What about subjective questions?

Question

Maybe I should have asked this in the definition phase, but better late than never.

I'm considering asking a question which requires a subjective response - something what made left the biggest impression on the readers. The intention is to get sci-fi recommendations.

Are we banning subjective questions? Seems a shame, but I would rather find out here than getting it closed.

I suggest that part of the answer depends on what kind of site you want. If you want a community, you need some latitude in subjective questions, just like meta.stackoverflow. If you want factual answers only, be aware that you may end up with Wikipedia-lite.

Answer 1

You got the word recommendation in your question, you risk getting closed for seeking recommendations. Strangely, if you question is "What books have space snails?" it isn't closed, but "What books have space snails, I'd like to read them" will get closed.

In my opinion, we don't have subjective questions in the sense of "How do I get my child to go to sleep on time?" which has several subjective answers and all or some of them might solve a problem for someone.

We got subjective questions that don't solve a problem for anyone, and it's my impression of a fictional world against yours.

I think it's worse than wikipedia-lite, it could become a wookiepedia mirror.

Answer 2

You do not need such latitude in order to build a community. This isn't another forum so you've got to stop thinking like that right away.

This is supposed to be the place you go to find definitive answers to your science-fiction questions.

If you want book or film recommendations, either ask in chat or one of the multitudes of scifi forums already out there.

If it's a question that you can ask at the watercooler and anybody can come along and answer, that's not the right kind of question. Try again.

Better quality questions on this site are those where you would find yourself travelling through snow, traversing rocky terrain and stepping over a tauntaun's corpse to ask a shaman about. One where it's not an endless parade of people chiming in with what they think.