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Sometimes I encounter the closure of threads like

Illustrative puzzles of chess themes

Now I certainly agree with this closure in line with practice elsewhere on SE. But what about threads like this:

How do I spend my time on chess in boring meetings?

Aren't these equally discursive and subjective? I refer to 'threads' rather than questions because, to be honest, both strike me as open invitations to discussion, without the sort of carefully defined parameters that are usually called for on other SEs.

How do we draw the line and distinguish the kind of question that belongs here from one that doesn't?

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  • Good question! If you ask me: the first question could have dozens of equally valid answers. The second one is narrower in scope, so I voted to reopen it (along with three other community members). But I can see why people would vote to close it as well.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    May 26, 2021 at 7:46
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    @Glorfindel I can't agree there: the first is at least interesting and properly researched, if too open-ended for SE. The second is equally open-ended (not so much as a specific area of chess the user wants to work on in meetings is specified) but has the added deficit of not being even being about chess in any strict earnest way. (You can swap out "chess" for "tetris" and leave the question almost unchanged to solicit ideas how to spend time in meetings playing tetris.)
    – Mobeus Zoom
    May 27, 2021 at 11:31
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    Citing community opinion is one thing but we need to figure out some principles here so that people don't end up voting antisocially - in other words, knowing how to vote properly is important: these don't strike me as borderline cases, where we could debate particulars, but clear closures on most SEs - if for some reason (such as welcoming new users) we need a different protocol, we need guidelines to implement it equitably across all posts. As things stand I have to wonder for instance whether, were the users' reputations swapped, the verdicts on their posts would also have been opposite.
    – Mobeus Zoom
    May 27, 2021 at 11:38
  • Where the line is is a matter of opinion! Sometimes it seems that a question is inviting opinion based answers but the answers have specifics and example games are not so opinion based. I am sorry to see those closed. I didn't find an example just now so didn't write an answer.
    – Michael West
    Jun 12, 2021 at 15:47

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