@MichaelCurtis (Re: meta-question) I've read you question and comments, and this is where I think that you are coming from. What is deemed on/off topic can seem arbitrary and subjective, and part of the problem is in allowing too many questions that are too broad. To date, we may have been a bit loose on requiring specificity in the questions. I think in part this liberalness is a carry over from beta where we wanted to keep growing content to get out of beta, which only happened last year.

@MichaelCurtis Even if it is a carry-over, it is still the "judgment of the community" that question X was on topic and question Y wasn't. In the end we'll always be a community moderated site, and these gray areas will get adjudicated by the people who participate. In one sense it is subjective and arbitrary, but in another sense it's not: enough of the people who participated made judgment call X.

@MichaelCurtis The site relies on people like you, who care about quality, in order that these judgments, in the end, "make the internet better".

@MichaelCurtis I'm glad that you brought up a concern with the users' judgment leaning towards being too liberal in allowing broad/vague questions; and think it's worthwhile to ping people to review their own judgments. In the end, I think that addressing the users (in meta or via comments/edits on questions/answers) will be a more effective way of getting your point across than trying to modify the guidelines.

@Dave totally agree. At the end of the day, it's up to the community to decide what questions are need to be closed an which stay open and are considered good.