How should we solve the contradiction of having a help page saying resource requests are off-topic and a tag for resource questions?

Question

Update:

I have decided to reopen this discussion because there has been some debate about the fact if certain questions asking for resources are or not suitable for this site in the comments to this question. It seems to me that it's a good opportunity to discuss this in more detail and this Meta site is the right place to do it.

In addition to this, we have recently closed with the votes of 5 users some questions asking for resources that have been open for years, such as, for instance, this one.

As a community, if we decide to allow for some questions asking for resources, I believe we should make an effort to define in a more clear way which kind of questions are suitable to the site and change the contents of our on-topic page, so we should decide how.

If we decide that some or all the resources requests are off-topic, we should change something in the description of the resources tag and do something with the questions that are or will potentially be under this tag.

Anyway, it's clear that we are giving contradictory information because, at present, we have a help page saying resource requests are off-topic and, at the same time, a tag for questions about resources related to Italian language, so we should solve this contradiction in some way.

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As it is now, our on-topic page states that requests for resources are out of the scope for this site, so that one shouldn't ask any questions about this. Nevertheless:

• We have a tag called resources with this tag wiki: "For questions asking about resources related to Italian language."
• Some questions requesting for resources have been asked in the past.
• Other Stack Exchange sites about languages allow for some requests for resources. Update: I've checked it: all language-related SE sites have at least one "resources" tag (sometimes they have more than one), except English Language Learners (I'm not sure about Russian Language in Russian). Even if ELL doesn't have such tag, they seem to admit certain resource requests. See, for instance, this question.

For these reasons I would like to ask to our community: should we define which questions asking for resources are on-topic and which ones are not? Should we simply remove "requests for resources" from the list of topics that are out of the scope of this site? What do you think about this?

Other Stack Exchange sites about languages have had this kind of discussion (see, for instance, https://french.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/127/are-resources-for-learning-french-on-topic-les-demandes-de-ressources-pour-lap#). They have arrived to the conclusion that some requests for resources should be allowed, but they have tried to define a policy on this kind of questions.

Answer 1

First of all, I think we should keep working on our list of useful resources. Everything that is covered in that list would be essentially off-topic (for example, questions asking for a dictionary, verb conjugation tables, or a pronunciation guide).

Secondly, I'd suggest to close as off-topic questions asking for advice, such as "Help me to choose a textbook," "What is the best online system to learn Italian?," "How do I start learning Italian?" and the like. There are three reasons for that:
- the answers to such questions would be highly subjective,
- the answers to such questions age very fast (because more tools and textbooks appear every year),
- the questions themselves are subjective, because the choice of the right tool - especially a studying tool - might depend on the OP's goals, intended use (tourist vs. professional), native language and proficiency in other languages, available time and schedule intensity, and many other factors that we couldn't possibly account for.
For the same reasons, I would consider off-topic questions, critiquing or favouring a textbook or a tool, such as this one. (Examples from ELU 1, 2 - note the comments from moderators). So, let's include a couple of titles of good, uncontroversial, and comprehensive Italian textbooks in the list of resources as "one-size-fits-all" and that's it.

Thirdly, several questions tagged "resources" ask about reading sources - old or contemporary texts in Italian. I think, these are valid questions, or better, they WERE valid questions. We should incorporate answers from those questions into the list of recommended readings - again, one community-supported list here on Meta, and we could close such questions as off-topic later on.

Finally, we should consider closing questions if we think they are off-topic, even if these questions are old or have got some good answers. Here's what the ELU moderators write to such questions:

Mod note: This question exists because it has historical significance, but it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site, so please do not use it as evidence that you can ask similar questions here. Ordinarily, we would lock such a question; however, because allowing the answers to be edited and voted on greatly enhances its value, we have chosen not to do so. Please do not vote to reopen or delete this question; such actions will be reversed.

So, we would preserve such questions for their answers, but we should close them to avoid getting other off-topic questions in the future.

Answer 2

This first part of the answer was written a lot time ago. I've now rephrased it in a more detailed way below:

I agree with some of the points of @I.M. answer, but, in my opinion, a link to our list of useful resources should appear in our on-topic page in the section "What topics can I ask about here?". I think that, instead of saying that requests for resources are off-topic, we should write something like "if you are looking for resources related to Italian language, please check if you can find them in our list of useful online resources before asking a question". One reason is that it may be some requests for resources that at that moment are not included in our list. For instance, have a look at this question on German.SE (maybe this is not a good example of on-topic resource request question and we could look for a better example, but it seems that it has been considered on-topic on German.SE). One could ask for something similar on Italian.SE, namely, podcasts with colloquial Italian, but we don't have anything like this in our list of useful resources. Another reason is that, in principle, this is a list of resources available online, so that it doesn't include other kind of resources such as books.

I agree that questions asking for advice, such as "what is the best tool for..." or "which is the best way to..." should be closed as off-topic for the reasons explained by @I.M. But maybe what we should do is to encourage users to write questions asking for resources in such a way that:

• the question is as objective as possible and the possible answers are not opinion-based;
• the question specify the purpose of the requested resources so that it isn't too broad.

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Update:

The above answer was written a long time ago, so I will try to add some new thoughts about the argument.

I agree with what is said by @DenisNardin in a comment that this Meta site is not the place to host questions asking for resources. Other SE sites about languages have questions about resources on the main site.

If we decide as a community that some old or new questions asking for resources should be closed, what I think should be done would be that some "regular" (that is, non moderators) vote to close that questions. As a moderator, if I vote to close a question, it automatically gets closed: I personally don't feel comfortable with this kind of questions being closed with the votes of only one or two users of the site.

In my opinion, most questions asking for resources would be off-topic because they would be opinion-based or subjective questions where every answer is equally valid. But I think we should allow some of them if they fit the criteria I will try to explain (and that maybe should be reworded), as every language-related SE site does (basically, questions asking for something very specific, which not give rise to opinion-based answers or to potentially long lists in which every answer is equally valid). It seems too drastic to me being the only language-related site in which absolutely all resource requests are off-topic.

And, yes, I know it is impossible to write a "perfect receipe" so that applying it you will get to know if certain resource requests are or not on-topic. But, for this reason, the closing votes of the community are important to decide what to do in such cases.

Some ideas to modify our help page What topics can I ask about here?:

• Remove "Requests for resources" from the list "please, don’t ask any questions about the following topics [...]".

• Add a new section with the title "Can I ask for resources?" to explain to which extent requests for resources are on-topic. The contents may more or less be something like this (I took some ideas from the Chinese SE on-topic help page. All this can be reworded, of course):

The short answer is: in principle no, but it depends.

Subjective questions (asking for opinions, polls or, in general, "list" questions where every answer is equally valid) are off-topic on the main Stack Exchange sites because they do not fit the Q&A format. You may notice there are already some resource questions collected under the resources tag, but we are in process of closing most of these questions, as they don't fit the Stack Exchange format. In any case, we have set up on our Meta site a question about useful resources on Italian available online. You're free to add more material to it.

So if you do ask for some resources that are not included in one of the sections of the above mentioned Meta question, be very careful how you phrase your question. Open-ended, chatty questions are explicitly discouraged on the Stack Exchange network. As the "Real Questions Have Answers" post states

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

We're not saying that you should never ask for resources, but when you do, you should ask for something as specific as possible. Avoid vague or subjective questions like "What are some good books I can read to improve my Italian?" as they are going to be closed.

If you do have a chatty, open-ended question, visit our chat room. _{(I'm not sure if we can say this if no one or almost no one visits this chat room)}

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For instance, do you think that these questions, question 1, question 2 and question 3, would fit these criteria so as to be considered on-topic on our site?

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Idea of something to be added to the tag description or wiki of our resources tag:

Please, see this help page for details of which requests for resources are on-topic for this site.

We can even add

Resource questions are likely to be closed

to this description if you think this would be useful to users.

Answer 3

In my opinion, there is no doubt about this kind of questions being out of place here. As mentioned, in one of our help pages, it explicitly says:

But please, don’t ask any questions about the following topics. They are out of scope for this site.
[...]
"How to improve my Italian?" or "What's a good tool for...?" (this is not constructive anyway)
[...]
Requests for resources

And this rules out general questions about all kind of resources, books, methods, suggestions, schools to learn Italian. The fact that we have a tag for it, or that in the past such questions have been admitted, doesn't make it right to continue doing so. [Personally, I'd keep them for reference, but having closed and provided them with clear info that they are presently considered to be off-topic.]

These and other opinion-based questions may well be quite useful and interesting in themselves, and worthy to be pursued in other kinds of websites. However, “The best questions are those that have specific answers; Italian Language Stack Exchange is not a general discussion forum”, while suggestions about resources and books are an all-too fertile ground for opinions and discussions.

Just to make an example, the answer to the question mentioned in this question transcribes a list of books suggested by a language school. There is at least one of those books, and possibly some other ones, that I'd strongly advise against, should I mention them to someone learning Italian. Moreover, that list mixes recent masterworks of Italian literature and far more commercial, not to say lowbrow, novels. Of course, it's perfectly ok to read both kinds of books, but each would deserve some kind of introduction to someone not knowing them; but, then again, this would be perfectly subjective and the next user would likely have a completely different take on them.

Answer 4

Please, downvote this answer if you don't agree, upvote it if you agree. It's important to me to know it: if we don't agree with that idea (which is something perfectly OK to me, but I need your downvotes to know it), I think it's wasting our time trying to write detailed proposals.

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I've decided to add this other answer because I've seen a great diversity of opinions on the issue. When I raised this question four and a half years ago, the result was some answers with some proposals, but every answer received few votes, so finally we did nothing about it. I fear this time there will be more answers, each of them with a small amount of total voting score, so at the end of the day the result would be that we will have to live with this contradiction for, let's say, five more years.

I write this answer to see if at least we agree on this:

At present, we have the contradiction I have explained in the question, as a result we are giving confusing, incoherent information to some new users (for instance, the one who posed the question I linked in the question) and we should do something to solve it.

Answer 5

Here is another proposal, or better a meta-proposal.

I trust the moderators: they are all long-time users of this website, very knowledgeable on both the topics covered here and the workings of the SE sites. If they were to decide to take things in their hands, consider the opinions expressed here and elsewhere, find a consensus among them (possibly also consulting other SE people? I don't know how this kind of decisions work) and present it as the new rules for Italian Language, I'd be ready to accept them, no matter how close or distant to my own opinions they are.

I hope and suppose most other habitués would too, while the occasional visitors of the site will find the new rules already in place.

Answer 6

I agree that the list of resources should have the maximum visibility, I also agree that there is no harm in asking for resources and suggested books, but maybe there should be a cut-off line drawn somewhere or you would have to accept every single request, even the ones that could be resolved with 5 minutes of search. Take this question as example Where does one find pronunciation, spelling, and phonetic rules in English for Italian? , a search would pull up a lot of resources very quickly and in the language requested. If we say "yes but we are asked for resources in English, and they arent in the list so its acceptable" then you would open the door as requests in any language as I don't see why somebody that doesn't speak English shouldn't have the right to ask for the same in their own languages. After all that same question could be written asking for more specific orthography explanations rather than a simple list of links, it would show some effort. I don't have anything against people asking for these kind of questions, let me be clear, but there are other questions on hold because of the ease of googling for the answer and I don't think it's fair to apply that to some and not others. Whatever the decision the community wants to take its fine, but should be the same for everybody.