@Lawrence You're going to have to be more specific than that. Even simple dictionary lookup questions are about usage. I suppose you mean etymology, but it's not as if they checked the Online Etymology Dictionary or anything.
@Tonepoet Sorry, I was referring to contemporary usage. It includes informal language, semantic shift, regionalisms and the like. Others have defended these kinds of questions (and more) as being very hard to research, all the more when it involves a common word that is used 'differently'. I think 'lack of research' covers at least a couple of distinct issues. Gen Ref is an obvious one, but the more pertinent issue here is insufficient context to properly understand and answer the question.
In this case, I think the context has been sufficiently established, and adding a dictionary reference doesn't help the OP to understand the extent of the exclamatory use of 'like'.
At least in the case of the "opposite of 'déjà vu'" question, I'm not sure how the person asking the question could research the question effectively. If I were to try to answer it, I suppose that I would start by running a Google search online for 'déjà vu' + 'opposite' and see what came up—but ...
@Lawrence The way the close reason is currently worded, it sounds as if you have to at least try, even if it is impossible to research. That's why I prefer the Gen. Ref. close reason.
I very distinctly remember Curiousdannii and Rathony raising that issue in the Reviewer's chatroom we used to visit, and I saw Edwin Ashworth make a comment to that effect on a question regarding compiling a list of animal names with the word "monster" in them, like Gila Monster.
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it does not appear to be about English language and usage within the scope defined in the help center. It is a request for a list, and should be addressed by personal searches on Google and in collocation dictionaries. — Edwin AshworthSep 12 '16 at 21:24
Okay, so my recollection was somewhat faulty, but I think it's worth noting that it might technically qualify as a vocabulary question.
Now I'm certainly not suggesting that we should answer every question, but I do not believe that the research required close reason is anywhere near as well tempered as the general reference close reason was.
@Tonepoet That's the intent (to at least try to research the question before posting it). The regulars give gentle nudges in that direction (some are not so gentle, on occasion).
There are two issues here: whether lack of research is sufficient reason on its own to close any question, and whether the wording of the canned vote-to-close reason is better than its predecessor.
@Lawrence Yes, I know. I frequently make comments linking to the are some questions too simple post so that people might hope to understand why we have this rule...
... On the first, my view is that it depends on the question. The comments to the following meta answer point to a question which was recognised to be difficult to research. Granted, they could have consulted a book on grammar, but I imagine that a naive web search would typically yield mostly false positives, particularly for someone just learning the language.
(Not really sure if this is an ‘answer’ to a meta ‘question’ at all… but close enough. Since the question isn’t a question, I guess its answer can be one instead.)
One minor niggle has just occurred to me: the or in the first sentence is misleading. It would be better to change it to:
Please...
@Lawrence I don't think it should be, but if it's not the wording of the canned reason is pretty bad. All we know about the rationale is that it was meant to reflect why the community was really closing the questions.
@Lawrence Also just to clarify, I think it would be ideal if we could get 100% compliance with a research requirement, but practically speaking, whenever that's not the case you're penalizing prospective answerers for the fault of the questioner. If the question closed is not a Gen. Ref. question, it seems quite detrimental to the goals of the website.
(Not really sure if this is an ‘answer’ to a meta ‘question’ at all… but close enough. Since the question isn’t a question, I guess its answer can be one instead.)
One minor niggle has just occurred to me: the or in the first sentence is misleading. It would be better to change it to:
Please...
