2

Take these questions:

which is better, windmill or selenium? (selenium)

which is better, linux or windows? (unix and linux)

Which is better -- Drupal, Joomla, or WordPress? (drupal)

All of them have accrued large amounts of off-topic votes (and virtually no other votes). But aren't these ON-topic questions for the sites? They are far too broad and very subjective when asked that way, but are by no means 'off-topic'. If an avid selenium, linux, or drupal user sees one of these questions listed as off-topic, they will probably leave the site

I normally vote these as 'not a good example' because they are on-topic, but should not be asked on the site in this form. How should I vote?

3 Answers 3

5

They should really be voted 'meh' as they're not good examples of what the boundaries should be for the proposed site.

2
  • how do we vote 'meh'? Jul 4, 2010 at 0:29
  • 1
    @Crazy: meh = Not a Good Example
    – squillman
    Jul 4, 2010 at 4:06
1

You are right... They are wrong.

Please comment with a link to this post whenever you see this mistake in Proposals:

Difference between “great off topic example” and “not a good example”

It's not like comparisons or questions about those subjects are off-topic. They are just horribly asked. Closed as subjective. But that does not make them off topic.

Essentially:

Don't confuse the reasons to close a question with whether a question is on- or off- topic. Those off-topic questions are supposed to tell you what the site is not about... What questions would be [closed as off-topic].

The fact that a sample question is too broad or too subjective is a terrible, terrible, terrible reason to vote the question as a "great off-topic example."

0

Coparison questions may not be a great example of an off-topic question, but I don't think they are meh either.

In the end, I don't think it will be that important which questions are selected. The point is not so much finding 5 perfect questions. What's really interesting is the discussion about the questions, mostly happening in the comments.

I don't think anybody will look at the 10 questions for a proposal in commit phase and say:

That question is so good, I'll joon the site.

or

that question is so awefull, I'll never join that site.

What's building the sites is communities after all, not perfect example questions.

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