Questions closed for wrong reason

Question

An unpopular question asking about the KJV but presenting some bible errancy arguments, as well as KJV history arguments was closed as a duplicate.

First of all, I can't tell what it's a duplicate of from the "marked as duplicate" paragraph; the duplicated question is only shown at the top, which is easy to miss [edited; I thought there was no pointer to the original at all but then found it]

Secondly, the victim himself states "I do not think it's duplicate. I am not asking how accurate bible is. I am asking how accurate king james bible is."

And finally, and most importantly, while it may be true that the question brings some arguments from other questions, and that it seems poorly phrased and reasoned, is it OK to close a question as a duplicate when in fact it is not a duplicate? Why not close poor questions for the right reasons instead of fictious reasons?

Answer 1

Your meta post raises several separate issues. In no particular order, here are my reactions

• How close reasons are chosen:

  Of course closing for the wrong reason isn't a good thing. There are however several problems with catagorically stating this was the wrong reason. First of all, the close system uses a majority rule in which the final close reason is whatever was chosen most frequently. In this case with five community members, it is possible that only 2 of them chose the duplicate option and 3 of them chose various other reasons.

  In the end, the close reason doesn't matter nearly so much as that the question got closed at all.

• Why close at all?

  This question needed to be closed pending some major fixes. It displayed numarious issues that made it a low quality question. As long as it was going to be closed anyway, it is possible that marking it as a duplicate of a question that at least half covered the issue was the most useful thing that could have happened. I'm not suggestion I would even have done it this way, but at least if somebody stumbles on this they will have someplace related to go.

• The dramatization is unecessary.

  You called out the reason as "fictious", but the question somebody noted as a duplicate at least has some overlap so even if you disagree (as I do) that this was the best close reason, the language you are using to object is somewhat over the top. In the same way, calling the OP a "victim" isn't helping anybody. They wrote a really low quality question with lots of issues, having their question closed doesn't make them a victim. It means they are getting called on to do better.

• Can we just "change the close reason"?

  No, there is no way to change the close reason without first having a valid reason to re-open. Even though the current version of the question is not so much a duplicate as it once was, there still isn't a compelling reason to re-open the question. As a moderator I don't see any reason to step in and short-circut the process.

• Should this question be re-opened?

  Subsequent edits, I think, have dragged this question further into the realm of not-constructive. It's not that the issues aren't important, They are. But the question is all over the place. It's now a hodge podge of every attack, substantiated or otherwise, ever leveled against either KJV or the Bible in general. Besides that half of the question is now devoted to attacking the NIV. It's perfectly fine to question something, but posting this kind of rant material isn't the kind of constructive tone we expect around here.

  In it's current form it certainly wouldn't have my personal vote and there is nothing from the community that I see to "get behind". Not a single community vote has come in to re-open.

BTW, I haven't voted either way on your meta post. Meta votes usually express agreement or disagreement with an issue, and since I disagree with the gist of your post I would normally downvote, but your post is also very confusing so I left alone. You ask technical question about how the site should work, but that isn't the only issue. Then you ask a question about a specific case but preload it with a bit of a rant about what you think the answer should be. In cases like this it is good to bring the issue up in a meta post, but I suggest you pose the question as just a question and then if you have an opinion on the subject you also add an answer. That way people can vote you up for raising the issue on meta and then vote up or down based on their agreement or disagreement on your proposed solution (and add answers of their own if they have other ideas.

Answer 2

is it OK to close a question as a duplicate when in fact it is not a duplicate?

Answer: No, it is not okay.

I thought the question quoted some material that was full of inflammatory and easily-disproved claims, but as it asked about KJV, there's no point in making reference that the "Word of God" is reliable.