Closing Questions That Raise Issues You Disagree With

Question

Sometimes questions arise in which the poster asks something like "How best to do X" when many people disagree that X should be done at all.

Two recent examples come to mind. In one, the OP asked what kind of firearm to start his children on. Some of the commenters indicated a desire to close the question because they didn't think children should use firearms at all. In another, the poster asked when corporal punishment was appropriate and the commenters wanted to close the question because they felt that striking a child is never appropriate.

Should we vote to close questions like these?

On the one hand, I understand the desire to close questions like these. I also agree that striking a child is never appropriate, and that maybe the best gun for a child is no gun at all.

But on the other hand these are just my opinions, and my opinion is no more or less valid than anybody else's; including those of the OP who wants to know which gun to choose. Closing questions that ask which gun to choose, simply because we don't think any gun is appropriate, sounds like a slippery slope leading to censorship to me.

There is also a question raised in the gun thread about whether or not the question should be closed for the same reason a question like "which soccer ball should I buy my child" should be closed: because it's not strictly about parenting but about soccer. I won't go as far as saying this reasoning sounds disingenuous, but it does smack of loophole-searching to me. After all, there are other questions like this one that are completely non-controversial, but also have nothing to do with parenting. Should we not discuss which stroller to buy?

None of the issues raised by the above posts are strictly about parenting (like this one might be), but they are concerns that parents might have.

I propose that we not vote to close these questions as being off-topic unless they truly are off-topic. If you think that the best gun for a child is no gun at all, you can express that by posting an answer of your own to the question. But the question is a valid one.

After all, closing the question that asks "which gun should I buy" isn't going to convince the OP or anyone else that the best gun is no gun at all. It will only result in those parents who do want to buy a gun having fewer resources at their disposal in making an informed choice.

Answer 1

I propose that we not vote to close these questions as being off-topic unless they truly are off-topic. Closing a question simply because you disagree with the premise is censorship. If we close these questions, we tell the world, "We won't discuss controversial issues."

Answer 2

First off... As a general rule, if someone's asking how to do something, you should try to answer that question. If you don't know, move on - wait for someone else to answer it. If you absolutely believe that it should never be done, you can provide that as an answer... IF, and only if, you can back it up.

Please note that opinions shared here should be backed up either with a reference, or experiences that happened to you personally. -- the site faq

Answers that boil down to "I'm personally opposed to [guns|spanking|meat|religion|football|television], therefore you should avoid it" aren't helpful to anyone. I strongly encourage you to down-vote these if you see them - even flag them for a moderator if they're attracting too much attention...

Regarding your examples

This is a great question^*. I found the accepted answer interesting and informative - and I'm neither a parent nor a gun enthusiast!

...But it's not a great topic for this site. While questions of whether or not to keep guns around... and if so, how to keep your children away from them are something that can and should be addressed by a community of parents/caregivers, the relative merits of different guns and the procedures for training are not. Once you're serious about finding an answer to those questions, you want an answer composed and reviewed by experts in the subject matter - and the goal of Stack Exchange is to provide you with a site where those experts will be found, not a catch-all site where you might be lucky enough to have one show up. I strongly recommend you and anyone else interested in this subject to commit to the Firearms proposal on Area51.

Why is a question on choosing a "first gun" inappropriate while "first stroller" is allowed? Because a stroller is fundamentally a tool for parents. Questions on choosing diapers, bottles, etc. would also be fine. If, for some reason, you were looking to buy a stroller for hauling mulch, then yeah, that would also be off topic (but, commit to the gardening proposal...)

^{*_{HedgeMage points out that the gun question may actually have been asking for specific model recommendations - in other words, a shopping question. These are generally considered off-topic on all SE sites, as the market for most items changes too quickly for them to be kept up-to-date.}}

Now, this question is most certainly on-topic... But, as was made clear in the reason for closing, it is very subjective and argumentative. Focused, well-researched Q&A regarding discipline is extremely important, but instead we got posturing and bickering. I'm sorry, but that doesn't help anyone - if you were unaware that "striking your child" is a controversial and polarizing notion, there are plenty of forums ready to enlighten you.

Conclusion

Don't think about this as "censorship". The goal here is to build a place where we can exchange information on a reasonably specific subject: raising children. So naturally there are a tremendous number of possible questions that either don't result in useful information, or simply aren't specific to that subject. Those questions will be removed. Perhaps they'll find a home somewhere else in the network, perhaps they won't... But when you have a question on parenting, you'll know you can come here and find an answer to it.

Answer 3

Closing questions should be avoided unless it is truly off-topic. This is a community site, not your own site, so closing a topic because you personally disagree with it is harming the community. In effect it is saying that the site should not allow topics that one or five people disagree with.

I have little problem with people down voting my answer or answering my question saying they completely disagree with me, but closing or deleting my questions and answers because you disagree would make me leave the site instantly.

Keep it community oriented and not "me" oriented. Let questions stay if they can benefit at least someone in the community. This will make a safe environment where everyone, including you, feel safe to post any question, even if you know it can be controversial.

Answer 4

In the gun case case I flagged it as off topic, because honestly, what gun to buy your 6yo kid is not only a crazy question, but I'd say it is also off-topic.

Update: As per a comment below: Asking if you should buy an UEFA or a FIFA football for your kid (or maybe even one of the IFAF handeggs) is also off topic. Note that the related question about gun Safety is not closed, and I don't think it should be closed. It's not off topic.

The question on physical punishment only has one close vote, and I don't think it should be closed. The question assumes that it is OK to strike your child in some instances, and that makes it a bad question, but not off topic.

Update: it's been closed by a moderator now, as subjective and argumentative, which may be true, see my updated answer.

Answer 5

You have to have, what, 5 votes to close? If 5 people think it's sufficiently off topic to use one of their few flags for it, I'm not too worried about it being off topic. Until we start seeing a rash of excessive closes at least.

I think at this point we've only seen a couple questions actually get closed by community vote, the only controversial one of them was re-opened almost immediately by mods. (that I've seen, I might have missed some if they came and went all in a couple hours.)

At least one of those questions I think suffers from some language differences... I'm in the camp that never read the spanking question as anything but spanking... I don't think the original asker in any way suggested the abusive definition of "striking" that most folks associate with that word, but only paddling/spanking. (maybe I'm naïve, but that's how I read the question.)

I actually think that's a more prevalent problem on parenting-SE than on other stacks, simply because parenting is so emotional and folks tend to read the worst into things when there are language/terminology confusions. When those kind of things happen on other stacks, like diy.SE we have a good laugh, explain what was meant and every one moves on.

Answer 6

How about closing questions that are clearly trolls purely because they're hot-button political topics that invariably lead to flame-wars? Is this site about divisive politics, or is it about parenting?

Answer 7

I understand your argument that closing because of disagreement is a sort of censorship.

Ordinarily, I'd agree with you that closing questions that are borderline-maybe-not-offtopic-but-unpopular would be wrong. But consider that we're in a beta period right now, and it's in our interest to attract more participants. I think highly controversial topics are not helpful in that. Like peeing in the pants in winter, it might bring quick help (warmth; a flurry of questions and answers) but it soon turns against us (wet; over-representation of a topic that's not central to the site's goal). I think the gun issue is one of the most controversial topics that we can find. As such, it's probably not the best beta contribution. I can think of a few more, but I don't want to inspire more controversy.

In this perspective, a certain amount of "censorship" might be valid for now to make sure we're not losing/scaring away potential users.

Sidenote:
In the Stack Exchange system that promotes a very clear differentiation between right and wrong, we're collectively not sure how to deal with these subjective topics. We need to find a way to navigate this unfamiliar situation, which is why we don't always agree on the proper reaction to some of the contributions. In that, I think the discussions around these situations have been remarkably civilised.