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Currently, when we flag questions for closing because they are off topic, there are five possibilities to choose from. These five also lead to messages under the closed question. As a reminder:

Flagging > Closing > Off-Topic

There seems to be an overlap between the first and last bullet. Also, the first bullet is a very broad category, leading to a very broad message when the question is closed. In terms of user feedback, that's not ideal.

So, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to reorganize this section. More specifically, merge generic php/etc questions with links to other Stackexchange sites and make a more specific text about third party plugins and themes (and perhaps even a separate one for woocommerce, linking directly to their support forums).

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    What surely is not going to happen is that we have a separate close reason for a specific vendor software package as this might be temporary. Also the "belong to other network" reason does really move the question while the first point just closes it for archiving or clean up tasks. And when moving questions, we moderators tend to ask and inform moderators from other sites to see if it fits their site and they are willing to accept it.
    – kaiser Mod
    Commented Jun 21, 2016 at 8:29
  • I could fully understand we wouldn't want a separate close reason for woocommerce, but I don't think "might be temporary" is the best reason for that. After all, we could change the list again when it becomes superfluous. Or am I overseeing complications every time the list is altered?
    – cjbj
    Commented Jun 21, 2016 at 8:34
  • I fully understand the objection about moving stuff. I simply forgot about that when asking the question.
    – cjbj
    Commented Jun 21, 2016 at 8:35
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    Funny to still see the blatant off topic flag. Once you get to 3K, and you can cast close votes instead of flagging, this reason change to a custom text which you can actually write exactly why you are close voting the question. Option 5 is actually crappy because we can only vote to migrate to this meta stack, Stack Overflow and Webmasters. We do not use this option much because of the limitation, and because almost all off topic questions are such crap quality. We only move really good quality off topic questions, the rest we downvote and close
    – Pieter Goosen
    Commented Jun 21, 2016 at 17:55

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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We can customize only the first three messages, and there is a character limit. That's why they are so broad. See our public discussion in the chat about that.

Yes, they should be better. The third one is bad because it has too many links. On mobile, it is very hard to select that close reason without touching a link.

Note that off topic from the first reason doesn't mean the question should be migrated: We migrate only good questions, and most them aren't really good.

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  • And there's a limit of three reasons on top of the two we can't edit?
    – cjbj
    Commented Jun 21, 2016 at 8:36
  • Yes, more close reasons are not available by default. This can be changed by the community team, if we can make a good argument and they have time.
    – fuxia Mod
    Commented Jun 21, 2016 at 8:41
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    You can use the mobile app instead of the (not so) "responsive" web access to the site. Much better UX there.
    – kaiser Mod
    Commented Jun 21, 2016 at 8:58
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    @kaiser I do, but it's still bad.
    – fuxia Mod
    Commented Jun 21, 2016 at 11:42

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