Does 5 downvotes on a meta question equate to 5 close votes?

Question

Why was this meta question which has 2 excellent and comprehensive answers closed?

Against the evidence or experience requirement

OP may be arguing against both evidence and experience, and many members may disagree, but is that any reason to close a meta question?

The close reason says:

This question does not appear to be about Interpersonal Skills Stack Exchange or the software that powers the Stack Exchange network, within the scope defined in the help center.

OP is clearly discussing the type of evidence on which an answer must be based at Interpersonal.SE -- most members would agree it should be either personal experience or a valid reference, while OP says it needs to be only 'common sense.' You can disagree with OP but this is basically a discussion about the guidelines for writing a credible answer.

How is that 'not about Interpersonal Skills Stack Exchange or the software that powers the Stack Exchange network?'

Does 5 downvotes on a meta question equate to 5 close votes?

I quote the most valid comment against closure in the whole discussion:

@HDE226868 Not all meta questions have to have a "question" in it. It can also have suggestions or announcements put forward, to which the community can raise their concerns or leave feedback in the answer boxes. It's tagged 'discussion'. Let's discuss, not close it. So far, I think this post is doing well. We got 2 good answers to it. This question should stay. – NVZ Jul 26 at 8:53

Answer 1

I voted to close that questions and my close vote aged away, so I still agree with the five users who voted to close it. Here's why:

Meta isn't a forum. By that, I mean that it needs to have some sort of structure. If a question in the main site is a skyscraper, with a firm foundation, then a question on meta is maybe one of those cranes used to build skyscrapers. They start from the ground up and try to build a set of skyscrapers, a topic or rule set for the site.

Sometimes those cranes fall over.

^{Photo credit: New York Times}

Reasons vary. In some cases, it's because the asker suggested something for the 234th time. In some cases, it's because they weren't able to persuade a large critical audience. Here, the issue was twofold:

• The question wasn't even the start of a discussion. The asker was just stating their feelings without trying to set any guidelines for what an answerer would say. You see the same sort of thing in rants.

• The question was asking about something that has been talked about so many times I'm losing track:

  • Why doesn't this site have a back it up rule?
  • Do we want references in our answers?
  • Should we encourage writing from experience?
  • What is the site recommendation for citations and references when we post an answer here?

  If anything, I guess we should have closed the question as a duplicate of one of these. The content would have been better as an answer there.

Yeah, meta isn't as strict as the main site, and yeah, it's a place for (among other things) discussions. But it isn't a forum. There's a difference between a discussion and a constructive discussion that aims to get other people's input. This question fell into the latter category.

Answer 2

While it's true I left that comment there, I wasn't promoting such non-questions in any way. Just felt that since the site was new, I'll let that one slide. That one. Not more.

Since the site was fresh back then, I wanted to see answers to whatever question or non-question was posted. But that should not continue. See HDE 226868 ♦ explain well in his answer how meta should be used.

Downvotes are not close votes. Downvotes indicate either literally "this post is not useful" or "I disagree with what is presented here".

And sometimes, downvotes are from random drive by voting.