Question with an accepted answer is being close voted as unclear one and a half years after the answer was accepted

Question

This question with an accepted answer is being close voted as unclear one and a half years after an answer to it was accepted. I noticed this immediately after the first close vote and edited it to clean it up, but it's continued to be close voted anyway. Why does anyone think that this question is unclear one and a half years after an answer to it was accepted? It certainly wasn't unclear to the person who asked the question. A moderator already closed this question and reopened it again when I brought the matter to his attention.

I combed through this question searching for anything unclear and the only thing I could find was the word "pear-shaped" which is a dictionary word. It means "looks like an ass". If a reviewer doesn't know what a word means, he should use the dictionary before trying to remove useful content from Ask Ubuntu.

I caught it this time, but what are the broader implications of questions being repeatedly close voted with 5 close votes for being "unclear what you are asking" years after the question was answered and the answer was accepted? Content that is still useful may disappear permanently from Ask Ubuntu because it has been called unclear years after the question has been answered and the answer was accepted.

Answer 1

Sadly, this was likely the result of a combination of "Fastest Gun in the West" syndrome and "Let's all pile on everyone else thinks it should be closed so I do too." Sadly reviewers often fail to review properly which in my humble opinion goes like this:

1) Read what you are reviewing.

2) Follow the link to the original question and read everything to gain context.

3) If there is an accepted/upvoted answer, clearly the question was understood by someone, who should edit it for clarity if at all possible.

4) If the question is understandable to you but might be confusing to others, edit it for clarity.

5) If you can provide a better answer than what you see, do so.

6) If you see an answer that looks promising but could use improvement leave a comment encouraging that improvement for the answerer.

Answer 2

what are the broader implications of questions being repeatedly close voted with 5 close votes for being "unclear what you are asking" years after the question was answered and the answer was accepted?

I remember one time (I remember posting it in chat, can't find it), where someone asked something on the lines of "why my system doesn't start" and the answer was a wild guess "restart your system" which was accepted. Well, I could have answered that he needs to get a new system, or reinstall Ubuntu, or whatever and I wouldn't be wrong. There would be no "wrong" answers, because the question is too generic that anything and everything that may or may not fix the problem. The question has been deleted since.

It becomes everyone guess what the problem to solve is and therefore what solution to apply. Remember, questions are like a puzzle:

Unclear what you're asking

Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it’s hard to tell exactly what you're asking. See the How to Ask page for help clarifying this question.

If you don't clearly explain what you're trying to achieve overall, answerers can't figure out what an appropriate answer would be without additional information. e.g. "How should I put these 4 pieces together?"

Without enough context to know how to assemble it correctly, we don't know what the correct answer would be, and what is a helpful answer or not.

That's what is happening with that question: the user says it needs help installing a piece of software (title guess), then says that he's following a guide to install it (first paragraph), talks about a random FTP server (is that even relevant?), then says that he can't find the executable (well, everything installed in wine is on .wine directory, but I don't think that's the problem), then it tell us that apparently he found how to "execute" the game and runs into a problem... what the problem is, take your pick: you could say that he wants to start the game in off line mode, or that his credentials are not accepted, or that when he inputs his credentials it freeze, or whatever. Then he told us why he's asking here, without any guidance on what we accept here: clear, factual and reasonably scoped questions about using Ubuntu.

Now, why I specifically voted as unclear? Because I followed the guide and was able to start the game, in off line mode, without a hitch. Granted, I'm using Debian testing 64-bits, Wine 1.8.1-1 from the repositories, Intel graphics card and crappy internet. So, what's different from OP's system apart of Ubuntu and a newer version of Wine that can cause problems? I can't tell. So, edit the question so it becomes plainly obvious what the problem is and remove irrelevant information. If that means you have to rewrite the question from scratch, so be it.

Answer 3

This isn't a finished product answer, so I will probably need to add to if it becomes necessary. This answer will probably get downvoted by the same person with injured feelings who injured my feelings, but I encourage my readers to read this answer with an open mind anyway. My intention here is to shed some light on the phrase "unclear what you are asking" in order to demonstrate the different results that may be achieved by using or misusing this phrase in different ways.

^{original question}

Seen from the point of view of who asked the question who was trying to achieve one specific result, and who explained exactly what he tried and what the results of this were.

^{seen from the point of view of a spoiled reviewer}

The question was asked, answered and accepted. Two years later a reviewer uncovers an inessential detail that was missing from the question. Inessential because an accepted answer to the question was posted without it. This is what the original question looks like in the mind of this reviewer.

^{seen from the point of view of a biased reviewer}

The biased reviewer is protecting his incorrect review by embellishing his story. The result looks promising to the biased reviewer, however this "new" question is no longer the same question that was originally asked, so the answer to it may be completely different.

^{seen from the point of view of a selfish reviewer}

This reviewer will do anything to win. All other interests have been subsumed by the single objective of winning, including the person who asked the question, the people who answered it, Ask Ubuntu, the Ubuntu community, and the Stack Exchange network.

The selfish reviewer has won every battle, and to celebrate his victory he has crowned himself as king. The trumpets blare proclaiming his great victory, but what happened to the original question?