user254: This is a difficult question (maybe a bad question), and maybe especially difficult:

Because I'm asking about questions-in-general, instead of asking about one specific question.
Because I feel vaguely dissatisfied but don't even know what question to ask

I'll try and ask anyway, though.
I get the impression that some of the questions on this site aren't very good, or could be better:

It's badly phrased
It doesn't give much detail 
It's theoretical (e.g. some speculation about Buddhism and physics)
It's similar to other existing questions
And there are other ways in which a question might be not very good

On some other sites one of the ways in which a moderator is active is filtering incoming questions:

If a question isn't good then the answer is 'put on hold'
If the question is improved by editing then it's reopened, otherwise it stays closed.

The disadvantage is that someone asks a question and their question is closed. If they don't improve their question then it doesn't get answered. Sometimes they get emotional. Someone needs to explain (or at least post to reference a FAQ to explain) what's wrong with the question and how to improve it.
The advantages are:

The site has only good questions 
Good questions are easier to answer well
Almost any/every question on the site is worth reading
With fewer, higher-quality questions people might concentrate on fewer, higher-quality answers.

The requirements are:

Someone needs to decide whether a question is good enough to answer, or whether it should be closed
That "someone" should preferably include moderators and regular/experienced users
To do that we might need well-defined rules, and/or examples ("case law") of questions which are good and bad.

FYI allowed-questions is a list of all the meta-topics which discuss what types of question are allowed/not allowed on this site.
Help for newcomers: allowed questions says there should be a list of rules, which doesn't yet exist
Do we have a clear idea what is on or off topic? has answers which begin to discuss that



Here are my questions:

Should it be easy/permitted to ask question even if they're bad?
Should moderators decide that some questions ought to be closed? Even if we (users) haven't defined a clear set of rules yet?
Can you identify specific types of question that you think are bad, or specific types of badness, which you think should be closed or for which we need to improve the rules? Or instead of posting that here, revisit/renew the answers to Do we have a clear idea what is on or off topic?
As a user (not a moderator), if I see a question which I don't understand (which may be too often), then I think, "Maybe someone else will understand or answer or comment or close this" and I do nothing. Is that good behaviour on my part, or should I do something different/better?

In theory there are five reasons why we ought to be closing questions.

primarily opinion-based
Is “opinion based” a reason for closing a question? says that all answers need evidence.
too broad
Maybe we get too many questions that are too broad? A very broad question requires a lengthy answer (impossible on this site) or a very shallow / high-level answer.
unclear what you're asking
I often find questions unclear:

Because I'm not an expert
Because we don't have helpful rules for writing clear questions
Because Buddhism is a complicated/subjective subject
Because some users who ask questions here are inexperienced

duplicate of...
Perhaps many of our question might be duplicates and we ought to be using this close reason more often. But it's difficult to say that one question is a duplicate of another, when questions are:

unclear
too broad
not very well tagged

There's another SE site (Skeptics.SE) where I read every question; sometimes I read a question and think, "I remember, an answer to a question like this one was posted here two years ago", I find that other question and I vote to close the new question as a duplicate. 


user-1: Following @ChrisW post and discussion about speculative answers, I'm elaborating some thoughts on this kind of questions below.
I have scanned through the closed questions looking for examples of speculative questions, which I only found one. I also know of an additional (open) question that apparently have the same flavor but I think adds to the discussion:

Would a world full of good Buddhists seeking enlightenment would never have developed technology? [closed]
This is a question that seems to fit very well the undesired "what ifs": that is, where the author presents a very different world than our reality and asks the readers to develop it through. And this is problematic because we are interested in current reality and problems within it and it's answers are bound to be imaginative by default. More importantly, I presume, it does not provoke answers that illuminate anything about Buddhism.
What if there is no rebirth? [open]

[...] However, I would like to know, how exactly the Buddhist community will behave in case if, indeed, scientific method proves some day that one of key concepts of Buddhism (not necessarily, rebirth) is not correct.

I like this thread. The actual, literal, questions (both from the title and in bold) not only is precise but can be seen as quite speculative: who knows how buddhists will (exactly?) behave if a point of doctrine is shown to be false? 
And yet, there were answers (upovoted and actually marked as "the answer") despite the fact that none did answer how buddhist community exactly will behave. But the selected answer reframed the question to "how [no rebirth] shakes the rest of the doctrine".
The fact that it got selected tells me something else: as many have said, it's hard to ask a question. It's certainly hard to express ourselves. I like this question is open because, for me, it's an example of a flexibility that I think is very fruitful and something we should preserve.


user143: Per Area 51, we are receiving only 2.9 questions per day while 10 per day is considered healthy. It's the only area we are showing "in the red".
Seeing as we are short of good questions, it might make sense to try to improve weak questions we receive rather than close them or put them on hold. Many times poor questions are really more a matter of poor grammar or poor English language skills. There is still a person out there with a question and if we have the ability to reasonably construe what is being asked and make the question fit our site's model better and allow for more activity, content and usefulness of the site, why not do it?
I've edited questions on behalf of others quite a few times; mostly when there was no response to the question at all even after a couple of days. Leaving a comment explaining that the question had been edited for clarity and inviting the OP to roll it back to the original if the meaning had been changed too much is the right thing to do of course.
I don't think anyone has yelled at me yet for editing their question. But if someone is unhappy, they can always roll it back or open a new question. Free. No charge. :)
Edit April 25, 2015
While checking out our Buddhism.SE Facebook Page, I came across this comment from an unhappy user:

I am so sorry, but I think I have to express my opinion for good. What I've seen on this Q&A forum is "Soviet Union" system with a lot of bossy people there! You write something and a million people edit your post as they want... What if i do not like their help?! Besides, I cannot delete my questions. This is unfair! They are my questions, there is mentioned my name and therefore, I want my posts to be deleted!.. I have a feeling that it is not a meditators society at all, honestly!.. That bossy people have been trying to control everything! Sirimangalo.org was a far, far better forum!

This person brings up an important point which gets lost sometimes. Not giving someone a fair chance to edit their own question, when needed, can appear rude, bossy, controlling.
Proposed:
Duplicate question received: Close it with a reference to the original question.
Any other type of unsuitable question received: Place on Hold with an invitation to the OP to edit their question to make it suitable. For example: "Your question does not appear to be about Buddhism. Please edit your question to include how it relates to Buddhist theory or practice."
If there is no response from the OP in a reasonable period of time (7 days?) we can either edit it ourselves if feasible or close it if not.
I realize this is flip flop from my "jump in there and improve the question ourselves" position earlier. But the comment above really drove home the point that you can save a question but lose a participant. And that's not good for anyone. 

user-1: 
Should it be easy/permitted to ask question even if they're bad?

In terms of rules, it seems natural to state that such Qs are not welcome (subjected to be close, etc). IOW, I think it would be very odd to allow all Qs that fit in the the regular criteria for "bad" to just...be.
Naturally, it's part of S.E. that all Qs are, by default, accepted and only when published, subject to moderation -- with a few exceptions, I guess?
So, in one sense I agree "it should be easy/permitted to ask questions even if they're bad". But questions that the community judge that are bad should be closed, as they normally are.

Should moderators decide that some questions ought to be closed? Even if we (users) haven't defined a clear set of rules yet?

But some questions are closed after a few users casted their vote to close. I don't know about closing without community input first, though.
Even if we had a clear set of rules, I have mixed feelings about being more strict on closing questions as we don't have much of these -- personally, I tried to be very open about some...strange questions that appear on and off. But not in my place to complain I think, since I only wrote two questions -- for some reason, they don't come easily for me, at least in a way I can articulate.

Can you identify specific types of question that you think are bad, or specific types of badness, which you think should be closed or for which we need to improve the rules? Or instead of posting that here, revisit/renew the answers to Do we have a clear idea what is on or off topic?

I did some searching on questions (4 pages of the most recent ones) and couldn't really find open questions that I would close. But I compiled a few to comment on, maybe that's of some help. If I see samples I think are worth of discussion I'll try to take note and bring them to meta to discuss.

What is your understanding of “levels of existence”?
That question, at first, seemed to me not related to buddhism at all. In fact, it was related to buddhism, just using a phrasing I was not familiar with. Afterwards it was edited to include examples of the realms, and got into a format that I was happy with, since it got more background/context to it. This is not really an example of "bad" question, but an example of question that can be mistaken as "bad" if we are not careful -- but this is probably just standard S.E. lore...
It's also an example of questions that appear sometimes, which are very hard to decipher because of that lack of context and background. Examples: 
The experience of silence and Is buddha nature active
I don't think these are off-topic, but I found myself not knowing how to ask for further clarifications.

While these are just a few examples, I think we have many questions whose authors have some hard time making themselves understood. And, at the same time, it's hard to try to make these questions clearer for more people without looking like a pedantic jerk in the comments.

As a user (not a moderator), if I see a question which I don't understand (which may be too often), then I think, "Maybe someone else will understand or answer or comment or close this" and I do nothing. Is that good behaviour on my part, or should I do something different/better?

That is pretty much my behavior. I don't see how this could be better.

user254: Here's an attempt at a suggested policy. Please upvote if you agree with it, or comment (or post another answer) if you disagree.
Not closing questions
On this site we will try to not  close a question, or put it on hold, for the following reasons:

"Too broad": we are allowed to ask a broad question, even a question which could theoretically take a whole book to answer. The site allows (welcomes) beginner questions. You can't expect hugely long answers though, so if a question is very "broad" then an answer might be quite 'shallow': a superficial summary of the topic, and/or a reference to further reading on the topic.
"Unclear what you're asking": if possible we prefer to avoid closing 'unclear' questions:

Because someone else might understand the question even if we don't
Because we don't have too many questions, and we want to allow as many as possible
Because asking a totally clear question might be, sometimes, too difficult
Because closing questions causes grief, anger, hurt, etc.

Instead the options are:

Politely leave a comment asking for clarification. Be very polite. Maybe start with a "Welcome to the site" or a "Hello". Emphasize your misunderstanding, not the question, by saying something which implies, "I'm sorry: I don't understand 'X'." Spend enough time on your comment, not too rushed (which might seem rude), try to make a good first impression (on the person asking the question and on other who read the question and who wonder how their question might be received). Don't assume the poster has the same experience as you have with the norms of other Stack Exchange sites.
Politely edit the question. Leave a comment explaining why and inviting a reply, clarification, and/or rollback. Don't lose sight of what the OP wanted to ask (so that any answers might still satisfy the OP).

Some people (e.g. Robin111) seem to have an especially good track record of doing this without people taking offence.
On a high-volume site with too many questions, 'bad' questions are put on hold until/unless they're improved. At the moment, here there are not quite enough questions, and so we'll leave questions open and allow them to be answered, even if the question might be altered or improved after people have answered (which might be a waste of those early answers).
"Too theoretical": unlike some other SE sites which are only for solving specific practical problems, this site is for (among other things) Buddhist "philosophy". This site has a generic help page which says,

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.

That should be understand as,

You may ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face, but that's not the only kind of question you can ask.

"Too practical": some sites are only for theory. For example the Christianity.SE will refuse what it calls Pastoral Advice Questions. However this site is also for Buddhist "practice" so practical questions (about Buddhism) are on-topic.
Advice when asking practical questions might be to include:

Any background research you've tried but wasn't enough to solve your problem.

Questions about ethics (e.g. about the 'precepts') are also allowed.
"Too controversial": this site allows some controversial or seemingly 'heretical' questions, including for example "Is rebirth a delusional belief?", especially if it's asked politely/respectfully, and with the intention of learning.
"Too obscure": this site is fortunate in having some experts who are willing and may be able to answer. If a question is too difficult then the worst that will happen is that it won't be answered.
You can try not to ask too many unanswered questions (you'll learn what types of question people can and can't answer).
Also kindly avoid asking question just for the sake of asking questions, of trying to 'improve the site' (by asking question), of increasing the number of questions asked, because,

Personally, I find seeded questions irksome; it's generally easy to see that the asker isn't really looking for an answer, so there is no sense of accomplishment in answering. It feels more like a chore, like editing Wikipedia or something.

"Too easy": some experts might not like questions which can be answered using Google or Wikipedia; but some other users on this site don't mind trying to answer those 'beginner' questions as well. You might not get an expert answer to an easy question; but if the answer is written by a regular user, and if that answer is reviewed and voted on and/or commented on by the other users and/or by the experts on this site, at least you'll be getting peer-reviewed answer (fairly reliable or hopefully not completely wrong).

Closing questions
A moderator and/or the community should (and does) close the following types of question:

"Off-topic" (insufficiently related to "Buddhist philosophy, teaching, and practice")
"Polling questions" which only ask "What's your experience?"
For example, this question was closed by yuttadhammo and it's a type of question which he regularly closes. The question asked this, after describing an experience,

Has anyone ever experienced anyone like this off or even on (!) the mat? It was most striking...

I gave the following comment as an explanation for closing this question:

I think a problem with a question that is phrased like, "Has anyone ever experienced anyone like this?" is that it could attract an unlimited number of people each answering "Yes, me!". Each new answer would be a bit new (different from previous answers) and as valid as any previous answer. There's no obvious way to select any best answer to that question, no way for any answer to finish answering or to provide a complete answer to the question. And it doesn't seem to describe any practical problem you have, so there's no way for anyone to help to answer/fix that problem.
Crab bucket's question is modified (a sufficiently different, on-topic version of the same question): it's different/better because in particular it identifies a problem to be solved, and it asks for advice (on how to deal with this problem).

The site's format and strategy is not designed for long discussions. Its strategy is to serve for Q+A (answering questions) now, and for previously answered questions to remain in a clean format which works well for reference (so that future readers who find the topic using a search engine can read simple Q+A).
If people wanted long unfocused discussions, an option would be to use of a 'Chat' room.
Exact duplicates: if a question has already been asked and answered well, then it's better not to answer it again elsewhere (because it's better for the reader if all those answers can be found under the same question).
Hopefully the person whose question is closed will be happy to find that their question has already been answered!

And ... that's it: no other reason? The above are the only usual reasons for closing questions.

254: <p>This is a difficult question (maybe a bad question), and maybe especially difficult:</p>

<ul>
<li>Because I'm asking about questions-in-general, instead of asking about one specific question.</li>
<li>Because I feel vaguely dissatisfied but don't even know what question to ask</li>
</ul>

<p>I'll try and ask anyway, though.</p>

<p>I get the impression that some of the questions on this site aren't very good, or could be better:</p>

<ul>
<li>It's badly phrased</li>
<li>It doesn't give much detail </li>
<li>It's theoretical (e.g. some speculation about Buddhism and physics)</li>
<li>It's similar to other existing questions</li>
<li><em>And there are other ways in which a question might be not very good</em></li>
</ul>

<p>On some other sites one of the ways in which a moderator is active is filtering incoming questions:</p>

<ul>
<li>If a question isn't good then the answer is 'put on hold'</li>
<li>If the question is improved by editing then it's reopened, otherwise it stays closed.</li>
</ul>

<p>The <strong>disadvantage</strong> is that someone asks a question and their question is closed. If they don't improve their question then it doesn't get answered. Sometimes they get emotional. Someone needs to explain (or at least post to reference a FAQ to explain) what's wrong with the question and how to improve it.</p>

<p>The <strong>advantages</strong> are:</p>

<ul>
<li>The site has only good questions </li>
<li>Good questions are easier to answer well</li>
<li>Almost any/every question on the site is worth reading</li>
<li>With fewer, higher-quality questions people might concentrate on fewer, higher-quality answers.</li>
</ul>

<p>The <strong>requirements</strong> are:</p>

<ul>
<li>Someone needs to decide whether a question is good enough to answer, or whether it should be closed</li>
<li>That "someone" should preferably include moderators and regular/experienced users</li>
<li><p>To do that we might need well-defined rules, and/or examples ("case law") of questions which are good and bad.</p>

<ul>
<li>FYI <a href="/questions/tagged/allowed-questions" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;allowed-questions&#39;" rel="tag">allowed-questions</a> is a list of all the meta-topics which discuss what types of question are allowed/not allowed on this site.</li>
<li><a href="https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/q/331/254">Help for newcomers: allowed questions</a> says there should be a list of rules, which doesn't yet exist</li>
<li><a href="https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/q/342/254">Do we have a clear idea what is on or off topic?</a> has answers which begin to discuss that</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<hr>

<p>Here are my questions:</p>

<ul>
<li>Should it be easy/permitted to ask question even if they're bad?</li>
<li>Should moderators decide that some questions ought to be closed? Even if we (users) haven't defined a clear set of rules yet?</li>
<li>Can you identify specific types of question that you think are bad, or specific types of badness, which you think should be closed or for which we need to improve the rules? Or instead of posting that here, revisit/renew the answers to <a href="https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/q/342/254">Do we have a clear idea what is on or off topic?</a></li>
<li>As a user (not a moderator), if I see a question which I don't understand (which may be too often), then I think, "Maybe someone else will understand or answer or comment or close this" and I do nothing. Is that good behaviour on my part, or should I do something different/better?</li>
</ul>

<p>In theory there are five reasons why we ought to be closing questions.</p>

<ul>
<li><p><strong>primarily opinion-based</strong></p>

<p><a href="https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/138/254">Is “opinion based” a reason for closing a question?</a> says that <strong>all answers need evidence</strong>.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>too broad</strong></p>

<p>Maybe we get too many questions that are too broad? A very broad question requires a lengthy answer (impossible on this site) or a very shallow / high-level answer.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>unclear what you're asking</strong></p>

<p>I often find questions unclear:</p>

<ul>
<li>Because I'm not an expert</li>
<li>Because we don't have helpful rules for writing clear questions</li>
<li>Because Buddhism is a complicated/subjective subject</li>
<li>Because some users who ask questions here are inexperienced</li>
</ul></li>
<li><p><strong>duplicate of...</strong></p>

<p>Perhaps many of our question might be duplicates and we ought to be using this close reason more often. But it's difficult to say that one question is a duplicate of another, when questions are:</p>

<ul>
<li>unclear</li>
<li>too broad</li>
<li>not very well tagged</li>
</ul>

<p>There's another SE site (Skeptics.SE) where I read every question; sometimes I read a question and think, "I remember, an answer to a question like this one was posted here two years ago", I find that other question and I vote to close the new question as a duplicate. </p></li>
</ul>
 -1: <p>Following <a href="https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1494/382">@ChrisW post</a> and discussion about speculative answers, I'm elaborating some thoughts on this kind of questions below.</p>

<p>I have scanned through the <a href="https://data.stackexchange.com/buddhism/query/306213/obtain-all-closed-questions" rel="nofollow noreferrer">closed questions</a> looking for examples of speculative questions, which I only found one. I also know of an additional (open) question that apparently have the same flavor but I think adds to the discussion:</p>

<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/1356/would-a-world-full-of-good-buddhists-seeking-enlightenment-would-never-have-deve">Would a world full of good Buddhists seeking enlightenment would never have developed technology? [closed]</a></p>

<p>This is a question that seems to fit very well the undesired "what ifs": that is, where the author presents a very different world than our reality and asks the readers to develop it through. And this is problematic because we are interested in current reality and problems within it and it's answers are bound to be imaginative by default. More importantly, I presume, it does not provoke answers that illuminate anything about Buddhism.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/2662/what-if-there-is-no-rebirth/2666#2666">What if there is no rebirth? [open]</a></p>

<blockquote>
  <p>[...] However, I would like to know, <strong>how exactly the Buddhist community will behave</strong> in case if, indeed, scientific method proves some day that one of key concepts of Buddhism (not necessarily, rebirth) is not correct.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I like this thread. The actual, literal, questions (both from the title and in bold) not only is precise but can be seen as quite speculative: who knows how buddhists will (exactly?) behave if a point of doctrine is shown to be false? </p>

<p>And yet, there were answers (upovoted and actually marked as "the answer") despite the fact that none did answer how buddhist community exactly will behave. <em>But</em> the selected answer reframed the question to "how [no rebirth] shakes the rest of the doctrine".</p>

<p>The fact that it got selected tells me something else: as many have said, it's hard to ask a question. It's certainly hard to express ourselves. I like this question is open because, for me, it's an example of a flexibility that I think is very fruitful and something we should preserve.</p></li>
</ul>
 143: <p>Per Area 51, we are receiving only 2.9 questions per day while 10 per day is considered healthy. It's the only area we are showing "in the red".</p>

<p>Seeing as we are short of good questions, it might make sense to try to improve weak questions we receive rather than close them or put them on hold. Many times poor questions are really more a matter of poor grammar or poor English language skills. There is still a person out there with a question and if we have the ability to reasonably construe what is being asked and make the question fit our site's model better and allow for more activity, content and usefulness of the site, why not do it?</p>

<p>I've edited questions on behalf of others quite a few times; mostly when there was no response to the question at all even after a couple of days. Leaving a comment explaining that the question had been edited for clarity and inviting the OP to roll it back to the original if the meaning had been changed too much is the right thing to do of course.</p>

<p>I don't think anyone has yelled at me yet for editing their question. But if someone is unhappy, they can always roll it back or open a new question. Free. No charge. :)</p>

<p><strong>Edit April 25, 2015</strong></p>

<p><strong>While checking out our Buddhism.SE Facebook Page, I came across this comment from an unhappy user:</strong></p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I am so sorry, but I think I have to express my opinion for good. What I've seen on this Q&amp;A forum is "Soviet Union" system with a lot of bossy people there! You write something and a million people edit your post as they want... What if i do not like their help?! Besides, I cannot delete my questions. This is unfair! They are my questions, there is mentioned my name and therefore, I want my posts to be deleted!.. I have a feeling that it is not a meditators society at all, honestly!.. That bossy people have been trying to control everything! Sirimangalo.org was a far, far better forum!</p>
</blockquote>

<p><strong>This person brings up an important point which gets lost sometimes. Not giving someone a fair chance to edit their own question, when needed, can appear rude, bossy, controlling.</strong></p>

<p><strong>Proposed:</strong></p>

<p><strong>Duplicate question received: Close it with a reference to the original question.</strong></p>

<p><strong>Any other type of unsuitable question received: Place on Hold with an invitation to the OP to edit their question to make it suitable. For example: "Your question does not appear to be about Buddhism. Please edit your question to include how it relates to Buddhist theory or practice."</strong></p>

<p><strong>If there is no response from the OP in a reasonable period of time (7 days?) we can either edit it ourselves if feasible or close it if not.</strong></p>

<p><strong>I realize this is flip flop from my "jump in there and improve the question ourselves" position earlier. But the comment above really drove home the point that you can <em>save a question but lose a participant.</em> And that's not good for anyone.</strong> </p>
 -1: <blockquote>
  <p>Should it be easy/permitted to ask question even if they're bad?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In terms of rules, it seems natural to state that such Qs are not welcome (subjected to be close, etc). IOW, I think it would be very odd to allow all Qs that fit in the the regular criteria for "bad" to just...be.</p>

<p>Naturally, it's part of S.E. that all Qs are, by default, accepted and only when published, subject to moderation -- with a few exceptions, I guess?</p>

<p>So, in one sense I agree "it should be easy/permitted to ask questions even if they're bad". But questions that the community judge that are bad should be closed, as they normally are.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Should moderators decide that some questions ought to be closed? Even if we (users) haven't defined a clear set of rules yet?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>But some questions are closed after a few users casted their vote to close. I don't know about closing without community input first, though.</p>

<p>Even if we had a clear set of rules, I have mixed feelings about being more strict on closing questions as we don't have much of these -- personally, I tried to be very open about some...strange questions that appear on and off. But not in my place to complain I think, since I only wrote two questions -- for some reason, they don't come easily for me, at least in a way I can articulate.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Can you identify specific types of question that you think are bad, or specific types of badness, which you think should be closed or for which we need to improve the rules? Or instead of posting that here, revisit/renew the answers to Do we have a clear idea what is on or off topic?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I did some searching on questions (4 pages of the most recent ones) and couldn't really find open questions that I would close. But I compiled a few to comment on, maybe that's of some help. If I see samples I think are worth of discussion I'll try to take note and bring them to meta to discuss.</p>

<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/revisions/8433/1">What is your understanding of “levels of existence”?</a></p>

<p>That question, at first, seemed to me not related to buddhism at all. In fact, it was related to buddhism, just using a phrasing I was not familiar with. Afterwards it was edited to include examples of the realms, and got into a format that I was happy with, since it got more background/context to it. This is not really an example of "bad" question, but an example of question that can be mistaken as "bad" if we are not careful -- but this is probably just standard S.E. lore...</p>

<p>It's also an example of questions that appear sometimes, which are very hard to decipher because of that lack of context and background. Examples: </p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/8058/the-experience-of-silence">The experience of silence</a> and <a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/8047/is-buddha-nature-active">Is buddha nature active</a></p>

<p>I don't think these are off-topic, but I found myself not knowing how to ask for further clarifications.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>While these are just a few examples, I think we have many questions whose authors have some hard time making themselves understood. And, at the same time, it's hard to try to make these questions clearer for more people without looking like a pedantic jerk in the comments.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>As a user (not a moderator), if I see a question which I don't understand (which may be too often), then I think, "Maybe someone else will understand or answer or comment or close this" and I do nothing. Is that good behaviour on my part, or should I do something different/better?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That is pretty much my behavior. I don't see how this could be better.</p>
 254: <p>Here's an attempt at a suggested policy. Please upvote if you agree with it, or comment (or post another answer) if you disagree.</p>

<h2>Not closing questions</h2>

<p>On this site we will try to <strong>not</strong>  close a question, or put it on hold, for the following reasons:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>"<strong>Too broad</strong>": we are allowed to ask a broad question, even a question which could theoretically take a whole book to answer. The site allows (welcomes) beginner questions. You can't expect hugely long answers though, so if a question is very "broad" then an answer might be quite 'shallow': a superficial summary of the topic, and/or a reference to further reading on the topic.</p></li>
<li><p>"<strong>Unclear what you're asking</strong>": if possible we prefer to avoid closing 'unclear' questions:</p>

<ul>
<li>Because someone else might understand the question even if we don't</li>
<li>Because we don't have too many questions, and we want to allow as many as possible</li>
<li>Because asking a totally clear question might be, sometimes, too difficult</li>
<li>Because closing questions causes grief, anger, hurt, etc.</li>
</ul>

<p>Instead the options are:</p>

<ul>
<li>Politely leave a comment asking for clarification. Be very polite. Maybe start with a "Welcome to the site" or a "Hello". Emphasize your misunderstanding, not the question, by saying something which implies, "I'm sorry: I don't understand 'X'." Spend enough time on your comment, not too rushed (which might seem rude), try to make a good first impression (on the person asking the question and on other who read the question and who wonder how their question might be received). Don't assume the poster has the same experience as you have with the norms of other Stack Exchange sites.</li>
<li>Politely edit the question. Leave a comment explaining why and inviting a reply, clarification, and/or rollback. Don't lose sight of what the OP wanted to ask (so that any answers might still satisfy the OP).</li>
</ul>

<p>Some people (e.g. Robin111) seem to have an especially good track record of doing this without people taking offence.</p>

<p>On a high-volume site with too many questions, 'bad' questions are put on hold until/unless they're improved. At the moment, here there are not quite enough questions, and so we'll leave questions open and allow them to be answered, even if the question might be altered or improved after people have answered (which might be a waste of those early answers).</p></li>
<li><p>"<strong>Too theoretical</strong>": unlike some other SE sites which are only for solving specific practical problems, this site is for (among other things) Buddhist "philosophy". This site has a generic help page which says,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That should be understand as,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>You may ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face, but that's not the only kind of question you can ask.</p>
</blockquote></li>
<li><p>"<strong>Too practical</strong>": some sites are only for theory. For example the Christianity.SE will refuse what it calls <a href="https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/q/255">Pastoral Advice Questions</a>. However this site is also for Buddhist "practice" so practical questions (about Buddhism) are on-topic.</p>

<p>Advice when asking practical questions might be to include:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Any background research you've tried but wasn't enough to solve your problem.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Questions about ethics (e.g. about the 'precepts') are also allowed.</p></li>
<li><p>"<strong>Too controversial</strong>": this site allows some controversial or seemingly 'heretical' questions, including for example "Is rebirth a delusional belief?", especially if it's asked politely/respectfully, and with the intention of learning.</p></li>
<li><p>"<strong>Too obscure</strong>": this site is fortunate in having some experts who are willing and may be able to answer. If a question is too difficult then the worst that will happen is that it won't be answered.</p>

<p>You can try not to ask too many unanswered questions (you'll learn what types of question people can and can't answer).</p>

<p>Also kindly avoid asking question just for the sake of asking questions, of trying to 'improve the site' (by asking question), of increasing the number of questions asked, because,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Personally, I find seeded questions irksome; it's generally easy to see that the asker isn't really looking for an answer, so there is no sense of accomplishment in answering. It feels more like a chore, like editing Wikipedia or something.</p>
</blockquote></li>
<li><p>"<strong>Too easy</strong>": some experts might not like questions which can be answered using Google or Wikipedia; but some other users on this site don't mind trying to answer those 'beginner' questions as well. You might not get an expert answer to an easy question; but if the answer is written by a regular user, and if that answer is reviewed and voted on and/or commented on by the other users and/or by the experts on this site, at least you'll be getting peer-reviewed answer (fairly reliable or hopefully not completely wrong).</p></li>
</ul>

<h2>Closing questions</h2>

<p>A moderator and/or the community should (and does) close the following types of question:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>"<strong>Off-topic</strong>" (insufficiently related to "Buddhist philosophy, teaching, and practice")</p></li>
<li><p>"<strong>Polling questions</strong>" which only ask "What's your experience?"</p>

<p>For example, <a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/8763/254">this question</a> was closed by yuttadhammo and it's a type of question which he regularly closes. The question asked this, after describing an experience,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Has anyone ever experienced anyone like this off or even on (!) the mat? It was most striking...</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I gave the following comment as an explanation for closing this question:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I think a problem with a question that is phrased like, "Has anyone ever experienced anyone like this?" is that it could attract an unlimited number of people each answering "Yes, me!". Each new answer would be a bit new (different from previous answers) and as valid as any previous answer. There's no obvious way to select any best answer to that question, no way for any answer to finish answering or to provide a complete answer to the question. And it doesn't seem to describe any practical problem you have, so there's no way for anyone to help to answer/fix that problem.</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/8784/254">Crab bucket's question</a> is modified (a sufficiently different, on-topic version of the same question): it's different/better because in particular it identifies a problem to be solved, and it asks for advice (on how to deal with this problem).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The site's format and strategy is not designed for long discussions. Its strategy is to serve for Q+A (answering questions) now, and for previously answered questions to remain in a clean format which works well for reference (so that future readers who find the topic using a search engine can read simple Q+A).</p>

<p>If people wanted long unfocused discussions, an option would be to use of a 'Chat' room.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Exact duplicates</strong>: if a question has already been asked and answered well, then it's better not to answer it again elsewhere (because it's better for the reader if all those answers can be found under the same question).
Hopefully the person whose question is closed will be happy to find that their question has already been answered!</p></li>
</ol>

<p>And ... that's it: no other reason? The above are the only usual reasons for closing questions.</p>
