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Why was What are the differences between détournement and deconstruction? closed? I added an opening sentence to repeat the title.

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    Your question was probably closed because of the style you've chosen to write it in. There are a lot of questions similar to the spree of questions you've asked recently. There is nothing against it in the rules explicitly but as a community, the regular users of this site have generally agreed that questions which just quote a bunch of text and have one or two sentences surrounding it aren't relaly well formed questions. They don't show that you've attempted to answer it yourself and they can be very just awkward to answer.
    – Not_Here
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 6:46
  • I think in general it is better to write two paragraphs yourself explain what the terms are and what they mean to you and then explaining why you can't see a difference between them then asking for someone to show why they're different, instead of just linking two encyclopedic definitions of the terms and saying "what's the difference." The first way of asking the question is much more engaged as well as engaging. Again, it's not explicitly against the rules to ask the question the way you did, but I think in general people respond better to the first way I described, it shows more effort.
    – Not_Here
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 6:47
  • Perhaps people grew weary of all of your questions. However, that was a good book you were reading. I appreciate you mentioning that book (Teach Yourself Postmodernism was it?) but it assumes some knowledge of events and developments that students once had but that they don't have today. It would be great if they would produce an annotated edition of that book. I hope I have the right book, if so there is a second edition. Maybe you were using the second edition already.
    – Gordon
    Commented Oct 2, 2018 at 17:40

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A good answer to your question would address the specific issues you're having in differentiating the two concepts. (Otherwise, one could just give you definitions, but you already have that in the passages you cite.) In order to do that, we need to know what those specific issues are: What makes it difficult for you to tell the concepts apart? What is it that makes you think they might have similar meanings? And so on. Your question would be a a lot clearer and if you included such explanations.

Also, your question would be better without the huge blocks of cited text. It makes it more difficult to focus your question, and places unnecessary burden on your readers. Instead just quote the crucial parts - for example, those that contain the definition of the terms.

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I voted to close. The question was unclear, but I saw too many questions coming from you in one day. That may have had some influence. It is best to post no more than one question per day. This gives you more opportunity to win badges and incorporate any feedback you may receive.

Think about what it means to have a question closed. All it takes is five people clicking on the "close" button. These people are much like you. They might be having a bad day. They might not know anything about the topic and find it useless. They might not like the topic. Don't assume these people know what they're doing. Don't assume they are professional philosophers. I'm not one, but I enjoy the question-answer format of these sites.

What should you do if you get a question closed?

Use that as feedback for the next question. Also read questions and answers that have already been posted under tags you enjoy. This helps you get a feel for what questions survived being closed. Ask yourself what you could learn from them to write your next question. Up-vote the questions and answers you found useful. Maybe even answer one if you can reference your answer adequately. Try again. Think of it as a game that helps you learn something interesting as you play it.

As far as the topic of postmodernism goes, you may be the expert on that topic among the currently active users here. I am certainly no expert on postmodernism. If you want to promote postmodernism become the expert others learn to trust.

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    This answer is very strange to me. Theres no reason to think this user is a fan of postmodernism or an expert on it, their questions are critical of the idea (e.g.), so your last paragraph to this question kind of baffles me both in it's presuppositions and lacuna of relevance to the topic at hand. More generally though, I think your stressing of the game aspects of this site is very weird. At least to me, the point of this site is to ask and answer questions
    – Not_Here
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 6:36
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    Putting those two things aside though, this meta question was not a “why are people closing my questions, why is it even possible to close questions on this site” it was a very specific question about a specific question they had asked which was closed. So your second and fourth paragraph seem extremely misguided. First, the second paragraph is just weirdly assuming, there is nothing in the question that indicates they’re upset about the people that closed the question, they are just asking to hear from the people that closed it why they did so. It seems very strange to bring up people's days.
    – Not_Here
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 6:37
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    Secondly, the fourth paragraph seems to me to be sort of like, misdirected. They are using this site correctly, they had a question closed and they are asking a specific question about why that question was closed, I don’t think it’s the right thing to do to tell them “use that feedback and try again” because they literally haven’t received any feedback, you haven’t told them why their question was closed other than “people might be having a bad day”. Your answer to this question does not answer the actual question asides from your vague second sentence, everything else is irrelevant.
    – Not_Here
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 6:37
  • @Not_Here I gave the user the reason why the question was closed: "The question was unclear". That is also the reason stated in the closure message: "unclear what you're asking". Furthermore, that is why I voted to close it. On top of that I am giving this user, who is new here, some insight on how to avoid question closures in the future, some tips on how to participate. That introduction and motivation is what the rest of the answer addressed.
    – Frank Hubeny
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 12:07
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    @FrankHubeny I think that saying that the question was unclear doesn't add any new information, as it's already stated there. The OP is probably wondering why it was unclear.
    – E...
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 18:01
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    @Not_Here Thanks for articulating my reasons better than I can!
    – user8572
    Commented Sep 22, 2018 at 21:39

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