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Should we have a close reason for unresolved current event? I feel at times this could be a useful close reason for questions that happen right after a big breaking news story. In cases like this it might be a good question if it is asked later after more information is known about the event in question.

The reason I am asking about this is due to a question I saw on the main site.

US firm that paid indicted FBI informant $600,000 tied to Trump associates, records reveal

This question is asking about any political or legal consequences that might arise from this paid informant having ties to Trump associates since his testimony has been used against Biden. At the time of the question the information has been out for under 24 hours making it very hard to give a decent answer on what could or might happen as a result of this.

I feel that a close reason of an unresolved current event would be good for this question as it can make it easier to find and reopen later when we have the needed information to properly answer the question.

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  • I'm not sure that Q is the best example. It could have been closed for any number of reasons: inviting speculation, 'push', and opinion-based. (The votes were something like 2-2-1 on those.) And possibly also for 'multiple questions' as it asked for both 'political or legal'. We don't really need new categories for that question.
    – Make StackExchange GREAT 4ever
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:00
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat That was the question that got me thinking about it because I do think it is an answerable question once more information around the issue comes out. The issue is as of now we don't know enough to understand what will happen.
    – Joe W
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:02
  • I think that questions asking for 'consequences' may tend to be a little (too) opinionated. It's true that some crimes are taken up as cause célèbre and get laws named after their victims. And political scandals have consequences sometimes immediate (e.g. resignations), but possibly later at polls. How far one should look and label something a 'consequence' YMMV. Some people might disagree and consider these 'good subjective' Qs, IDK. There should probably be a separate discussion about 'consequences' questions, while we're at it, regardless of how long ago the event was.
    – Make StackExchange GREAT 4ever
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:05
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat Depends on how things play out that could easily not be the case. 6-12 months from now we could know that there is multiple legal cases that spawned as a result of this and it could be linked to how the push to impeach Biden plays out in the House as well as election results play out this year. Yes as of right now it is very opinion based but it doesn't mean it will always be that way.
    – Joe W
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:14
  • Yes, but even in that case, it reads to me a bit like a list question. "Consequences of the war in Iraq?" for instance.
    – Make StackExchange GREAT 4ever
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:16
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat I still think that it could be answerable down the road once we know more.
    – Joe W
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:24

3 Answers 3

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When asking about the consequences for some event, questions usually follow one of two forms:

  • Have there been any consequences? Has anything been done?
  • Will there be any consequences? Will anything be done?

The first type is a pretty common question here, and as long as it's not too broad it's usually on-topic and answerable.

The second type is more common for current events, but is usually off-topic because answering it requires speculation about future events. Conveniently, we have a close option for exactly that:

Questions asking for the internal motivations of people, how specific individuals would behave in hypothetical situations or predictions for future events are off-topic, because answers would be based on speculation and their correctness could not be verified with sources available to the public.

To use that US firm that paid indicted FBI informant $600,000 tied to Trump associates, records reveal question you mentioned as an example, there are two ways the OP could've asked it:

  • Have there been any political or legal consequences?
    • This has a very simple answer: no, since this was reported a few hours ago there have not been any consequences
  • Will there be any political or legal consequences?
    • This can only have speculative answers while it's a current event, and asking "will there be" will still be speculative even when it's not a current event anymore

As you can see, the first option technically has an answer for a current event, it's just not very satisfying. However, sometime in the future an answer with more substance might be possible, and it would be much easier to answer if the question was open.

In short, a question about a current event can either be speculative, which is already off-topic, or unanswerable at the moment, which is fine to leave open. If we start closing all questions about current events just because they are current, then in the future we'll either need to re-open them or duplicate them before people can answer.

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  • To be honest I never noticed the part of the close reason that you bolded before. That pretty much covers what I was looking to cover.
    – Joe W
    Commented Mar 15 at 23:09
  • 1
    @JoeW : I've always wondered who did the bold highlight and why they did it at all. The bolding here is something I did to emphasis the part about predicting the future, but the actual close reason does highlight the word "speculation" which is what I think is is the most important part.
    – Giter
    Commented Mar 16 at 3:25
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Having the suggested close reason does not make it easier to find such questions.

While there is a search term for "closed questions", there is no search term for specific close reasons. Thus, while closed:1 in a search will find all closed questions, it is still necessary to look at each question to determine whether it was closed for a particular reason.

Using closed:1 with any known tags will limit the search, but it may be easiest to just "follow" the question for those who may be interested in opening and answering it when the information does become available.

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  • Okay, that makes sense as I thought you could search by close reason but I guess you can't.
    – Joe W
    Commented Mar 15 at 19:55
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These questions can always be answered later after more information has come to light. Because of this, I don’t think questions that ask about unresolved current events should be closed.

Additionally, we already have the post notice:

rapidly changing event

so that should inform viewers enough about the nature of the question.

Also, we have had many well received questions that asked about unresolved current events.

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  • 1
    I understand that they can be answered later but that doesn't mean we want them attracting answers with speculation when it is so new that there is enough information to give a proper answer. As for the post notice I don't consider that a solution as that requires action by the already busy moderators to either notice it or respond to a flag about it.
    – Joe W
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:26
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat my bad, fixed
    – Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:28
  • @JoeW wouldn’t opinion based solve that? Also, I think that those questions can generally be answered by expert opinion or past precedent.
    – Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:30
  • It's a reasonable position. I'll point out though that Skeptics does have a close reasons for these. But the point of that site is to deal with 'hard facts'. Unreferenced answers are removed there as a matter of policy, as are 'original research' answers, i.e. if some source didn't say explicitly something is a consequence, you won't be allowed to either [on Skeptics].
    – Make StackExchange GREAT 4ever
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:31
  • Initially they allowed these Qs and just used that banner for them, but like 3 years later there was a spate of Qs about ISIS [unanswerable by the site's standards] that broke the camel's back. The problem with politics is though it's not clear where the line for a good source is. [Unlike in much of science.] You always can find some pundit to claim something is a consequence of something. 'Obama created ISIS' etc. Is the answer OK?
    – Make StackExchange GREAT 4ever
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:35
  • 'Israel created Hamas' etc.
    – Make StackExchange GREAT 4ever
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:42
  • While it could solve the issue I am suggesting a new close reason so that we can more easily find and reopen the question at a later date when it is possible to answer the question.
    – Joe W
    Commented Mar 15 at 17:44

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