Going through the beta site, I noticed that some questions are answered and closed and others are answered and open. What are the rules for closing a question? I have questions that are answered sufficiently enough for my needs, do I have to close them myself?
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1$\begingroup$ In short, Lindsey, you probably shouldn't be closing your own questions. The main reason why questions get closed is that they, in some way, are not a good fit for our site. Good questions (even if they have acceptable answers) should remain open so that later users can potentially add even better answers later. $\endgroup$– GwenJul 1, 2013 at 15:57
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1$\begingroup$ @Gwenn I make note of that in my answer, I think OP might have them a bit mixed up. $\endgroup$– iKlsRJul 1, 2013 at 16:45
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I am not sure exactly what you are asking pertaining to closed questions, you might be confusing them a bit with accepted answers so I will answer as generally as I can.
Some questions are answered and closed because sometimes it takes the community a while to accumulate the votes needed to close the question as off-topic etc. In that time, people might have posted what they thought to be ok answers etc. Here are some examples:
- How to create a simple extruded box model?
- What are the best graphics cards for cycles?
- Why is Quadro slower than GTX rendering on GPU cycles?
Others are answered and closed/locked because while they are not good questions that we should allow on the site, we answer them because of how generic they are and because they are very likely to get asked again.
Lastly, some questions are possibly answered and closed because they have been asked already or because they are so similar in content with another that they can be merged. (Any any answers on the duplicate will be transferred to the first one.) Here are some examples:
- https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1179/how-to-append-two-blender-files
- How to Simulate the marble procedural texture in cycles
- How can i use an image as a background in Blender Render?
Closed questions are basically those that don't fit well in the scope of the site and are too vague or broad to be reasonably answered. For example:
- What are the best graphics cards for cycles?
- https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/573/strange-blender-bug-on-laptop
- How do you keep a single object from casting a shadow?
Questions that are answered and open are because the OP didn't accept an answer.
If you have questions that are answered and you are satisfied with them, don't 'close' them per se. You can accept an answer as the one that was useful to you by pressing the little arrow next to it.
To see all the reasons questions are closed and for more information related to this.. See the section on it in the help pages.
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$\begingroup$ Do we have an off-topic list somewhere here on Meta? $\endgroup$ Aug 5, 2013 at 22:03
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$\begingroup$ @DantheMan meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/1/12 $\endgroup$– iKlsRAug 6, 2013 at 0:52
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You might want to check out https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/closed-questions. It explains what "closed" (or "on hold") are and why they are used. I will briefly explain here.
Some questions have already been asked or are answered by another question's answer. These are marked as duplicates, which is a type of closing.
There are some questions that aren't a good fit for this site. For example, a question about drawing unicorns would be off-topic here. It is not about Blender or the topics listed here.
Other questions are just unclear or ambiguous. A question asking "why isn't blender running quickly" with no further details or in very unclear grammar would fall into that category.
Some questions are very broad. For example, "How do I use blender?" is a broad question. People have written entire books about that.
Others solicit opinions rather than hard facts. "What is your favorite blender feature?" simply asks for everyone's opinion. There's no correct answer and cannot be answered factually.
When a question falls into one of these categories, users with over 500 reputation can vote to close them. When a question receives five close votes1, it is put on hold for five days. If the question is not fixed by the end of those five days, it is closed.
A closed (or on hold) question does not accept answers. A closed (or on hold) question can also be reopened by five reopen votes if it is improved.1
Closing is for questions that are not a good fit for the site or need work. When you receive an answer to your question that fixes your problem, mark it as the accepted answer by clicking the check mark beside it. No need to close it.
1 A moderator can close or reopen a question single-handedly if they see fit.
