As we move through this process of increasing the quality of questions here on Christianity.SE, some questions will be closing (due to the votes of the community and the moderators). This effort to improve Christianity.SE is coming from the entire community.
No one likes to have their questions closed. It is understandable that some may have a negative reaction to these events. Despite the feelings and impressions it leaves, closing a question is not a bad thing or a death sentence. It’s just a timeout zone so that things don’t collect irrelevant answers and downvotes before the final version comes along. We would like to encourage you to edit your closed question to fit the quality standards. Once it fits the standards, your question may be reopened so that it may gain more answers.
Nonetheless, this community has chosen to move forward with a set of quality standards. As we do that, we will be closing questions that are not constructive or on topic for this site that may have been in the past.
Why was my question closed?
To help answer this question, we have created this post to provide the most common answers to this question.
In general, the questions are being closed because they do not fit with the quality standards established here. Closing a question benefits both you (as the author of the question) and the community.
Closing a question allows you the chance to improve the question without collecting irrelevant answers that will not be apply to the final draft of the question. It can also helps to mitigate downvotes (sparing your reputation in the process). Finally, closing the question informs you of these standards that the community has agreed upon.
Furthermore, it helps the community by showing what is not a suitable question. This helps to prevent others from mimicking your question, which would ultimately lead to this site being filled with low quality questions.
High quality questions are the life-blood of a StackExchange site and we want this site to succeed. We would love to see you succeed here and thrive, becoming part of the community that asks and is filled with high quality questions.
What are the new standards?
If you are reading this and do not know about the quality standards, here is a brief breakdown:
- Questions that are seeking understanding of specific doctrine, must specify the doctrinal tradition to which they are referring.
- Questions that are seeking exegesis (translation or interpretation) of a specific passage of text, must be asking in regards to a specific doctrinal tradition.
- Questions regarding application of doctrine or text, must be asking in regards to a given doctrinal tradition
- Questions that do not involve doctrine, application, or exegesis must ask about other facts that can be referenced
Anything outside these guidelines will either be off topic for this site or considered not constructive questions (since they draw opinion and low quality answers).
There is a meta post that will help explain these guidelines in much more detail: What makes a good focused question?
How can I get my question open again?
The good news is that even though your question is closed, this is far from the end of the story. In fact, we truly want you to improve your question to bring it in line with the quality standards.
How to edit your question
If you don’t know how to edit the question yet, simply go back to the question and look for the little “edit” button to the bottom left of your question
How to get it reopened
There are two ways that your question may be reopened. The first is that the community may vote to reopen your question once it has been edited enough for it to be reopened. You can try to gain some votes by talking with others in chat about your question.
Alternatively, you can flag the question for moderator attention.
And enter some text to let the moderators know that your edits are ready for review:
Once a moderator examines your changes, they may make suggestions to help further improve the post. These exchanges will take place in the comments to your question. (To reply to a comment, you can use “@UserName” so that the user you are replying to will be notified of your reply.)
When your question is ready to be reopened, the moderator may reopen your question (if the community has not already done so).
Should I reply to this post in regard to my closed question?
No. If you disagree with your question being closed, you may add a comment to your question or start a new post on meta to discuss it. If you choose to add a comment to your closed question, you can choose one of the people who voted to close your question using their username in your comment (for example "@Richard Why did you close my question?").
Answers to this meta post should focus on adding general suggestions for closed questions or getting questions re-opened. Discussions of specific questions will be off topic as replies to this post.
For further information see:
What makes a good focused question?
How can I contribute to the effort to clean up Christianity.SE?
