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On most SE style sites, localized questions are generally closed. However, that is not the case here... The questions must be localized.

I just asked a questions regarding diving/ecotourism in Malaysia, and it occurred to me that this may be TOO localized for this site.

How specific can questions be? To what level of local detail can our questions be? I went through the example questions during commitment and had some trouble nailing this down.

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  • I don't know Malaysia so well but if you were asking about Australia or Mexico your question would not be localized enough!
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jun 25, 2011 at 5:18

2 Answers 2

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We don't close localized questions, we close questions that are "TOO" localized.

If you click the CLOSE button you'll see the definition of too localized:

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.

That's a pretty good description, with an emphasis on "unlikely to help any future visitors."

To give some examples:

  • Bicycles in Ginza-itchome -> not too localized; could easily help someone else. This is an exemplary question, actually.
  • Bicycles in Ginza-itchome on Monday July 4th -> too localized, since it's a specific moment in time
  • Bicycles in the alley between block 5 and 6 in this particular spot in Tokyo -> too localized. It's a friggin' alley, not a big metro station.
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  • Awesome. Great description.
    – Beaker
    Commented Jun 23, 2011 at 2:10
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    Temporary exhibitions in Helsinki before christmas (travel.stackexchange.com/questions/3393/…) has been deemed as "too localized". Should it not be possible to get answers about events with a limited time frame? I would say that this particular question is somewhere between the examples put by Joel above.
    – froderik
    Commented Nov 12, 2011 at 7:53
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I propose not closing any question for being "too" localized.

Imagine someone asks if you can bring a bicycle through the elevator at the small metro station Ginza-itchome, I don't see a problem. Someone might even know the answer.

Or maybe the answer could be using general rules that apply, but that the OP did not know. For instance, Bicycle are OK because station Ginza-itchome belong to company X, or because it is in district Y. Conclusion: The question could have been less localized, but the OP had no mean to know it, so asking a very precise question was the best thing he could do.

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