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Again, can we stop closing (especially Mod-closing) perfectly reasonable, understandable questions? (See my previous post on this topic)

how to get a list of keys from a record? was closed about 5 seconds before I completed my answer.

It's tagged , and it's perfectly clear to me, as someone who uses Nushell. It's also answerable without any additional information.

So why was it closed? And can we get the reopen (or preferably, Mod-reopen for expediency) votes going on it?

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  • Reopened - however the question looks a little short on information. The OP doesn't say where the record is from (a flat file, a database)
    – DavidPostill Mod
    Commented Nov 7, 2022 at 18:15
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    @DavidPostill A record is a simply a shell construct in Nushell, like an array might be to Bash.
    – NotTheDr01ds
    Commented Nov 7, 2022 at 18:18
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    @DavidPostill But more importantly, this is why I would ask that Mods not be so quick to use the close-hammer on questions that you may not understand as a non-SME. It's not possible for any of us to understand every question, but wouldn't it be appropriate for Mods to at least give the community time to decide whether it is truly unclear? There are certainly questions that need to be Mod-closed as unclear, but I would think they would usually border on being gibberish in the first place.
    – NotTheDr01ds
    Commented Nov 7, 2022 at 18:26
  • I 100% agree that questions are closed way too easily across the whole StackExchange network, however in this case is it maybe because the question isn't clearly about nushell? I know it's tagged, but the tag is very easy to miss. Why not put "nushell:" in the title to make it super clear? Every other question with a nushell tag has nushell in the title.
    – WackGet
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 17:42
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    @WackGet In general, this is recommended against. Also, the first tag is automatically added to the HTML page title by Stack Exchange. That said, yes, the Good title help mentions that it can be useful to disambiguate, but you "shouldn't sweat it", and especially says don't add it at the beginning. Regardless, Mods know to look at the tags, and in this case still saw it but just didn't know what a "record" was in Nu.
    – NotTheDr01ds
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 17:52
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    Until there are better tools, to provide feedback to author's of questions, that don't result in revenge downvoting. Community reviewers are limited by the tools that do exist. If I see a question that is unclear, I only have three options. 1. "provide feedback" which often results in revenge downvotes against my own contributions. 2. Vote to close the question and hope the author improves the question 3. Do nothing. I am not going to do nothing when I see a question that can be improved, the questions that need more detail, can often only be improved by the author themselfs.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 11, 2022 at 21:35
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    @Ramhound I know you've answered more questions than I, but in the time I've been here, I've never had any indication that I was "revenge downvoted" for asking for clarification. Perhaps it's the way I ask ...
    – NotTheDr01ds
    Commented Nov 13, 2022 at 16:59
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    @NotTheDr01ds - I have had to hide my involvement in other Stack Exchange communities, due to massive amount(s) of downvotes towards my contributions at those communities, because simple feedback that wasn't positively received by users of Super User. In other words, I would provide helpful polite feedback on a question, and then notice contribution(s) in another community be downvoted directly after a negative reception of that feedback. So I have learned, I can't provide feedback (close reason is enough in my book), since users will go out of their way to downvote my own contributions.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 13, 2022 at 17:22
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    I only blame the tools we have at our disposal for that behavior.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 13, 2022 at 17:25

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
6

From the comments, @DavidPostill reopened the question. The reason given for it being "unclear" was that there was no information on where the "record" referenced in the question came from (e.g. a flat file or a database). However, this is why I recommend again voting-to-close questions without having expertise in the area being discussed (especially the Mod close-hammer).

Nushell users would recognize that the record in the question was simply a Nushell "record literal" (to use the programming term). It didn't have (or need) a source. It was just a simple record, entered at the command-line, designed to make the question easy to understand. Ultimately, it apparently had the reverse effect :-/.

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hasn't tag usage guidelines.

Besides adding adding the tag excerpt, please consider to add guidance both to question authors and reviewers:

  • include warning for authors about the the risks of using nushell lingo on Super User due to the diversity of the members participating here as most of them are unfamiliar with it.
  • a plea for Super User reviewers to be open that posts about unfamiliar tags might make use of common words in unfamiliar ways, like in this case for record means what was explained in the previous answer, and in such cases if they have doubts about the details / clarity of the post it's better to skip the reviewing of the post.

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