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We have a Close > Too broad reason, but why not a Close > Too specific? Or as I learned researching this, a Too localized reason?

It's quite often that I see users are asking why their specific piece of hard-/software doesn't work in their specific configuration (recent example). Sometimes the question can be made canonical as suggested here, but sometimes this just doesn't work or does not make sense.

The answers on this site should apply to a broader audience than the specific question one user has. When that's not the case, we should (dis)qualify a question as such.

I see a clear use for the Too specific or Too localized close reason. Why did the Too localized disappear? Should it be re-introduced (or made more specific (pun intended))?

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  • 1
    We use to have one. The community decided to replace it with something that was clearly defined. This specific close reason was being used as a catch all which wasn't appropriate.
    – Ramhound
    Sep 11, 2015 at 10:50
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    meta.superuser.com/questions/5104/…
    – allquixotic
    Sep 11, 2015 at 12:11
  • @allquixotic thanks. Didn't found that one.
    – agtoever
    Sep 11, 2015 at 12:17

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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The problem with the question you cited isn't that the question is too specific. The OP just tries to install a driver on a not-supported OS version, so there is no proper solution, unless the company that made the hardware releases a proper driver. Technically, this piece of wisdom is an answer (albeit useless), and if the OP is unhappy with it, the question should be closed with "Unclear what you're asking" as a reason.

Speaking of being too localized, there are plenty of tricks specific to Intel/Nvidia/ATI drivers. If you want a question about a Mercury scanner to be closed as too specific, how would you justify a question about ATI Radeon?

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As allquixotic mentioned in the comments, there was a "Too localized" tag, but it suffered from not being well-defined.

The best way to handle it, as JakeGould suggested, is to flag it as "Unclear what you're asking".

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    I believe "Unclear what you're asking" should be used only when it is unclear what is being asked. Let's please not start closing questions for our own reasons and not those listed in the Vote to Close dialog. I think posting anything else here as a community-accepted position only serves to undermine the established VTC reasons.
    – Excellll
    Sep 21, 2015 at 13:04
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    Note that if the question is too localized but does not fit any of the defined close reasons, you can simply down vote the question for not being useful.
    – Excellll
    Sep 21, 2015 at 13:06

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