English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

6:01 AM

@tchrist Thanks. This is exactly what I thought. Well, sometimes, for word requests, I think the asker just needs to know that a certain word exists for his purpose, and the citation is not really too important.

tchrist

@JasperLoy So much for building up a useful library of expert answers then. I gues we should close those, right?

Jasper Loy

@tchrist Well, I think those that are very specific in what they ask for can be allowed, but most of them are not specific enough and leave room for guessing. They ask for what is X, but X can mean X1 or X2 or X3, and they should really ask for that, but most people in the real world do not think that precisely in real life, which is also a good thing because otherwise more people would go mad. =)

tchrist

So, too localized, right?

Not likely to ever help anybody else.

Jasper Loy

Well, what I described above I think fits more closely to not clear what you are asking, if that is still a closing option!

I am not sure what the options currently are on this site. I think they are slightly different on different sites and also change over time.

I would not close it as too localised. In fact, the nature of word requests is such that they have to be very specific.

Well, actually, I think that it can help others browsing the site. I think it can be educational.

tchrist

We can close anything for any reason we want.

Tonepoet

6:11 AM

@JasperLoy The most applicable close reason for a lack of evidence in an answer is Primarily Opinion Based. However questions should be closed on the basis of the question, and not the answers. You'd use the P.O.B. close reason if you felt the answer can't be answered according to the guidelines in Good Subjective, Bad Subjective.

Jasper Loy

I think we should not pretend that this site has the standards we expect of say professional linguists. As long as questions and answers are reasonably good, it is OK.

tchrist

I pretty much don't like these single writing requests. I wish they would go away. I will continue to tighten down the formal requirement so we can maintain site quality.

And yes, that's [sic].

Jasper Loy

For once, I think I understand your strange use of the word in the last line. I think I am getting smarter. =)

@Tonepoet Also bear in mind that rules are written by people and not God and can also change over time and be interpreted differently, just like words or laws.

Interesting fact: Do you know there is a moth named after Donald Trump? Maybe I mentioned this before...

It is so named by the discoverer of the species because it resembles his hairstyle.

Neopalpa donaldtrumpi

Neopalpa donaldtrumpi is a moth species of the genus Neopalpa occurring in Southern California and Northern Mexico. It was described in 2017 by Canadian scientist Vazrick Nazari. He chose the name because the moth's head cover reminded him of the hair of then President-elect Donald Trump. == Discovery == The genus Neopalpa, including the species Neopalpa neonata, was first described in 1998 by Dalibor Povolný. Almost two decades later, Nazari reviewed the material, including specimens that had been collected since the first description of the genus, from the Bohart Entomology Museum. He considered...

Tonepoet

@JasperLoy Rules can certainly change, but not very freely if they are to count for anything. I have no reason to believe that they have changed in regards to this matter.

Jasper Loy

@Tonepoet I would like to mention that the correct form is 'in regard to' or 'as regards' or 'regarding' or 'with regard to' and not what you have typed.

Perhaps you can see what Noah Webster said about this...

tchrist

6:21 AM

@JasperLoy Nowhere on the SE network are one-liner responses considered to be anything but low quality ones.

Tonepoet

@JasperLoy "As regards" sound strange to me.

Jasper Loy

@tchrist I see. I feel that if they actually do answer the question, it is OK. Actually Barrie England has a huge number of those. =)

tchrist

Trust me, I know because of the zillions of daily automatic low-quality flags levied on such answers by the system, kicking them into the LQRQ. Also, there's the post notice about that.

And when I say zillions, I am not hyperpolating.

Jasper Loy

Now, I don't like the automatic flags for low quality answers. I think it's like the Microsoft grammar check. =)

tchrist

The site must police itself.

And those ones get instant citations.

Jasper Loy

6:24 AM

I am surprised that John Lawler like me also thinks that tags are useless. I thought I was the only one.

It's very hard for me to think of the appropriate tag to use on a question on SE.

If people really searched by tags, they could find lots of things they don't wanna find and not find those they wanna find.

Having a super advanced search function would be the best solution, instead of using tagging to group questions.

Even personal blogs use tags these days. =)

Well, maybe those are fine if the categories are neat.

Tonepoet

As somebody who is primarily concerned with semantics, I like single word requests, but I dislike how they are treated by other users. We rarely see anything outside of adjectives being suggested for instance. I also don't think the exemplary sentence requirement makes much sense, since a good word should be applicable in a variety of contexts and it does not do much to provide us with expert level questions of the sort that are expected on E.L.U. or restrict the answers given.

I'd change the requirement to something that requires a modicum of expertise, e.g. listing the part of speech bei…

Tonepoet

6:56 AM

Also, something needs to be done if the gen. ref. guidelines in Are Some Questions Too Simple have truly been replaced by a strict research requirement. It seems like most S.W.Rs. do not provide prior research, but under the old guidelines that could be generally waived since it's not easy to research them.

SmokeDetector

8:52 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer: How to correctly name the windows on a wristwatch? by Anthony on english.stackexchange.com

terdon

11:43 AM

@Tonepoet I'd argue that the example sentence (which may or not be exemplary) is the single most important datum you can offer. Without it, I have no way of knowing if my word suggestion fits what the OP is after. Context is essential when choosing a word.

Tonepoet

11:59 AM

@terdon Hmm, it can be essential but it is it really always? I think the important thing is that a question be sufficiently descriptive. There will be times when a contextual sentence is necessary for that and times when it's not. I think the most important thing to consider is that the question could be closed as unclear if it is and one isn't provided anyway though. The absolute requirement seems a little prejudiced in that respect.

terdon

@Tonepoet I can't imagine how a word request could be sufficiently descriptive without an example sentence.

Tonepoet

12:20 PM

@terdon Hmm, well, I think asking for the name of a color doesn't really need one at least. It has one of course, but it seems largely unnecessary to me.

terdon

OK, yes, I can see how a picture could also provide enough context there. Still, 99% of all word questions do need the example sentence. And it never hurts to add one.

Tonepoet

12:43 PM

@terdon I'm not so sure about never. I can vaguely imagine a circumstance where somebody forced out a mismatched sentence that spurred the suggestion of a much too contextually sensitive word, to make the question eligible for consideration, that ended up encouraging a real world usage that made no sense. That is to mean, we have no way of verifying if the exemplary sentence is really an example, which might be related to what you mentioned before.

However with that having been stated, I can certainly say it usually won't hurt.

SmokeDetector

1:35 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in answer, few unique characters in answer: When to use "nugatory"? by John Snow on english.stackexchange.com

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…