How the community can better be served: please stop closing questions that are on topic

Question

This is a personal anecdote. It may help the community reflect on how it can better serve its audience. I previously asked this question, "Does a 9th Generation X1 Carbon support more than 2 TB of storage (X1C9)?" This was closed by one of the moderators.

When I read that something isn't "supported" in an official document, I feel it should be on topic here to question that. It can mean (a) Lenovo does not sell/test a drive above that capacity, or (b) that the hardware itself can not handle a drive above that capacity, (c) that you must void the warranty by flashing or hacking the device to exceed that limit.

• In the case of (b) that happens ALL THE TIME with hardware manufactures, simply because "support" means they have to accept warranty claims. For example, almost no laptops "support" being charged with any USB-3 adapters except the ones they ship with.
• In the case of (c) that happens ALL THE TIME with older Lenovos. For example, they implemented a hardware-whitelist on the PCI-Express slot (we have questions on that whitelist on this site).

As it applies to this question, I have some reason to speculate the reason may be that no 4TB single-sided drives exist. But to have someone tell me even that drive only handles single-sided NVME in an answer would have at least guided my purchasing decision by excluding the drive I purchased. Put another way, I was told by the mod,

Only Lenovo can answer ["Does a 9th Generation X1 Carbon support more than 2 TB of storage (X1C9)?"]

This is untrue given that,

1. The X1 Carbon 9th Generation only supports a single-sided NVME drive. (In fact, after seeing the problem and searching it turns out there are others on the internet that have discovered this the hard way. Certainly a community of "power users" may know this.)
2. There are no single-sided 4 TB NVME drives (going to assume that until someone tells me otherwise)

And both of those questions seem like they'd be on topic here.

I just wish this community would do something for me, but every time I ask question which I need help from the community on though in good form and on-topic it's closed prematurely by a moderator. This is not a welcoming experience.

Whether you've come to ask questions, or to generously share what you know, remember that we’re all here to learn, together. Be welcoming and patient, especially with those who may not know everything you do.

Answer 1

I'm torn on this one, and I think the problem is that your Meta question "Needs more focus". It would be ironic, however, to close it based on that. But let me elaborate ...

IMHO, you appear to be focusing on two different topics:

• A "general case" that closing questions improperly is not welcoming.

  I have trouble upvoting that. That in itself is two separate problems:

  1. Closing questions in general is not "welcoming", but we (the community) and the moderators need to do this in order to maintain order and curation on the site. In general, I try to leave a comment on most posts that I vote-to-close explaining my reasons a bit above-and-beyond the basic close reason, along with anything the poster might can do to resolve the issue. I especially try to do this for newer users, in hopes that it will "soften the blow". It's not easy to craft a good question, as the How do I ask a good question? help for Stack Overflow (but not Super User) acknowledges:

  In spite of all your efforts, you may find your questions poorly-received. Don't despair! Learning to ask a good question is a worthy pursuit, and not one you'll master overnight.

  2. Then we have the "improperly" part, which is to say, "Mistakes happen." Are we going to eliminate that through a Meta post? Probably not. The mods around here do a great job, but I feel certain most will admit they aren't infallible. Mods, community close-votes, and gold-badgers, can all make mistakes. That's one reason we have the Meta escalation process for individual questions, right?

  That brings us to the second part of your question:

• Referencing a particular "Opinion" close on one of your questions.

  This is the part I can actually agree with, at least in light of the facts presented in the question. Personally, I've voted to reopen the question itself. That said, it could use a bit of a rewrite.

  Spending a few years working for a (custom) hardware manufacturer (of sorts), I can vouch for the fact that we had a limited list of "supported" drives that we would test. It was unlikely that we would ever go back and test larger drives that became available after a certain span of time, unless a large customer specifically requested it.

  Is it a "shopping recommendation" question? IMHO, no. It could be mistaken as one at first glance. But the question didn't ask for any particular recommendation. That, to me, would result in objective, fact-based answers. While it probably would also result in suggestions on particular models that did or did not work, that's beside the point. The question could be answered without any particular drive model.

  And no, it probably can't and won't be answered by Lenovo, although:

  Or, is this all Lenovo has tested and certified?

  The way that part is phrased, at least, could be seen as only answerable by Lenovo. But it follows the "Is this true?" In other words, (and it probably would have been better to write this explicitly), you are looking for either:

  • Someone who has successfully used a larger drive in that model.
  • Or someone who knows of a reason why it likely won't work (which you have subsequently found).

  Both of those are objective, non-opinion, non-shopping questions, I believe.

Answer 2

Look at my rep on this site - I am a n00b. Look at my rep on StackOverflow, I am certainly NOT a n00b. I had a question on migrating G-Suite to Office 365 Family and it was closed as being off topic. The comments show, sorry to offend, the ignorance of closing the question. It is WHOLLY unwelcoming and unsupportive. When I moderate over on SO I tell the person why - specifically! - and where to go to be better served. Here, nada. A generic reason selected from a drop down and no further anything - even when asked for. (Migrate G-Suite to Office 365)

Yes, G-Suite and MS 365 are both SaaS offerings. This means software as a service rather than software running local. Migration from one to another covers many facets such as making sure data transfers correctly, setups (including domains) transfer correctly, the target SaaS has enough support to map almost everything 1-to-1, and since this is not a company doing this, must support a regular Joe doing the migration.

So, I dare any of you, read the comments on the post that was closed on me. 100% WRONG information given. So, not only is closing questions from "n00bs" unwelcoming, unsupportive, it is also done for reasons that DO NOT FIT THE REASONS GIVEN FOR CLOSING.