> Well, we do help learners on specific issues if they were mentioned. Then the individual instance may be the context we need for answering a question but we do not accept such an instance otherwise. Lengthy explanations should be made individually in a comment or on the meta post we link to. Individual instance is the former bulk put in nicer words.

@Takkat: (Discussing in English, so Pops can understand it, if needed.) The close reason should be mainly understandable as it is. We can’t throw some apparently text at the user that seems nonsensical at first glance and expect them to read the Meta post to understand it.

I do not disagree with your assessment of the problem, only with the understandability of the close reason.

Also note that individual instance is almost the opposite of bulk.

@Wrzlprmft I never liked bulk anyway.

I am not happy about it either, but something to distinguish bulk translations from just translations helps.

I already checked the Thesaurus, maybe we need to ask on English Language for a good alternative.

@Wrzlprmft I liked the individual instance because it makes clear, that it is only just this very individual text from a user that was asked for proofreading (whcih includes spellchecking) or translation.

If this text has some concern of general interest it may however be on topic still.

That is what we say with if you have a specific source of concern

@Takkat I totally agree with what this is aiming at, but as I said the wording will just be confusing, as it does not make clear when we are talking about the individuality of the presented text and when we are talking about the individuality of the problem

@Wrzlprmft we do it is individiual instance of translations.... It is not the issue what is an individual instance, it is the text thrown at us.

@Takkat Yes, but we need to put it as a restricitve relative clause next to translation. Otherwise we always have questions for translations are off-topic or similar. If we do this, we get difficult-to-read sentences however.

@Takkat »How do I translate fish?« is also an individual instance of a translation, but it is not closeworthy for this reason (and with some more specfication, it may not be closeworthy at all)'

And even if individiual instance of translations were technically correct, it would still be far from good regarding intellegibility.

But we need technically correct terms in our very short close reasons.

At some point we need to trust a native English speaker's wording (e.g. it is no reviews but copy work we are talking here).

How about: "Requests for translations, proofreading or spellchecking of individual texts are not a good fit here."

Worked it into the new suggestion for now

Close reasons may look better having a headline as was suggested - I am happy with Copy work but have issues with General Reference.

red herring on SE as Pops already pointed out.

Apparently this close reason did not work well in the past.

somehow a dictionary-like question without concern == uncelar what you are asking.

@Takkat ELL has such a close reason right now. Also see my latest comment on Pops’ answer.

I would need to make an account on other language sites to check their close reasons.

@Takkat Headlines are nice, if you can find one. I think boldfacing the core of the reason suffices as well.

@Takkat As for copy work, I never stumbled accross the term and it does not capture what we are talking about here either (I agree that review is bad as well).

I cannot find copy work in any dictionary. This alone should be sufficient reason not to use it on our site.

@Wrzlprmft Proofreading may also work

bin kurz weg

@Takkat Proofreading does not capture bulk translation requests. Anyway, I think we can do well without a headline; just boldface proofreading, spell checking and translations of individual texts.

As a sidenote: French has a general-reference close reason. Japanese, Spanish, Chinese and Russian each have exactly our current custom close reason. Italian has no custom close reason.

Und deswegen hatte ich gerade ein +500 in meinem Supercollider.

@Takkat I just asked a native speaker and he did not know the term copy work except for having read it in some 150-years-old book

bin auch erstmal weg

@Wrzlprmft Copy work = Translation request + proofreading + spellchecking ("Oberbegriff")

in German something along the line of durchsehen, korrigieren, nachbessern all work done on a copy of a text (or image btw).

but I also did not find it in a dictionary - it may confuse users who do not speak English too well. So we need another term.

I do not think such a term exists (but we might ask on ELU)

@Wrzlprmft there are plenty of hits in Google for "copywork" or "copy work" but it indeed may confuse people.

Bolding half of the close reason gives an ugly appearance. I'd prefer a headline.

what about Editorial request?

Does not capture bulk translations.

I know... I do think Pops thought about this a long time too.

> If you have already consulted these sources and still have questions, please ...

is friendlier than

> We feel that such general references can answer your question. If they didn’t, please...

but is basically transports the same.

The first puts the focus to the user and avoids us to appear snotty (a complaint we hear quite often).

I consider the we feel part important as it conveys the possibility of error from our side

It can be perceived as being wiser than the rest of the world, which is not what we intended.

But in the context of a question closure the focus should better stay on the user side.

We should always assume that a user had consulted a reference before asking, then kindly ask for reasons why sth still was unclear.

If we put it the way you did then between the lines we also accuse the user of not having done their homework (which may well be true, but if not the user may feel misunderstood)

Ich muss leider wieder weg; ich denke später drüber nach.

@Wrzlprmft aren't translations, or reviewing translations part of an editor's work too?

@Takkat Not really. Translations are done by a translator.

@Takkat I am still not sure about this. Your suggestion does not explicitly tell the user what is problematic about the question.

@Wrzlprmft if something other than consulting a book was problematic we should comment.

I just added another proposal for the translation/proofreading close reason.

@Wrzlprmft we know that people come here and ask without research. This is an issue but on closing we should leave that open and should assume they did look things up. They should then tell us what was missing to re-open their !.

Moreover, your version also implicitly accuses the user for not doing their homework. I admit that my version does this more explicitly, but this allows for being explicit about the possibility of error on our side, we can even weaken this by writing something like we feel that such general references may answer your question.

@Wrzlprmft they will then yell at you "why don't you give me that refernce then".

The point is that we also help if somebody was unable to understand what was written there but they need to tell us what they did not understand.

If not the question will move from [on hold] to [closed] to [deleted].

@Takkat I would not see why this is better with your suggestion.

@Wrzlprmft we are talking about If you have already consulted these sources and still have questions, please ..., aren't we?

Yes

Take a look at the full close reason with your suggestion:

That was not my version. It was Pops wording which I believe is a little bit better than yours. But only a little bit. Because he is a CM, and a native English speaker I would see little need to change that.

@Takkat What was not your wording

Or better, what wordings do you want to compare?

> General reference — German SE is for questions about the usage and rules of the German language. It is not well-suited to replace dictionaries, grammar books or similar references. If you have already consulted these sources and still have questions, please edit your question to explain.

vs

> This site is about the usage and rules of the German language. It is not well-suited to replace dictionaries, grammar books or similar. We feel that such general references can answer your question. If they didn’t, please edit your question to explain what you found and why it did not help.

Pops vs Wrzlprmft

okay, not exactly what I had in mind (I wanted only to replace one sentence), but the central problem stays the same, so we can take those too

I do not see much difference between the two, but Pops version just "feels" better.

Sorry, muss nochmal weg

oh nö - dann sitz ich wieder alleine hier und muss nachher auch mal weg... ;)

Das ist das Schöne am SE Chat: man kann auch einfach mal weg. \o/

Okay, da bin ich wieder.

My problem with the first proposal is that it does not really tell you what’s wrong with the question. I am in favour of the more general approach taken by Pops’ suggestions, but at some point, you should tell people what’s wrong.

The sentence starting with we feel does exactly this.

Moreover, it conveys the following: We may misestimate your question as to whether it’s covered by a general reference or not.

And: If we are wrong, all you need to do is show us, and here is how.

@Wrzlprmft we should not close questions because "we feel" - they need to have issues beyond that. People may perceive it as "Those oh so smart high rep users have a bad feeling about me or my post again". It does in no way say what was wrong with their post too.

The issue usually is not that we believe it could be answered by looking in a dictionary, it is that we know that, and that the OP obviously did not do much research if at all. In case they give us their reason why their research failed I hope nobody will VTC even though the answer might be easy to find for us.

@Takkat What is explicitly wrong, if you so wish is that they evoke the feeling of lacking prior research. Admittedly that is very subjective but that’s what we were being anyway (see the arguments for my original suggestion). Moreover, the connection of the feeling to what is actually wrong is straightforward.

It is, and I do get it, but my concern are users who don't get it that way.

@Takkat The issue usually is not that we believe it could be answered by looking in a dictionary, it is that we know that – Actually, we never know. Usually, we are right about this, sure, but the cases where we aren’t are more important (because there is a good question waiting to be uncovered) and for these cases we openly admit the possibility of error.

@Takkat Point taken. It’s hard to say anything definite here. We should get a third opinion.

If we don't know for sure we should not vote to close.

@Wrzlprmft Yeah I do hope for much more communtiy input on this.

Then we never should. For every translation question that does not indicate prior research, the asker may have actually performed one and failed. The problem is that it’s impossible to tell, if they do not tell us about the research.

> If you have already consulted these sources and still have questions, please edit your question to explain.

If they don't then we can only give a dictionary entry as an answer == off topic.

Actually there are some really poor dictionaries around, we have to live with that.

@Takkat Did we ever encounter that problem? And if we did, if a serious dictionary actually suffered from a mistake, it might be worth putting right.

We should make clear though that Google Translate and similar are not a dictionary

Am Rande: Ich kenne bisher nur ein Wörterbuch, das nicht fälschlicherweise locksmith mit Schlosser übersetzt.

So, ich bin im Bett …