Are we abusing "Request for learning materials" as a reason to close?

Question

Request for learning material, from what I gather, is a request for links or pointers to offsite learning materials, or books, courses, etc. In fact, How do we feel about requests for learning materials? is defines it quite clearly.

That doesn't cover a request to be taught something, but there have been quite a few questions closed on here lately that use Request for learning materials as the justification. Here's an example from today – I'm not picking on that specific one; there have been many similar closures lately.

This site claims to be for Question & Answers – doesn't that translate to Ask and Learn? In the example above, the OP is simply asking a question about Linux internals and is hoping to learn from the answer; not asking for tutorials or learning materials as the closure reason states.

Here are some more examples:

• Execute command on ranger selection is a good example.  It makes the strategic error of referring to a search for a tutorial, but then asks a fairly specific, bounded, well-scoped question.
• What is the difference between Docker, LXD, and LXC? probably should have been closed as “too broad”, so it just got closed for the wrong reason.
• Installing Wi-Fi drivers when no Ethernet connection is available was deleted by its author (so  most of you won’t be able to see it) after it was closed as a “request for learning materials”.  It’s not a great question, and it also commits the sin of mentioning the word “tutorial”, but it boils down to a reasonably specific question that is an amplified version of its title.
• Sorting Words in Alphabetical Order made no mention of learning materials whatsoever, but was a plain old How do I? question asking how to sort into alphabetical order a text file dictionary with a slightly unusual structure containing pairs of English and Latin words.

Are we too trigger-happy with Request for learning materials?

Answer 1

I don't see how any of your examples were requests for learning materials.

• Execute command on ranger selection has now been reopened.

• What is the difference between Docker, LXD, and LXC looks like it should be too broad but has received what appear to be two very good answers, one of which has been accepted so I also reopened that one.

• https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/247453/installing-wi-fi-drivers-when-no-ethernet-connection-is-available has been deleted by the OP and I let it lie.

Your original example, Please explain "kobject", is about to be closed again with various close reasons. While there may be a valid reason to close it, that is most certainly not that it's a request for learning materials. I'll be keeping an eye on it and will reopen if it is closed for that reason.

Choosing the right close reason is very important. This is true even for those cases where the question is complete crap and the site is better off without it.

Yes, one of the objectives of closing questions is to preserve the quality of the site. As far as that is concerned, one close reason is as good as another. However, an equally (at the very least) important objective of closing is to educate our users about the sort of questions we want/accept.

When we close with the wrong close message, we fail that objective. We are not helping new users understand the site, and will either drive them away in bafflement at our arcane rules, or suffer an incessant barrage of low quality questions since we didn't take the time to actually explain what was wrong with what they asked.

So yes, closing those questions as requests for learning materials when they clearly weren't is most certainly an abuse of the close reason. If none of the available close reasons are good enough, write your own. If you can't be bothered to spend a few seconds writing a custom close reason, then you probably shouldn't be voting to close in the first place.

Answer 2

This can happen - I've had it happen to me on other SE site, even when the Q was clear that there was a request to have something explained, not a request for learning material. So it can probably happen here as well, my gut feel says "probably", and as @terdon says, it's extremely important if the OP feels the Q was unreasonably closed because that wasn't what they had wanted at all. @jasonwryan is also right, about people adopting canned answers for ease.

In cases like these, changing the wording is often very effective as well as minimal effort. Perhaps it would help to reword the canned reason. For example:

• "external learning resources" rather that the vague sense of "anything that helps you learn". It's a semantic difference but might help.

• "This appears to be a request to find an answer elsewhere rather than directly from members of the community"

• "This appears to be a request for assistance in finding help elsewhere. If you have a specific question or issue, please reword the question to ask it directly from members of our community."

• "This appears to be a request to locate educational material. Questions should focus on a specific point or issue, and not just seek learning materials."

Something like that might help. It might not be identical to other SE site wording but would be clearer - and much less open to misinterpretation/misuse (by anyone).

• Semi-tongue in cheek: maybe ask on UX stackexchange what they reckon? :)

Answer 3

I wouldn't characterise the use of this close reason, or any of the others in the Off-Topic menu, for that matter, as abuse. It strikes me as the result of two, sometimes potentially related, issues.

The first is the constraints posed by the canned close reasons (and, yes, there is always the open-ended option where you can fill in your own, but people will almost always opt for the canned response¹); questions that don't fit comfortably into one of these reasons but perhaps include incidental phrases welcoming pointers to documentation, for example, will be pushed towards here. I know, I've done it, thinking "close enough..." The imperative, after all, is to close the question, not quibble about the semantics of why it was closed².

The second is human error. People just get it wrong, as in the example you linked to.

Neither case seems to be particularly vulnerable to abuse: whatever the reason chose by the initial voter, it still requires four others to agree to it and that threshold has obviously been deemed by the powers that be to be sufficient to ensure, in the majority of cases, that the question should actually be closed, whatever the reason chosen by the initiator.

The Reopen queue is also sufficiently quiet to suggest that there is no burning issue that needs to be addressed with respect to closing questions--again, irrespective of the reason chosen.

tl;dr Nope, as you were...

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_{¹ There are bound to be some stats that could illuminate that point, somewhere...
² This isn't to suggest that I support the indiscriminate closing of questions, rather that I make a judgement call about the overall quality of the question and whether it meets the threshold; once I have made that decision, I then start looking around for the correct justification.}