This question got closed without feedback and with only 3 views, 5 hours after it was posted.
I tried editing the question several times to get it reopen, even when I wasn't sure what was wrong with it. I tried to word it as "which hardware device" instead of "how do I" (I originally thought that the buying part was obvious). No reopen happened.
I tried flagging the question, only to found out that the same moderator declined the flag. He did not provided justification as to why it was a technical support request
and shifted to unclear what you are asking
, but refused to reopen it. He asked for obvious clarifications that implies that he didn't understood the question in any of its revision. I provided such feedback and he ignored it.
Why moderators that are in doubt, tend to close questions that are on-topic? He may could have commented something like 'Is this a question about a purchase decision?' instead of just closing the question.
I believe moderators should try to step out a little bit and help users fit their questions into the moderators expectations. Specially for a site like HardwareRecs that has ~12 questions per day.
Here are my justification as per why the question is on-topic.
From: Is a scope of "product recommendations" + "pre-purchase inquiries" agreeable?
What's our scope? The purpose of this site (as I see it) is to help folks in making purchase decisions, whether it is in finding the right product given a definitive set of requirements, or (updated) to ask what you should consider to help assure your purchase will work for you. Fair enough?
Also says:
A sensible scope would be “purchasing decision about computing hardware”, or “pre-purchase questions about computing hardware”. This includes questions like
- Does this particular model fit this use case?
- What model would best fit this use case?
- What criteria are important for this use case?
- What benefit does this characteristic offer?
- In this class of scenarios, when does this characteristic matter?
Or from: What is required for a question to be 'high quality'?
A question on Hardware Recommendations has one of two goals:
- A request for a product recommendation, OR
- A request for information that will lead to a product decision
My question is about which "specification" should I look for, that allows certain kind of devices to meet my requirements.