Should people who vote to close, answer questions anyway?

Question

I'm not pointing fingers at ANYONE, I promise. I've seen a few multiple instances where people will vote to close and then answer a question, however. Such as this case.

Don't we vote to close because we personally think the question is not suitable to answer currently? I'd like to hear the community thought. To me, it seems odd to vote to close something as "not going to answer" and then PERSONALLY answer it.

I can understand people who choose to answer who voted to stay open or simply had not voted at all. However, when you explicit vote you are expressing your explicit disapproval.

Answer 1

I do it when I think a question is salvageable, or borderline close-worthy. I consider close votes to be feedback, in the interest of improving the question. So sometimes I answer the question that I hope it will turn into. Sometimes the improvement never comes, and sometimes the close votes go another way, regardless. Bad questions get nothing. Your example...I probably would have left that one alone. Philipp thought differently. No big deal.

Basically, I don't think we have to stick to a specific course of behavior in responding to a question. Likewise, we don't have to use all available options on a poor question. For example, I don't refuse to answer, downvote, and then vote to close.

I usually close vote instead of downvoting, for example. I rarely vote down anything except really crappy answers. But that happens rarely too, because non-answers (flaggable) happen more often than really bad ones.

Answer 2

Closing a question only sometimes implies unanswerability. For example, a question that was off-topic here may be on-topic somewhere else, where an answer may be useful when migrated. Others may also disagree with your vote, or the question may be reopened later.

I see no reason to introduce social or technical restrictions where they don't need to exist. If you see reason to both vote and answer, do it.

Answer 3

There is no voting for closing anymore, just voting for keeping questions on hold. There is a subtle but important difference. A question is on hold until its content gets improved enough for the restrictions to be removed.

With these improvements in mind, one can attempt to answer.

Answer 4

I am not sure what's the ideal behavior here. But I do answer the question if I understand what the OP wanted to ask and if I can answer it correctly. Most of the time it happens when the question was off-topic. The motto of SE is to solve people's problem by helping them get to the right solution, so why not provide solution if you can. To punish them for asking at wrong place is to either flag it or downvote it. But in the end they need an answer and most of the time it was an honest mistake, which shouldn't wait for the bureaucracy for migration and then answers. That's just my point of view, others might see it differently.

PS: Helping doesn't mean that you should entertain repeat offenders.