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A lot of these are on the close votes list in the 10K tools today. What is the policy on these now. I know in the past they were allowed, but new question like them now get closed very quickly.

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closed as off-topic by rene, Anna Lear Dec 3 '14 at 1:50

This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:

  • "This question pertains only to a specific site in the Stack Exchange Network. Questions on Meta Stack Exchange should pertain to our network or software that drives it as a whole, within the guidelines defined in the help center. You should ask this question on the meta site where your concern originated." – rene, Anna Lear
If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.

2 Answers 2

(note, this is a moderator opinion, not moderator policy.)

I am closing and locking these when they are flagged.

In general they are used for two reasons:

  1. People still want to leave answers on these from time to time, but most importantly,
  2. People use these as justification to post new similar questions and demand they (the new questions) are kept. Some of these end up in a close/reopen war where two camps of people fight over the right to have the last say in this. That's why I also lock these when I close them.

If we close and lock them, they are still here, but it is more clear that they are not really welcome. I still think many of these contain some useful information, so flags to delete them have been denied for now.

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6  
Adding a standard note to the top of the question, saying they are being kept for historical reasons etc may be good as well. –  Ian Ringrose Aug 1 '11 at 15:02
    
That, I agree with, wish I thought about that sooner, but thanks for reminding me, I'll go back to the questions I can find and do that. –  Lasse V. Karlsen Aug 1 '11 at 15:36
    
Is it necessary to close and lock them? Couldn't they just be locked? –  Justin Morgan Aug 1 '11 at 16:53
2  
Closing the question also lists the reason for why they are no longer constructive. Just locking it doesn't tell you why. I'd be happy to revert those posts I closed today, but first I want to know why you want them just locked, and not closed as well? –  Lasse V. Karlsen Aug 1 '11 at 17:00
    
What about one of the mods doing a search for "Hidden features of " in question titles and hitting them all in one go"? –  Ian Ringrose Aug 3 '11 at 15:19

There's definitely some good information in some of those. SO still needs a standard way of handling those kind of questions. They really shouldn't be closed, unless they're duplicating a pre-existing one, though in that case they should be merged.

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