Too much group behaviour in closing questions?

Question

With the question https://travel.stackexchange.com/q/18287/324 one close-voter commented

Welcome to the site! As per the faq, shopping questions are unfortunately off-topic, sorry :/

The question got five closevotes three hours after that, and the comment received two upvotes.

The question has since been re-opened, so I'm not worried about the question itself. But I am worried that there was group behaviour in closing the question.

Firstly, questions about shopping as an activity are not off-topic per se. And yet none of the close-voters either corrected the initial close-voter, or offered their own reason for why it was off-topic.

Second, the link provided doesn't even mention shopping! But none of the close-voters noticed!

(And as a minor quibble, it isn't called a "FAQ" any more)

Once someone decides that a question is off-topic, are others likely to closevote it without looking at it too closely?

Answer 1

I'm not sure what's the question here, and if there is one, how to answer. Voting patterns, including votes to close, are strictly individual. We don't have many hard-and-fast rules what is accepted and what not, and it seems some users regarded this question as off-topic.

This isn't the first case, nor it is going to be the last. Users are people, and we have differing opinions what is a "good" question for Travel-SE, regardless what the FAQ Help Center says.

There's little evidence for group behaviour, seems to me. Personally, I don't think this question is particularly good, just borderline acceptable. At the very least, OP didn't do their research to find the retailers which sell the device in question, which is fairly trivial. In essence, I think the question should be closed, but because it shows too little research, not because it's off-topic.

I agree, however, that seeing the magic words shopping or recommendations doesn't necessarily mean the question is off-topic, but they are strong indicators it might be.

There's already a discussion whether "shopping" questions are allowed or not. Although somewhat old, it is still valid.