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It's about What are the advantages of forgetting?

I just do not see any benefit of close voting a question that

  • received an accepted answer 5 days before question closure;
  • was well received by the community at large (6k views, 22 upvotes);
  • received 4 answers;
  • accepted answer is well referenced, well upvoted and not downvoted once.

Of course, the question stats are positive because it became hot, but in general I do not see the benefits of closing a question when established users have answered it and where the answer apparently makes sense.

I personally often remove close votes when the answer(s) make up for a mediocre question. The art of answering is writing interesting stuff and I am of the opinion that answers can make the question.

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    $\begingroup$ I don't think it should have been closed. It seems like a valid question. I thought that it can attract bad answers and that's why I protected it. $\endgroup$
    – WYSIWYG Mod
    Commented Mar 14, 2017 at 10:25
  • $\begingroup$ @WYSIWYG Thanks for responding to this so quickly. I really do not understand closing a question with that much activity nearly a week after it was answered. $\endgroup$
    – AliceD Mod
    Commented Mar 14, 2017 at 10:27
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    $\begingroup$ "I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because cogsci.se is a better place for it.".. This is no valid reason. This question is on-topic. If it is a better fit elsewhere then a mod attention flag could have been raised for suitable migration. (I responded quickly because I don't feel like doing any work; sitting and staring at the computer :P). $\endgroup$
    – WYSIWYG Mod
    Commented Mar 14, 2017 at 10:29
  • $\begingroup$ I agree. Can't the same reasoning be applied to this question? biology.stackexchange.com/questions/55792/… $\endgroup$
    – canadianer
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 4:46
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    $\begingroup$ @canadianer IMO it was not "a fit for chemistry", I wouldn't have closed it on that grounds. It was about terminology (that too in Russian), as I discussed in the meta post. Not enough reopen votes were cast and no edits were made to clarify the question. I am still not convinced that it is a question related to chromatographic technique. $\endgroup$
    – WYSIWYG Mod
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 7:36
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    $\begingroup$ No, the question is about terminology in English. It was relatively well received and had a well received and accepted answer. Also, it seems 3/5 people voted to close it because it was better suited for Chemsitry SE. What edits are required to make the question on-topic, in your opinion? $\endgroup$
    – canadianer
    Commented Mar 15, 2017 at 14:00
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    $\begingroup$ @WYSIWYG does this a lot. A lot. Who cares if it's off topic or would be better on another site if it's well received and being answered well. If someone asks a question about redox reactions, there is no reason to move it to chemistry. A lot of biologist are chemist, so can't we just leave it alone $\endgroup$
    – jwillis0720
    Commented Mar 17, 2017 at 13:46
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    $\begingroup$ @jwillis0720 and who decides if it is "well answered"? Based on help centre and several meta discussion, the criteria for something for being off-topic is quite well defined. There are some gray areas. Of late, there has been a torrent of crappy questions. If you understand chemistry then answer a question in chemistry. This site is not for a personal dialogue between asker and answerer; it is a repository of Q/A on biology. $\endgroup$
    – WYSIWYG Mod
    Commented Mar 17, 2017 at 14:08

1 Answer 1

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I've reopened the question. The chosen close reason was that the question would fit better on a different site. That is generally an invalid reason to close, as long as the question isn't actually out of the scope of this site.

We have very fuzzy borders to various other sciences, and many questions could fit on multiple sites. But that doesn't mean we have to move them to the best fitting site, migrations are disruptive and should not be done without necessity. If a question is relevant to biology, even if it would be a better fit on another scientific site, it should stay here.

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    $\begingroup$ I'd like to add that, as a neuroscientist, my view is that you get very different answers with a cogsci approach vs a biology approach, and the very same question would get completely different answers in the two contexts. Actually, the background that the OP provided was more of a cogsci approach, but @AliceD's answer clearly took a more biological approach. Some other answers, that were less upvoted, did take a cogsci approach (by 200_success for example), and those are the types of answers I would have expected from cogsci (though AliceD would probably answer the same on both ;) ). $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause Mod
    Commented Mar 14, 2017 at 17:48

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