Did the edits on the question about how to bridge the gap between management and employees make the question reopenable?

Question

I came across this justifiably closed question: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/4285/how-can-we-bridge-the-gap-between-executive-management-and-the-employee

It was a rant, one that solicited discussion and could possibly lead to much debate and argument.

I edited it to focus on solving a problem related to the corporate culture. In my opinion, the question is waaay different than it was originally, but I also think it's one that could benefit not only future visitors who are employees, but also it could benefit future visitors in executive management who wish to create a workplace environment where people will want to come to work everyday.

Closure is of course intended to be a temporary state, one which gives the community an opportunity to help fix the post, and I believe I have fixed this post to where it's suitable for this site and for Stack Exchange.

I went ahead and voted to reopen. If you think more edits are needed, please let me know; otherwise, if you can flag or vote to reopen, I encourage you to do so.

Answer 1

My issue with changing the core question (other than invalidating answers, which doesn't apply here) is that the OP can't respond to requests for clarifications. And how could they, it's a different question than what they wanted to ask originally. This is a problem with all "artificial" questions, and one of the many reasons we expect all questions to be about actual problems you're facing.

Your version is better, but still a bit broad, and I think much of our inability to make it more specific and answerable is because it's not an actual problem any of us faces or has faced in the past, and we've reached a point where we are trying to force a good question out of a... not so good one. That rarely turns out well, I think if a question can only be salvaged by changing it completely, it's better to just let it go. If the changed version is a common enough problem, it will be re-asked at some point in the future, by someone actually having to deal with the core issue.

However it should be noted that your edits weren't a (complete) waste of time:

1. Both answers are to your version of the question and not the original one. The question was closed again, but the two answers that made it through during the short time it was open may have helped the asker.
2. The mod closure was converted to a community closure. Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with a moderator closing the question few minutes after it was posted, I've closed over 2.4K questions on Programmers (a little over three Workplaces), and on a lot of them (half?) mine was the only close vote. Programmers regulars have probably seen me more than once closing questions seconds after they were posted, I remember closing a question 32 seconds after it was asked (yes, it was that bad). But a community closure certainly looks better than a mod only closure.
3. We got this Meta discussion out of it, that will help further define our attitude towards heroic edits.

As far as getting the question re-opened, well, it happened. Five people thought the question was worth their re-open vote after your edit, and then five other people thought it wasn't. Personally, I sit right on the fence, on the one hand I agree that your version is still too broad and soliciting opinions rather than answers, on the other I'd love to read a good answer to it. Confusing, isn't it? Well, as I've already said, if it's a common enough problem, more concrete version(s) of the question will appear, only thing we have to do is wait for them.

I wouldn't want this discussion and the current state of the question to discourage anyone from editing, but I think that we must make it crystal clear that although editing is almost always a step in the right direction, it's not a guarantee that a question will be re-opened. Be bold and edit, but do understand that the more heroic the edit, the more chances it has to be a waste of time, especially if you're changing the core question. It's a high risk high reward scenario, if you will, and I don't think we'll ever manage to come up with a solid set of guidelines for heroic edits, it will always be a per case thing.

Lastly, your edit shouldn't be rolled back, both answers are to your version of the question, and rolling back to the original version would invalidate them. The question might be on a path to deletion, but until then it would be preferable for it and its answers to be consistent.

Answer 2

Here are my thoughts.

1. Your edit completely changed the heart of the question to where it is no longer recognizable. The true heart of the question is Why are executives valued more than engineers? and you fundamentally changed the question to How can we bridge the gap between management and employees to prevent and us vs. them attitude? They are completely different and I feel that this edit should be rolled back.

2. Even with your edit, it is a good question on its own, however the problem of Us Vs. Them is complex and multi-faceted and could be caused by 100 different items. In that respect I feel it is overly broad. Then asking for ways to improve this will result in many opinions being posted about what can be done to improve attitude, which in itself is too generalized a goal anyway.

I strongly feel that this should not have been edited the way it was or reopened.