Should I have closed this question?

Question

I'd like to ask for a check on my mod powers. I closed a question just now that I'm pretty torn about.

What applications exist for bicycle power, besides propulsion?

I closed it because it's pretty open ended and it doesn't seem that the asker is trying to solve any specific problem. The specific guidelines from the help pages that prompted me to close it are from the "don't ask" page. This entire section seems applicable:

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.

If your motivation for asking the question is “I would like to participate in a discussion about ______”, then you should not be asking here. However, if your motivation is “I would like others to explain ______ to me”, then you are probably OK. (Discussions are of course welcome in our real time web chat.)

The section about subjective answers on that same page also says to avoid asking questions

...where very answer is equally valid.

While this question clearly isn't subjective, it's definitely a question where most (perhaps all) answers are equally valid.

On the flip side, it's a heavily upvoted question with a ton of answers and comments. I'm generally pretty hesitant to override that type of community involvement, even in the face of what appears to me to be a pretty clear violation of our site's policies.

I'd like to ask the community for feedback on:

1. whether or not I took the appropriate action and
2. if it shouldn't have been closed, what should be done with the question?

Answer 1

I agree with the closure. It's an open-ended question with no definite "correct" answer, and most of the answers appear to have little relevance to cycling. (Indeed the question itself is of limited relevance; should I ask a question about all other activities where people sit on a narrow seat, or have a posture bringing their head down towards their hands?)

The question fails just about every aspect of this:

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

Is it practical? No, what practical use (for cycling) is it to know about a WW2 pedal-powered air pump? (Sorry Criggie.)

Is this an actual problem? No, someone's just asking to satisfy their curiosity or to collect interesting (to them) trivia.

Open-ended? Definitely.

Pushing other questions off the front page? With 15 answers it's been bumped 15 times (not counting edits) which is enough to start pushing other questions off the front page.

Even if we prune all the pedal-powered (but not bicycle-powered) "answers," like the one about a pedal-powered organ, it may collect fewer answers but I still question their utility. (The pedal-powered organ is particularly egregious, since it doesn't even have the same pedalling motion.)

If anything I might have been quicker to close it.

Answer 2

Whether or not I took the appropriate action

In my view it was a borderline question (i did not vote either way on it). Technically it definitely broke the rules, however the spirit of the question was in the right place and did relate to bicycles.

Personally I probably wouldn't have closed it, but i don't think it was an abuse of mod powers or wrong to do so and can fully see the reasoning for doing so.

if it shouldn't have been closed, what should be done with the question?

I would instead have deleted the answers which didn't answer the question. For example the pedal powered boat was A) pedal powered and not bicycle powered, and B) a means of propulsion when the question wanted uses that weren't propulsion.

Overall, despite a couple of interesting answers and a lot of voting activity I don't think closing the question is a loss to the site.

Answer 3

No moderating abuse on my side.

I understand it's not conform to the policies and can be closed for that reason, but on the other hand it's a "funny" question that doesn't hurt.

About the note of "pushing the questions out of the front page", it's not something I would be worried given it's one question that is kind of exceptional. That would come as often as the "identify my bike", I would have another stance, that being said.