Shouldn't moderators be following SE rules when responding to flags and closing questions?

Question

It sure seems like the moderators here don't like to follow the rules for SE and this site in particular when it comes to marking flags as valid or invalid and closing questions. At the very least, there is absolutely no consistency in their decisions.

Questions are supposed to be single questions asking for single answers. Questions are supposed to be on topic for this site and not better suited to other SE sites. Critique requests are not valid here (UX.SE rule specifically in this case).

And when a flag is marked valid, then the item being flagged should be acted upon. Off-topic questions should be closed/migrated/deleted, duplicate questions should be merged, answers that aren't answers should be deleted or turned into comments (as appropriate), etc.

Oh, and flags shouldn't be marked invalid when they are 100% valid just because the moderator "likes" the question.

So why aren't these things being followed on this site?

EDIT: Per Jeff - questions that should be addressed:

Off topic questions:

• https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/2918/whats-a-good-free-editor-for-animated-gifs
• https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/8715/good-word-for-a-group-of-intellectuals-or-a-group-of-smart-learners
• Why is SunBurst background so popular and are there any other ones?
• What makes Silverback a usability program?

Not a real question:

• How can we design for unsophisticated computer users?
• Redesigning a My Account Page, What kind of navigation is best?
• Designing for children and young readers?
• How do I determine an appropriate UX design hourly rate for my location?

And those are just the questions that I've flagged recently that were marked as valid flags but nothing was done with the questions.

Answer 1

Charles,

Rules

Just as is the case with all written rules, there's "the letter of the law" and "the spirit of the law". The written form cannot account for all cases and always generalizes things, so there are countless gray areas. This is an inherent problem with the concept of written rules, which even professional judges deal with on a daily basis.

The site, above all, is supposed to be good. For a Q&A website, that means that it's supposed to be effective in providing people with answers to their questions. To that end, it should be active, focused and promote good answers and questions. All the mechanisms, principles, rules and recommendations are there to serve that single purpose, and they are secondary to it. So we (I believe that on this particular point I may speak for other mods too) feel that if a question contributes to this website even if it seems to contradict one of the answers in the FAQ, we should allow it. Note that the FAQ is phrased in very wide and cautious terms - "Questions that are extremely off topic, or of very low quality, may be removed at the discretion of the community and moderators." (emphasis mine).

Off-topics

You will, I hope, agree that UX in general is a very wide and multi-disciplinary field. So, often it can be very hard to decide whether a question is "really" off-topic. I don't think that SE websites are mutually exclusive. I see many questions that I personally would place on GD.SE, but I can see why they would also be relevant on UX. If the activity on such questions shows me that the community also recognizes it as relevant by upvoting and answering it, I don't see the benefit in removing it. I do see the harm in it (it's upsetting for the OP, and it takes down a question that the community is interested in). The best "objective" indication of a question's relevance to the website is the number of flags on it, and questions that are blatantly off-topic invariably produce 2-3 flags. I don't think you'll find many questions with multiple flags that weren't taken down or migrated. That's as opposed to questions which produce one flag and a couple of upvotes and answers. To me, that signals that one specific person perceives is as off-topic while other users don't see a problem with it.

Flag validity

And when a flag is marked valid, then the item being flagged should be acted upon

The answer to this one is going to be much shorter and less philosophic. When a mod handles a flag, there's the button of "no action required". Once pressed, it brings up the following dialog:

If you feel very strongly about the phrase I quoted, I believe Meta.SO is the place to bring this up.

Oh, and flags shouldn't be marked invalid when they are 100% valid just because the moderator "likes" the question.

I hope you'll agree that the question of "100% validity" is subjective, and your opinion on it isn't "more right" than anyone else's who's been around for any length of time. As to the mod liking the question - I, personally, do my best to judge by the community reaction as described above and to disregard my personal feelings about the question. I feel it's safe to assume that the other mods do the same.

Answer 2

I'll repeat what I posted on your other question:

1. Moderators don't have the time to go in to great detail when closing. The close reason links to the FAQ which should explain why the post was closed. The moderators are volunteers so can't always spend more than the minimum amount of time on a question.
2. If you think a question should be closed vote for it to be closed and leave a comment as to why yourself. The moderators will see the close vote and comment and if they agree will add their vote to yours. I can't speak for the moderators here, but on the sites where I'm a moderator I give more weight to votes and comments than flags from users who have the ability to cast votes.
3. If you think a question shouldn't have been closed vote for it to be reopened. As there aren't that many high reputation users here at the moment you might also flag it so the other moderators can review the decision.
4. Moderators don't have the time to go looking for posts to close or reopen. They need your input, and the input of other high reputation users to be able to do their job.

Answer 3

Off topic questions:

• https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/2918/whats-a-good-free-editor-for-animated-gifs

  I'd support migrating this to Super User. I agree it seems oddly placed here.

• https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/8715/good-word-for-a-group-of-intellectuals-or-a-group-of-smart-learners

  Already migrated to english.se

• Why is SunBurst background so popular and are there any other ones?

  Should just be closed. Could be a tiny bit more defensible if it did more research had provided examples of UIs that use this sunburst effect, rather than a general, "why is the sky blue?" daydream.

• What makes Silverback a usability program?

  I think this is on topic enough if you read the text of the question.

Not a real question:

• How can we design for unsophisticated computer users?

  Needed a better title, but I do think it's broadly on topic here.

• Redesigning a My Account Page, What kind of navigation is best?

  Basically a "critique my design" question, unless someone is able to generalize it. Seems a bit too localized to me. Should be generalized so it can help others, or closed.

• Designing for children and young readers?

  Very close to being generalizable to the case of "designing for children" and "designing for young readers" so mostly OK.

• How do I determine an appropriate UX design hourly rate for my location?

  Nicely generalizable with a little bit of editing!

There are 1 or 2 where I agree with you, they should be closed outright. But overall we're not doing too badly here (at least from my perspective).

Some of these questions are indeed borderline, but a trend I'm seeing here is that these questions can be whipped into shape by editing them to make them a bit more general.

So perhaps what you ought to consider doing in the future is contributing some edits -- as in the examples where I edited, above -- to help make the questions better for everyone!