This situation is very concerning. All of those questions were unilaterally closed by the same moderator as “needs details or clarity”, or closed as a duplicate of a question that is closed as “needs details or clarity”. (Some of them are also locked.) None of them have any comments indicating what specific details or clarity would make them reopenable.
Most of those questions have been open for several years. It's puzzling what changed to cause them to "need details or clarity", and I'm concerned that there may be many other similar questions that have already been roomba'd away (deleted by the Community user). (Closed questions that meet certain criteria are automatically deleted by the Community user.)
The community has not reached a consensus on whether or not “showing research” is a requirement.
As far as I know, there is no community consensus in Web Apps SE that the “needs details or clarity” close reason should be used to mean “does not show research”. I am also unaware of any Web Apps SE community consensus or policy that mandates questions to show research or face closure.
Therefore, I would kindly ask the moderators to refrain from using the “needs details or clarity” close reason to close questions for not showing research, and to consider reopening the closed questions, unless there is clear evidence of community support for that practice.
A close vote is not meant to be a “super-downvote”.
Deciding if the OP "does not show research" is subjective, which is why it is a reason for downvoting (see the tooltip on the downvote buttons) and not close voting.
According to the Help Center article on What does it mean if a question is "closed"? , this is the definition of a question that is closed as "needs details or clarity":
Needs details or clarity - Sometimes we need more information in order to help solve your problem.
Edit your post to be more specific about what you're looking for, and be sure to address any concerns that other users brought up in the comments.
Notice that there is no mention of “showing research” as a requirement. The "needs details or clarity" close reason is for questions that are ambiguous, vague, or unclear about what the actual question is, as opposed to "does not show research."
Stack Exchange Theory of Moderation
According to the blog post “A Theory of Moderation” by Jeff Atwood, Stack Exchange co-founder, which is considered the canonical article on how SE moderators should moderate:
But what do community moderators do? The short answer is, as little as possible!
[…] moderators occasionally need to intervene. Moderators are human exception handlers, there to deal with those (hopefully rare) exceptional conditions that should not normally happen, but when they do, they can bring your entire community to a screaming halt
A lot of the moderation work is extremely mundane, almost janitorial. It’s deleting obvious spam, closing blatantly off-topic questions, and culling some of the worst rated posts in various dimensions.
The ideal moderator does as little as possible. But those little actions may be powerful and highly concentrated. Judiciously limiting your use of moderator powers to selectively prune and guide the community — now that’s the true art of moderation.
I believe that closing those questions is not in keeping with the spirit of the above blog post on what constitutes good moderation practice on SE.
As a moderator, I basically have the same abilities as 3-5 users in a trench coat, and ideally the ability to shape/opinions via meta. For the most part I interpret and help enforce the rules rather than unilaterally define the scope of the site.
- Journeyman Geek's top-voted answer at the Meta SE post: What is the authority of moderators in defining the scope of a site?
I think that according to the above quoted posts, a moderator is an exception handler, and is not supposed to unilaterally define the scope of an SE site. However, the current situation seems to be the opposite of what is stated in those posts.
Web Apps SE has three-vote question closure
Web Apps SE implemented three-vote question closure more than three years ago, in January 2020. Yet, many questions are closed by mods without giving the close voters a chance to weigh in.
I just learned about the three-vote question closure today (June 15, 2023). I previously assumed Web Apps SE still had five-vote closure (like most SE sites) because most of the recently closed questions I’ve seen here were unilaterally closed by a mod, and I haven’t seen any recently closed questions (from 2020 onwards) closed by non-mod users only.
Since we already have three-vote closure, I think the mods should let the close voters vote on whether the types of questions like those the OP listed should be closed or not. That way, the mods can focus on dealing with the blatantly off-topic questions as per the Stack Exchange Theory of Moderation. This would make the closure process more transparent and democratic, and also reduce the workload for the mods.
I hope the above feedback is helpful and constructive, and that the Web Apps SE moderators will consider and/or respond to it. I appreciate the work that moderators do to keep the site clean and organized, but I also believe that communication and transparency are important for fostering a healthy community.
