In other words: Can one truly expect to build a community by shutting questions that are relevant to members of the community?

I'm familiar with moderation and the need to keep users on-topic.

But what happened on this question is only the second time in ten years I've seen such unbridled moderation.

I asked a question that is of concern to most people who live in a foreign land. The official feedback: "not relevant to expats".

Brushing that off as an obvious canned answer that doesn't make any sense at all (sending money home is not relevant to expats?), I listened to the feedback of others who thought the question was too broad and severely trimmed it down.

Can anyone seriously still maintain that the question Cheapest options to exchange currency and send it back home? is irrelevant to expats?

I understand that some people may think that in their ideal world the question would be even more specific ("sending money from Tokyo to Lisbon"). But not everyone thinks the same, and there are lots of potential users who would be interested in discussion of foreign exchange solutions in general terms. Not everyone is in your specific situation. For instance, some of us might have to send money to multiple places.

The current stance is similar to telling someone on Stack that their C# question cannot be accepted because they did not say if they are working on a Dell or an HP machine.

As a moderator, it is easy to forget that not everyone is in your situation. In this instance, not everyone has the same experience of being an expatriate that you are having.

Making people crawl through a hole to suit one person's elevated idea of "the ideal question" is excessive and harmful to the growth of the community.

If it's on-topic and people who are obviously interested in the community are asking it, let it be.

Otherwise, you are just turning people away.

This is a valid question. Let it be.

In other words: Can one truly expect to build a community by shutting questions that are relevant to members of the community?

I'm familiar with moderation and the need to keep users on-topic.

But what happened on this question is only the second time in ten years I've seen such unbridled moderation.

I asked a question that is of concern to most people who live in a foreign land. The official feedback: "not relevant to expats".

Brushing that off as an obvious canned answer that doesn't make any sense at all (sending money home is not relevant to expats?), I listened to the feedback of others who thought the question was too broad and severely trimmed it down.

Can anyone seriously still maintain that the question Cheapest options to exchange currency and send it back home? is irrelevant to expats?

I understand that some people may think that in their ideal world the question would be even more specific ("sending money from Tokyo to Lisbon"). But not everyone thinks the same, and there are lots of potential users who would be interested in discussion of foreign exchange solutions in general terms. Not everyone is in your specific situation. For instance, some of us might have to send money to multiple places.

The current stance is similar to telling someone on Stack that their C# question cannot be accepted because they did not say if they are working on a Dell or an HP machine.

As a moderator, it is easy to forget that not everyone is in your situation. In this instance, not everyone has the same experience of being an expatriate that you are having.

Making people crawl through a hole to suit one person's elevated idea of "the ideal question" is excessive and harmful to the growth of the community.

If it's on-topic and people who are obviously interested in the community are asking it, let it be.

Otherwise, you are just turning people away.

This is a valid question. Let it be.