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I had asked this question here about easter eggs in Minecraft but it was closed for being too broad. Now this question wasn't closed and yet it still asks about easter eggs, just for a different game.

Should that question have been closed or is there a fine line between what is allowed and what isn't?

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    Welcome to arqade?
    – Lyrion
    Dec 27, 2013 at 12:12
  • Total pedantry: The open question asked what Easter Eggs there are in a game. Yours asked if there's a list of them, which starts to make it sound a bit like a request for an off-site resource, which are generally frowned upon on most Stack Exchange sites. It's not much, but it does mean that yours is technically off topic right now. And, given that the purpose of On-Hold is to get questions edited until they're bett... oh, it's been edited? And someone else did the list bit? Well, crap. Might want to revert it, maybe? I dunno. Dec 27, 2013 at 14:12
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    It was flagged "too broad" before I edited it! I tried to narrow it down to a list request because there were successful posts that requested a list of error codes. I figured that it was less broadly worded, and hence accepted.
    – David M
    Dec 27, 2013 at 16:07
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    Rolled back - I think the original question was fine, especially given the example of other Easter Egg question you've linked. It's been nominated for re-opening as well, and I hope it gets a good answer as I love Minecraft & Easter Eggs!
    – shanodin
    Dec 27, 2013 at 17:18

2 Answers 2

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Ultimately, whether a question is 'too broad' is always going to be a judgement call. That's why closure is done by 5 votes, which can be countered, and not by a robot or moderator fiat. That said, the rubric that I've historically used is the one I outline in this answer, and it's comments.

Specifically:

As a general rule of thumb, if I know the scope of the answer set, my 'I know it when I see it' guideline for a question that's too broad is, "Would I be willing to take the time to compose an answer that contains all of the items in this list? Would my doing so provide information in a meaningful, readable way that makes the internet better, and provides an answer in a way that another resource either does not or can not?

and

I ask myself "If I knew this answer, would I be willing to write up the entire thing? Can I do so clearly and coherently within the limits of SE's markup?" In the case of Matrix Shards specifically, I'd say that while it's a short enough list all in all - a dozen or so entries IIRC? - I feel like enough of them are sufficiently complicated to get that I don't really like the question. I think it's a valid standard to wonder just how much effort are you asking for from the person answering your question.

Your own standards may vary somewhat, but I think that that standard is a pretty reasonable one, which doesn't require that a voter know the answer to close the question, but does require that they have some understanding of the scope of the answer. (i.e. I don't need to know the names of every President of the US to know that there have been a few dozen of them.)

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One thing to remember is that not all games are the same. I think your question here is fine, but asking for a list of easter eggs in [insert game] can easily get into a huge scope. Say I asked for easter eggs in a game like Skyrim. The list could be insanely long. Often times a game's wiki is a better place to find this kind of information.

Unfortunately a few questions will fall into a similar scenario and become based on the game. With these you have users that will want to ban all questions of that type and others that will want to take it on a case-by-case basis. One good example of this would be the discussion around the questions.

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