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There's a few questions I see that are closed, for reasons I don't find appropriate. However, the majority of these questions have been answered to a satisfactory level and re-opening them doesn't seem to serve much purpose.

So, is it worth pursuing? Should I make a post about reopening these questions, even though they've been answered?

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  • Any reason why the re-open queue won't work for these? A reopen flag or vote will push it into that queue. If you combine that with an edit to improve that should usually get the question reopened. When you're dealing with older questions and stuff that's already been answered it seems overkill to do it through meta. – Lilienthal♦ Jul 19 '17 at 17:55
  • I wouldn't bother. Personally I find it distracting to see old zombie posts rise from the dead, well after they have served their purpose. – Joe Strazzere Jul 19 '17 at 19:20
  • Do me a favor and vote down if you disagree. I'm half with Joe on saying that they've served their purpose. I'm primarily asking this, not because I feel like answering the questions, but because I feel that they don't deserve the closed status when I don't see anything in the question that is explicitly close-worthy (specifically off-topic reasons) – DCON Jul 19 '17 at 20:48
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Absolutely! If the question is a good fit (or has been improved to be a good fit), there is no reason to keep it closed.

We should not decide if a question fits here based on presence or absence of "satisfactory" answers. Moreover, there is always a chance that someone will come along in future with additional useful answers, or even better answers. StackExchange even awards badges for good late answers, so it is clear that is encouraged.

Another reason to reopen good questions is to avoid confusing users as to what questions are a good fit here. A new user who sees a question closed may take that as a precedent to assume that such questions are not accepted here. This can be confusing even for established users (when reviewing close/reopen votes on other questions), since "good fit" is somewhat subjective in many cases here.

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If you want to have a chance that a question can be reopenned, you need 5 reopen votes. If you think the case is easy, the reopen queue should be enough. However if you don't have reopen privileges or it may require good explanation on why it should be reoppened the best way is to bring it to meta.

A question that has been answered can still have new answers however usually most people will pass. A good way to attract new answers to those questions is to use bounty.

To resume :

  • Meta to reopen answers : with concrete arguments to why it should to reopenned (basically, why it's on topic here)
  • Question already answered are likely to bring less attention to new answers you can use bounties to bring attention to those questions.
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    "or it just won't be reopenned." How so? Questions are regularly reopened through the queue. – Lilienthal♦ Jul 19 '17 at 17:57
  • vote reopen from 3K user, as well as edits that meet conditions described here automatically push question into reopen queue where other 3K users decide whether it is improved sufficiently to reopen. See this example of failed review and this example of successful review – gnat Jul 19 '17 at 19:44
  • @Lilienthal yeah i used quite a shortcut here, I just think that usually it's better to make a met post to explain why it should be reopenned unless it's an easy case. – Walfrat Jul 20 '17 at 10:43

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