Can we merge many meta Q&As about "abandoned questions"?

Question

Can we merge these three Q&A's (they are all ~5 years old) together?

• What to do with questions whose OP hasn't visited the site for a long time?
• What to do when users have been inactive for months and their question remain open?
• What to do with abandoned questions?

Other ones I've just discovered on July 31, 2017 but not yet reviewed:

• Changes to how we close abandoned questions
• Closing abandoned questions is harder than it should be.
• Can moderators confirm abandoned questions should be closed TL, not NARQ?
• Another bit on abandoned questions, but specifically good ones with good answers
• Why don't we have "required/requested input not provided" close reason for abandoned questions?
• Time Frame of Abandoned/Old Questions
• Question deleted as abandoned although I didn't abandon it

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PART II - Feature Request to Close Vote

Along that vein can I make a feature-request to add abandoned question as a reason for close votes?

NOTE: Answer I posted below diminishes the need for this request as an "Auto-Delete" feature-request for "Abandoned Questions" is actively being sought for Unanswered Questions on EOL Ubuntu versions.

Aggressive criteria for close votes:

• Question is unanswered - AND -
• OP hasn't signed on in > 6 months - OR -
• OP has not responded to comment queries / suggestions made > 6 months ago

Generous criteria for close votes:

• Unanswered Question is about EOL Ubuntu version - AND -
• OP has not repled to comments posted > 2 years ago

There seemed to be interest in abandoned question close vote ~5 years ago here:

• How should we define "Abandoned" as a close reason?

A tool / script to help find abandoned questions was written (~5 years ago) here:

• http://data.stackexchange.com/askubuntu/query/48626/kill-all-abandoned-questions

Ironically the question in meta of closing abandoned AU questions seems to have been abandoned itself!

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Justification (Response to comments)

I spent many hours yesterday going through the "Unanswered Questions" list with the goal of shortening it. A long list of unanswered questions may give the false impression that people in AU aren't paying attention or don't care.

It's futile answering questions when the OP is no longer around to flag your answer as correct. Additionally, you often need follow up information which the non-existent OP cannot provide.

All three of the potential question merge candidates ask the same thing ie, What to do when OP is no longer around to respond to comments or accept an answer?

The three proposed merge candidates have different answers and you need to read all three Q&A's to get a full picture. Merging them together simplifies this process. Some answers say an "Abandoned Question by OP" that has answers is still valuable. I agree with that in most cases as it will help others. However an abandoned question with no answers should qualify for close voting.

Answer 1

Answering the spirit of the question (in brief, very busy):

I agree that abandoned questions are sometimes unanswerable and I'm all for removing dead ends, but a heavy-handed approach to these questions (blanket closing) is not the way to go, imho.

The basic reasoning behind this is that Stack Exchange questions generally are not only for the OP - many other people besides the OP will hopefully benefit from questions being answered.

So, the fact of a question being abandoned is insufficient as a close reason, I think. The problem may be reproducible and the question answerable. Besides, the question might not be really abandoned; the OP might not have signed on for a long time, but they may well do so seeing a notification! Perhaps they are active on another site, just not Ask Ubuntu. I speak from my experience of cleaning up old questions.

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Further thoughts:

A lot of people think we shouldn't bother with old questions, but I know that old questions matter because people are still finding them and using them all the time, so I give a lot of attention to them. I strongly agree with this

Unanswered questions are a dead-end in search; they're worth keeping around for a while on the chance that someone will find and answer them, but beyond a certain point if no one is expressing any interest in them they're just noise

I am currently doing this to clean up old questions. When(/if) we finish this project, we may try to work on abandoned ones. Our cleanup has a multi-level review system and we figure out what to do with the questions on a case-by-case basis.

Here's a suggested possible workflow for an abandoned questions cleanup (imagining this being done in a team using Trello or similar like our self-answered questions cleanup):

1. Does the question already have an upvoteable answer that has been overlooked?

   • Yes: upvote the answer (editing if needed) and move on
   • No: goto 2

2. Is the question good and answerable without OP?

   • Yes: upvote, edit if needed, answer the question, consider adding a bounty
   • No: goto 3

3. Is the question unclear without further detail from OP?

   • Yes: leave a comment. If there's no reply, close as unclear (if info is provided, seek an answer)
   • No: goto 4

4. Does the problem seem non-reproducible (without input from OP)?

   • Yes: if question is EOL, if OP gave up, solved with reinstall, found it was a bad cable or whatever, or does not respond to comments, close as no-repro (if OP solved, or provides useful info, seek an answer or suggest adding an answer)
   • No: If the question is poor quality, a downvote might cause it to be deleted if it has no answers...

Principle of cleanup: above all, seek answers and value answers, and make them easier for people to find by clearing noise.

Answer 2

I wasted some time in the past, cruising meta for old unanswered questions resulting in my asking Do we really need EOL related announcements hanging about in the unanswered meta questions queue? A comment by @muru prompted me to answer it myself so as not to further extend the unanswered meta questions queue.

On Merging

It's my understanding that merging is fraught with pitfalls. As far as merging is concerned, I think you might find What criteria should be used when considering merge candidates? useful.

I for one would have difficulty determining which of those 3 questions to keep and which 2 to obliterate in a merge operation, so I wouldn't do it. For that matter you may have missed What happens to inactive users' questions? which is also related.

I would consider voting to close the ones generating the fewest views as duplicates of the one generating the most views as this would preserve them all. Many of the answers could use editing to update them to include current close reasons. You've certainly found some work that needs to be done, but I don't believe merging is the answer.

On abandoned questions

You personally have been helped by an abandoned question and I for one have earned a fair amount of rep for my answer to it. This prompts me to question the idea of closing an abandoned question that has no answers. Instead I suggest you answer them to the best of your ability if you feel the question warrants an answer, provide one.

Answer 3

We used to use the "unclear what you're asking" close reason for that, but the verbage to the reason has changed. It used to contain "was only relevant to a specific user or at a specific point in time" or similar wording. So, out of habit, if I was going to CV something I thought was abandoned for the reason cited in that bit of verbage, I would use that reason.

Answer 4

In meta Stack Exchange I've been directed to a link where we can request auto-deletion of abandoned questions on EOL Ubuntu versions that have no answers:

• meta.stackexchange.com - Auto Delete Questions

Automatically deleting the questions will save close voting on thousands of questions, clogging up the review queue and taking years to do what could be done overnight. This was discussed on a different question:

• What are the acceptable number of close votes to initiate per day?

I'll update this answer as progress is made.