<p>As the community grows up, we face an increasing number of interesting questions, but we can see also, sometimes, some questions that should be closed because they just don't fit within this site. They need <em>five</em> votes to be closed as</p>

<ul>
<li><em>exact duplicate</em>: This question covers exactly the same ground as earlier questions on this topic; its answers may be merged with another identical question.</li>
<li><em>off topic</em>: Questions on Statistical Analysis - Stack Exchange are expected to generally relate to statistics, within the scope defined in the <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/faq">faq</a></li>
<li><em>not constructive</em>: This question is not a good fit to our Q&amp;A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion.</li>
<li><em>not a real question</em>: It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form.</li>
<li><em>too localized</em>: This question is unlikely to ever help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet.</li>
</ul>

<p>Few people actually have enough <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/faq#reputation">reputation</a> (3,000) to vote to close those questions, and our votes, as moderators on this site, are definitive: if we vote to close once, the question would just be closed. A <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/23611/930">recent question</a> has attracted two votes to close, which is a good thing because we are used to see only one such vote, not two. However, it cannot be closed by community members only.</p>

<p><strong>Voting and flagging are two ways of helping this site developing well</strong>. As this site must reflect the entire community's opinion, I would like to encourage users with enough reputation to do so. I would also like to remind that everybody with 50+ reputation can <em>leave a comment</em> to suggest that a particular question should be closed because it falls within one of the above category. You can further <em>flag a post</em> ('Flag for moderator attention' needs only 15 rep) to draw our attention on this, or on a particular aspect of the question that you find potentially misleading. The <a href="http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/18/ten-fold">Ten fold</a> chat room might also be used to discuss such issues. </p>

<p>A last point: It might be a little bit disappointing for newcomers to see their response closed immediately or bombarded with negative comments. Please, simply explain what's wrong or point to possible duplicate(s). </p>
