There's a couple of points I want to talk about here. I realise that I'm hyper focused, but they are my greatest concerns

> please note that we plan to retire certain curation workflows, such as close votes and most review queues, in the new design

Closure should not be going, it isn't a *bad* thing; especially the migration and duplicate features. Honestly, one of my *biggest* frustrations when searching for a problem that was well answered in the early years of the site is that there are 10's of the same question that come back in my search results, and they *all* have the same and different answers. I have to end up reading 3-5 (sometimes more) questions to work out what is the best for me. For recent content the close as duplicate feature removes that entirely; I'm directed to the "canonical" duplicate and there exists the vast majority of good answers. 

Closure is important for bad questions as well; it's frustrating as an answerer to post an answer to then find out the question was entirely unclear and the ball game has changed. That can happen when the question *looks* ok; for questions that don't answers these questions shouldn't be entertained; this is how we end up with bad answers to bad questions and these aren't useful to anyone.

Migration too, greatly helps. Yes, there is overlap and there always will be, but migrating a post to a site where you're going to get the *real* SMEs more focused on the question the author is asking. If we are getting rid of closure, then migration needs to be opened to users for *all* sites, not just 5. We can, and do, get questions for other sites and they now need to be able to be migrated.

Also, for questions that have no home within the network, what does Stack Inc expect now? I can see users using the RA/Spam flags for such content, and I can agree with them; a question about what type of frying pan to use when making bolognese doesn't behind on Stack, but now users will have no options but to flag. *If* I were moderating at the time, I would agree with them and binding vote it. 

Though I appreciate that Stack Overflow is concerned about closure rates, I do want to point out something; [deletion rates](https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/1936689#graph). These rates have gone up over the years, however, the rate of increase isn't the insane spike we have seen lately. Way back in 2015 the rate was at about 30%, and over the next decade it managed to hit almost 50% in 2024. In 2025 that rate did initially drop, but it is now fluctuating at around 50% again. This is important as although many questions (and a percentage, see [here](https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/1937079#graph) for numbers) weren't getting closed the path to deletion hasn't changed anywhere near as drastically. This means that many of the questions that *were* deleted, but weren't closed, likely should have been closed, but the volume of content we had back then didn't make closure of those posts possible; there was too much. With the lower volume, the percentage of answers being closed is higher, yes, because the community is able to review a higher percentage of the content posted.

> we expect that questions in the new beta experience will be displayed in a format more similar to that of opinion-based content because it we believe it expands how people engage with Stack Overflow and how content is created and shared.

Threaded conversations does *not help* with getting answers. As a consumer of answers on Stack Overflow, one of the *best* things about it is how prominent **answers** are; they are completely distinct from other content on the post (comments). This means finding the answers easy, and reading them even easier. If something is important to the answer, then also editing into the answer is paramount because that is where it should be. Threaded conversation *actively work **against*** this. I *hate* that when I do have to read a certain website with threaded replies, that I have to scroll through replies asking for clarification, replies of discussion, and other non-answer content, to get to an answer to find out that the answer was changed 4 more threaded replies later based off feedback 3 threaded answers in. ARGH!

Answers do *not* need a conversation to precede or succeed it; answers are your currency, your north star, your steel thread, your shining light. Taking answers away is (replacing comments and answers with replies is removing answers), with all due respect, is like removing the wheels from a car and wondering why people can't use it any more. It fundamentally breaks the site.

Although, I admit, many have reached the open-ended content poorly, I do think that this part of the site has legs, and actually should be what you are focusing on. I've heard, from Staff, the work "Broken" be used to refer to the Stack Overflow, and that something with it is broken; I agree, but it's not the entire site. I can say, however, that open-ended content *is* broken, and that is what you are basing the *entire* beta version of the site on. Rather than focus on changing the entire site, focus on fixing the feature you introduced and abandoned; better tooling, better question types, better curation. Some of these open-ended psots really aren't suitable for the site, and would be better on a different one in the network, but they don't allow for open-ended questions. Why *not*? Stack Overflow isn't a Stack Exchange site anymore at the moment; so many features don't exist on other sites, and many of the ones we have (from experiments) are broken. So can't a open-ended question about Linux be asked on Unix.se? There's only one reason; you (Stack Inc) haven't provided a way for *your users* to do so.

Please, don't push open-ended threaded conversations on to the currency of Stack Overflow, and Stack Exchange; answers being king. This turns the sites into a very well known threaded website, and I'll be honest, if that was the type of site I wanted to contribute to, and moderate, I would do; I don't because that's not the type of site I want to participate in, Stack Overflow's goal of being a repository of knowledge is the site I want to contribute to. such complete reinvention of the site could be the death knell fore the site, not the reinvigoration Stack Inc wants.