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The question Should I ask for travel expenses to be paid for a position that later closed? is a very good question. A few reasons why I feel it should be reopened:

  • It does not ask for a legal advice or a company specific one.
  • This is a question that anyone who has travelled across cities/countries to give an interview would want to know about.
  • This addresses a scenario which is not too uncommon.
  • Interview process in itself is a workplace related issue and I do not see how this question can be marked as off-topic.
  • The OP asks if he can ask for compensation from the organisation. He is not asking if the organisation has to provide compensation. Please note that there's a huge difference between the two. The former is a professional etiquette based question (is it a right thing to ask for compensation?), the later, a company policy (will an organisation bear the cost? Can't answer this).

I would request the mods to reconsider the question in hand and see if this needs to be reopened.

Edit:

After receiving a couple of comments on why this question is off topic, I would like to provide the following examples of how some questions can be categorised into either "company specific" or "seeking advice":

This is easily company specific. But the community feels ok to have this open. How can anyone tell if a company has a formula to calculate salaries is beyond me.

This (the highest voted question) is the best example for seeking advice on a situation at workplace. In fact, I can take the top 5 most voted questions (especially the rubber duck question!) and categorise them as 'advice seeking'.

I'm against closing questions that are advice seeking. I'm OK when someone states a legal premise or when someone goes for a specific situation which is localised to a company.

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  • Paying someone for going to an interview is not a widely stated thing and will vary from company to company. Hence the close vote on the company-specific regulations. We can't dictate whether company A would pay or company B would pay for travel expenses as it's up to each company's regulation.
    – Draken
    May 22, 2017 at 15:23
  • Hi @Draken the OP is asking if it's ok to ask for travel expenses. Which seems a reasonable question. Many of the questions can be categorised as company specific if we try to establish a link. Eg: this asks about salary formula. Some companies might have, some might not (should be closed based on the above argument?). Having said that, I realise there's too much of a discussion on the super aggressive closing behaviour on this site :). I leave it to the community to decide what's good for the site.
    – Ricketyship
    May 22, 2017 at 15:30
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    I see it as a question about a specific policy. I agree that we're often way too aggressive in closing, but this seems off-topic to me. If not the reason given, then for asking for advice.
    – Chris E
    May 22, 2017 at 15:35
  • hi @ChristopherEstep Every question about workplace is an advice seeking one (almost). Unless it's governed by law (in which case it doesn't fall into workplaceSE), it would be someone seeking some kind of an advice about the situation they find themselves in. I'm not entirely sure that workplaceSE can be an objective site like stackoverflow.
    – Ricketyship
    May 22, 2017 at 15:38
  • Perhaps if the OP edits it to ask if one should inquire about expenses for an interview?
    – Old_Lamplighter
    May 22, 2017 at 15:40
  • @RichardU that's where the community kicks in. If we close the question just stating that it's off topic because it's specific to a policy, we end up losing good questions just because the community did not kick in for the edit part, but kicked in for the close votes. I'm going ahead and editing the question. I'll include what you've suggested.
    – Ricketyship
    May 22, 2017 at 15:48
  • Honestly, I was surprised it was considered off-topic, for reasons similar to what @Ricketyship said... but not to worry. I'm happy to edit the question if it'll be re-opened. What would you suggest the question "Should I be entitled to (or ask for) some sort of compensation?" be changed to? Bear in mind it's not just about asking for travel expenses to be paid (I imagine that's been asked before), but about whether the circumstance should define compensation or recourse.
    – dvniel
    May 22, 2017 at 15:51
  • **scratch that, @Ricketyship beat me to it!
    – dvniel
    May 22, 2017 at 15:54

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I suspect the problem is right here:

should I be entitled to (or ask for) some sort of compensation

The word "entitled" has a legal connotation and a negative connotation for many people. I have edited the question to remove any legal implication just asking if it is something that should be attempted. I think that should be enough to get the question reopened.

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  • Agreed. Would it not make sense to edit it rather than ask for close votes then? Also, please note that the OP is not asking if a company will provide compensation. He asks if he can ask for compensation. The former is company policy. The later is a professionalism based question.
    – Ricketyship
    May 22, 2017 at 19:24
  • And I appreciate the fact that you took time to edit the question. I feel the community is a bit too aggressive on closing. And I'm not sure how many of those who use the close votes try to edit the question to make it on-topic (or even provide comments on how to make it better). This way, we will lose out on good content just because the wording was wrong.
    – Ricketyship
    May 22, 2017 at 19:32
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    @Ricketyship - Actually this is exactly how its meant to work, put the question on hold, fix it, reopen.
    – IDrinkandIKnowThings
    May 22, 2017 at 19:40
  • @IDrinkandIKnowThings, thank you for taking the time to edit the post without editing it too much. Tbh, I don't agree with the title change... but if it gets the thread re-opened then fair enough. When will it be taken off hold?
    – dvniel
    May 23, 2017 at 7:29
  • @DanWilson as soon as it gets two more reopen votes.
    – Old_Lamplighter
    May 23, 2017 at 13:05
  • @DanWilson - It is what differentiates the question from other already asked questions about remuneration for interview expenses.
    – IDrinkandIKnowThings
    May 23, 2017 at 16:31
  • @IDrinkandIKnowThings, I'm not so sure - it had almost 3,000 views with its old title and, since the change, only a couple of hundred. Also, it seems too easy to close a thread, and really difficult to have it re-opened... even after it's been edited. Not to worry, I got the answers I was after.
    – dvniel
    May 26, 2017 at 9:22

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