29

Most "opinion-based" questions I come across are actually better candidates for regular Q&A, such as many of the examples in this thread. Ignoring the fact that many of them would be very low quality or straight-up duplicate Q&A posts , they are nonetheless for the most part clearly not opinion-based.

The feedback mechanisms for this kind of post are limited - There are no downvotes, close flags, or really anything I can do other than flag a post as spam or rude/abusive. I can raise a custom flag, but I'd imagine this puts unnecessary work onto moderators.

What should I do when I encounter such a post? Raise a custom flag anyways? Write a comment? Do nothing? Post each and every one in the feedback thread?

4
  • 31
    Definitely don't write a comment or interact with it, as any form of engagement is generally treated as evidence the 'experiment' is a positive influence on the network. Commented Nov 12 at 18:31
  • 1
    I've raised one flag, and it was not handled by a regular moderator, it was handled by staff. Commented Nov 12 at 19:12
  • More useful than this a bit "fake" Question where the obvious Answer is "Do nothing" would be to raise a [feature-request] to be able to convert 'Opinion-based' Questions to regular 'Q&A' ones through some simple Edit, (from the 'Question Type' DDLB), and in both directions... Commented Nov 12 at 23:56
  • @chivracq lack of curation/moderation features has already been pointed out to SO (although no guarantee they'll listen) - This question is about what the intended course of action is for now Commented Nov 13 at 15:03

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
22

I can raise a custom flag, but I'd imagine this puts unnecessary work onto moderators.

Moderators cannot do anything about it anyway. There is no way to "migrate" between question types at the moment.

These are things you can do:

  • Post a reply and suggest the question author posts as a regular Q&A.
    • Note: posting a reply will count towards the success criteria of the experiment.
  • Post a regular question yourself.
  • Nothing.

Post each and every one in the feedback thread?

You can do that but, again, nothing can be done about changing these posts.

This is not to say "do not under any circumstance post as feedback". Just setting the expectations about the effect on the posts.

However, adding the feedback is not without merit. It will document those incorrectly categorised posts. If you want to go ahead, I suggest you post one answer and update it as you find more.

There is no obligation these posts are documented, of course.

My personal approach is to do nothing.

4
  • 25
    I agree posting replies is problematic because it creates the impression of engagement numbers which is part of the success criteria of this awful experiment Commented Nov 12 at 20:05
  • 3
    @Marsroverr The very existence of "opinion-based" posts damages searchability/findability of Q&A. So deleting is pedantically better but moot since other such posts exist. Commented Nov 12 at 21:08
  • 1
    Pretty sure the fact that nothing can be done about it is on purpose, it would interfere with the test being run. It is by design that QA questions are being posted as opinion questions. That's the only way you can see how such events play out. Commented Nov 13 at 8:38
  • 1
    New users won't be able to repost as a proper question for 2 hours. See for example How the Computer Handles Interrupts where I told the OP they'd fallen into the trap of a badly designed experiment. They were willing to jump through the extra hoop, but "I can't repost for another 1.30h" (their reply has since been deleted by a mod). They never did repost after that 1.5 hours, so I just edited my reply to uncomment the answer I'd started to write before realizing this wasn't an opinion question. Not the highest value question, but still sucks. Commented Nov 13 at 16:44

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.