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I recently asked a question about VBA which was put on hold as Off Topic.

Pass Case Argument to Sub - VBA

  • This question does not appear to be about computer software …

Except it is about using Microsoft Excel & VBA which is … computer software.

I feel that Harrymc downvoted and closed my question because I downvoted his answer which was incomplete and incorrect. I was writing an answer as he answered and I immediately knew his answer wasn't correct as I had solved the problem myself.This seems like a flagrant abuse of power and has once again pushed me away from SU. (If I could I'd ask all my questions on Unix & Linux, but VBA just doesn't apply!).

I know there is StackOverflow but is VBA questions not on-topic for SU? I see there is a VBA tag with lots of activity and non-closed questions which leads me to believe it is.

HarryMC also commented it's a "beginner coding error" but I consider it a Minimal, Reproducible Example and I have been coding VBA for about 6 months now, using "Case" statements is not exactly beginnger, trust me you should see some of my earlier code!

I'd also appreciate understanding of "without general interest for our readers." comment, does that mean that only questions which are of help to general public are on topic? I also consider myself very good a wording titles of question to make them likely to appear high in search results and think this doesn't apply, even if that is the rule.

Rant Over...

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  • You don't explictly mention Excel so it is possible people have misunderstood the context of your question, incorrectly assuming it is a pure coding question. I would suggest just clarifying the context and it should be good to reopen.
    – Burgi
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 13:31
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    Sure, I did put a Microsoft-excel tag, but I can add it to the body.
    – FreeSoftwareServers
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 13:57
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    It went to reopen review after your edit and the community voted to leave it closed.
    – DavidPostill Mod
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 20:20
  • 1. VBA seems to have a gray area. Questions like "how do I solve this Excel problem, and VBA solutions are OK" are almost always considered on-topic if the scope is reasonable. And people are asked to show their their own attempt to solve it, which could include some VBA code. But questions consisting entirely of debugging non-trivial code are often considered programming problems, more suited to SO. The distinction seems to be whether the focus is solving a problem using VBA vs. fixing code; the distinction isn't always a clean one. (cont'd)
    – fixer1234
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 23:16
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    2. "Beginner coding error" should not be justification for closure; beginner questions are welcome. However, at least minimal research is expected before posting, so general learning questions and ones that are readily answered by a simple search tend to not get a good reception.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 23:16
  • 3. The site's purpose is to share solutions. There used to be a close reason for questions too specific to the author to be of value to anybody else. That's no longer one of the standard close reasons, and I don't think this question falls in that category.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Jul 12, 2019 at 23:28
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    I do not agree with the comments of the user who voted to close your question, they handled the entire situation poorly, they should have flagged and moved on instead of submitting a close vote after they received a downvote. I however, do agree the question should have been closed, mainly for the reasons @fixer1234 expressed. If the user thought the question was not well researched, they should have downvoted, and issued a closed vote. The default reason for a downvote is an indication the question either needs work or is not well researched.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jul 13, 2019 at 3:42
  • @DavidPostill well, that is what SU is, a community, if they feel it is off topic, so be it. BTW I spent an hour researching using case statements before posting this question and resolved it by testing using numbers which made me realize the issue was that it needed ""
    – FreeSoftwareServers
    Commented Jul 13, 2019 at 6:29

1 Answer 1

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I feel that Harrymc downvoted and closed my question because I downvoted his answer which was incomplete and incorrect.

You have absolutely no proof any specific user downvoted your question. The user in question should have never accused you of downvoting their answer. Just as you should not be calling out any specific user for downvoting your question. Infact, you have recieved 3 downvotes and 3 upvotes, so more than a single user has downvoted your question.

The user in question is NOT a moderator, a moderator which was the second close vote, was the reason your question was actually closed. Based on the close reason the moderator selected it appears they thought it was out of scope.

I was writing an answer as he answered and I immediately knew his answer wasn't correct as I had solved the problem myself.This seems like a flagrant abuse of power and has once again pushed me away from SU.

The user in question would have been 1 of 5 individual seperate users if a moderator had not also issued a close vote. A single close vote from a moderator will close a question. This was NOT an abuse of power. You are welcome to disagree with me on that point if you want.

I know there is StackOverflow but is VBA questions not on-topic for SU? I see there is a VBA tag with lots of activity and non-closed questions which leads me to believe it is.

I suspect the community did not reopen the question for two reasons. The first the question seems like a better fit at Stack Overflow since it's more of a programming question due to the syntax error. The second reason likely is simply due to how simple of a syntax error it actually was.

HarryMC also commented it's a "beginner coding error" but I consider it a Minimal, Reproducible Example and I have been coding VBA for about 6 months now, using "Case" statements is not exactly beginnger, trust me you should see some of my earlier code!

Using case statments is actually a very basic task.

I'd also appreciate understanding of "without general interest for our readers." comment, does that mean that only questions which are of help to general public are on topic? I also consider myself very good a wording titles of question to make them likely to appear high in search results and think this doesn't apply, even if that is the rule.

You should not read to much into the user's choice of words. Since you have more than enough reputation to chat with the moderator, I suggest you do that, but this question should remain open for everyone else.

Worth pointing out that 3 seperate users, reviewed your question after your edit, and decide the question was indeed not within scope here at Super User. This review did not include the moderator nor the original user who voted to close your question. The screenshot below is the results of that review.

enter image description here

You indicated that "but it's not working" and provided no clarification. You did not even specify what you meant by that. The question was at best unclear even with your last edit. When I try to answer a programming question, if the error message is not provided, I consider that question to basically be unanswerable.

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