@ortho I really dunno any more.

It does seem like trashing the HW close reason and making some sort of PSA that many things that used to get VTC'd should now just be downvoted might be the best way to go (much as last month's experiment attempted).

I would MUCH rather see a 'sorry, we can't give safety advice here' close reason in its place.

@hBy2Py Yeah, it's been discussed to death and I also feel like my patience is running out. I really just want to get rid of it once and for all.

Once we get rid of it people will start to adjust to the new status quo. Right now the discussions are just going nowhere, because most people want to stick with the old status quo.

@orthocresol <nod>. Somebody wrote in some or other discussion that closing all of these basic questions limits the growth of the site membership, since basic questions are good for beginning users (both in chemistry and in Chem.SE) to tackle. Is a really good point.