that those users are not our main traffic source

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  • Thank you for linking to that question, that certainly cleared up a lot of speculation I had.
    – Ender
    Mar 13, 2012 at 20:17

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