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3:39 AM

A: Could we add another reason for closing that's more appropriate for "check this (dis)proof of RH"-type questions?

A bit of an update, too long for a comment. To be sure we're all on the same page, here's the current setup. If you have sufficient rep, you can click the "close" button on a question, and you get a popup which looks like this: These are some general close reasons common to the entire Stack Exch...

> As a technical point, it appears to be possible for moderators to delete a close reason or to create a new one, but not to edit the description in an existing close reason. We can also tinker with the order they appear in.

That certainly complicates things a bit.

Q: How do I edit custom close reasons?

There's a typo in one of our custom Off Topic reasons and I need to edit it, but I don't see an edit button: How do I edit an already active close reason? Do I have to deactivate the existing one then add a new, corrected custom reason, or can I edit it after deactivating it and reactivate it ...

A: How do I edit custom close reasons?

You can't. Custom off-topic reasons are editable only until they are approved - after that, they're frozen. This is to prevent a reason from being changed into a completely different reason after it has already been reviewed or especially after it has been used on the site. Reasons can always ...

Wouldn't making them editable be a workable solution? It should be possible to teach mods not to completely change the reasons, and you can always poke them with a sharp stick if they do it anyway. Deactivating doesn't work retroactively, but in cases of small mistakes or a bit clearer language, changing all old instances would be desired behaviour. — Mad Scientist Jun 27, 2013 at 16:33

The intent is to encourage you to write and edit these in public, @Mad, and then adding them / updating them as a team. It's less about trust than it is about recognizing that doing this right is hard and time-consuming - so it's worth making shortcuts a bit harder too. — Shog9 Jun 27, 2013 at 16:40

The problem I've run into is we have a This is a bug, report it in our tracker which is now a broken URL, is there really no way this can be fixed? — ideasman42 Mar 18, 2014 at 1:54

Report it to me (or someone else on the team) and we'll fix it, @ideasman42. This is fairly rare (and a good reason to only point these at links the site's community can control) but there is a mechanism for changing them if need-be. — Shog9 Mar 18, 2014 at 3:55

If I understand correctly for example some natural changes to "MathOverflow is for mathematicians to ask each other questions about their research. See Math.StackExchange to ask general questions in mathematics." would require at least two moderators (one to edit and one to approve) and it would be necessary to deactivate this one and create another one witha new test.

I mean things like changing http to https in that link or changing Math.StackExchange to Mathematics Stack Exchange.

This one is http rather than https, too: "This question does not appear to be about research level mathematics within the scope defined in the help center."

Q: Links in close reasons are (sometimes?) still HTTP

TL;DR: Links in off-topic close reasons are not HTTPS. Links to other sites in migration close reasons are not HTTPS. NB: This question is tagged "custom close reasons". Those include both the free-form close reasons users can provide, and the per site templated close reasons. I don't know if f...

bug comments close-reasons ssl custom-close-reasons

A: Links in close reasons are (sometimes?) still HTTP

With the help of the Stack Exchange Data Explorer, it is possible to keep track of all instances of HTTP links in close reasons network-wide. This query lists them all: The system stores three types of 'guidance', which is the texts we're talking about here. 'Input' is shown while flagging/votin...

Well, 92 seems like a relatively small number. At the same time, whenever such close reason is used, the http link appears in the close notice. (It is visible only to some users - but still, I'd guess it means hundreds or maybe even thousands of posts.) — Martin 5 mins ago

1 hour later…

Martin Sleziak

5:06 AM

I am not sure whether I correctly understand this comment - it seems that the change from http to https should not be done by moderators...? (Maybe devs can probably somehow change them in a way which also fixes the notices in the posts.)

Ugh, yeah. Pretty much all the custom off-topic reasons are going to be HTTP links because they were likely written that way when they were created on-site (those aren't generated by the system but are just saved Markdown). They'll all have to be edited by devs (not recreated by moderators, so that the changes will retroactively apply to older posts previously closed with those reasons). — animuson ♦ Apr 22, 2017 at 16:20

@animuson Would you be willing clarify your comment a bit (or even expand it to an answer)? AFAICT the mods cannot edit custom close reason. But creating a new one with https instead of http would at least improve that situation that the http link would not appear in the posts which are closed from now on. (I understand that fixing the http link which have already been closed can only be done by the developers.) — Martin 26 secs ago

1 hour later…

Martin Sleziak

6:18 AM

Just for archiving purposes:

A: Revising the help page on "What topics can I ask around here?"

With apologies for the long delay, we've now spruced up this help page a bit. You can see it here. We tried to take into account some of the excellent ideas in this discussion, and also had an eye toward formalizing some of the discussion we've had lately around close reasons. Any further feedbac...

I have noticed that several links on that page where I would expect https are actually http links. (For example, Google, Wikipedia, even "How to ask a good MathOverflow question".) I'd guess that it is better to use https, if available. (I suppose that this isn't problem only here, see this post: Help has non-HTTPS links in it. But since the page is being edited anyway, perhaps it's natural to fix this, too.) — Martin Sleziak 12 hours ago

@MartinSleziak Thanks Martin, I've gone ahead and changed http to https everywhere except for the Open Problem Garden, which is currently giving me a "bad gateway error" but which I was sure worked for me a couple of days ago. — Tim Campion ♦ 12 hours ago

Q: Help has non-HTTPS links in it

Pages within the help center have many non-HTTPS links on them. Many of the ones to questions seem to have been updated, but there are non-HTTPS links to the Stack Overflow blog on Don't Ask, links to Area 51 and the main domain of stackexchange.com on On-Topic, a link to a Main Meta on Closed Q...

feature-request help-center ssl

2 hours later…

Martin Sleziak

8:47 AM

BTW I guess this counts as an example when the removal of the 5-rep points barrier on meta proved useful.

A: I have a question which is a near fit for MathOverflow. What are some other resources I might consult?

Reddit? https://old.reddit.com/r/abstractalgebra/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AppliedMath/ https://old.reddit.com/r/askmath/ https://old.reddit.com/r/mathematics/ https://old.reddit.com/r/math/ https://old.reddit.com/r/maths/ https://old.reddit.com/r/puremathematics/ https://old.reddit.com/r/topology/