7

As is common on many SE sites, I see opinion-oriented questions that are off-topic. This is an example of one, here, I think.

Whereas I think questions like this ask for an answer that demonstrates a design trade-off solution. In this latter case, there are specific criteria that can be used to argue beyond opinion.

Are we more-tolerant of opinion questions here, or do we keep to the non-opinion flow of StackOverflow, etc? Where is the line for us?

3 Answers 3

5

I'm heavily in favour of steering opinion questions toward becoming design-tradeoff questions. The latter are much more objectively answerable, and also help us to avoid a lot of potential "opinion wars".

4

"Best" questions, such as "Which is the best...?", or "Is it better to...?" ought to be restated, through a process of a well worded comment and then an edit by the Original Poster.

More descriptive, precise adjectives should be used, instead. For example, "Which is the fastest...?" or "Is it simpler to...?" These are less a matter of opinion and steer the discussion towards an objective conclusion.

2

Questions become more valuable when they are edited to focus on an explanation.

From

Is A better than B?

you could for example make

How would you chose between A and B for ? Why?

The former invites opinions and tends to produce low-quality answers. The latter invites explanation and expert opinion.

There is a pretty encompassing blog post on this subject:
Good Subjective, Bad Subjective

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