The Unmysterious Case of Waltzing Matilda [closed]

Question

A short time back there was a question called "I am worried about being off-topic." I answered, and I've been brooding over that answer ever since. I can't really imagine what can come of this, but now that you've finally dealt the coup de grace to my question about Waltzing Matilda, perhaps the proof will be in the pudding.

1. There seems to be an idea at the back of Stack Exchange that if we just allow people to judge all contributions, the highly-regarded answers will rise to the top and their authors can be judged the best authorities. But in Statistics, large numbers are an important distinction. And the flaw in the Stack Exchange model is that the numbers are very small. A few people read most of the posts, and threads can be closed by just a few people. Stack Exchange lacks the benefit of large numbers. It seems clear to me that the author of "I am worried" was correct: tons of interesting questions are quashed for reasons that make sense to only a very few people, including neither him nor me. It would make sense to change the rules to require a greater consensus before dropping the ax.
2. Stack Exchange routinely involves us in a kind of judgment at which people are simply not very good: judgments about the merits of other people’s reasoning and writing. A wise person hesitates before expressing the judgment that other people are confused. But the game-like nature of the Stack Exchange, the awarding of points and the (apparently) resultant competition to be the first to say something, the bickering over the propriety of saying the same thing that someone else said, etc., bring out our darker angels. Hanging judges cast about for any old reason, pointing to characteristics of almost all posts (it contains a typo, it received several answers, you didn't respond for a few hours) or offering reasons plainly counter-indicated by the rules (dialect is an offensive topic), apparently because they won't turn their backs on a gut-level reaction that a thread is no good.
3. There is no clear statement of the intended level. For example, I understand only a very small portion of what happens on the math stack. There’s nothing wrong in setting aside a forum for sophisticated people. But I’m a math teacher, and I imagine that less than a couple percent of Americans are much more sophisticated than I am mathematically; is it really the intention that I (and so, presumably, the great majority of the people in the country) cannot post there? When I try to post to the math stack, I’m asked to clarify a given question again and again and again; or I receive incomprehensible or curt responses or no response at all.
4. There is no business-like response to bad behavior. Businesses have to respond to customers in the spirit of endearing them, not alienating them. If Stack Exchange were a business whose traffic were its customers, it would not issue these curt, cold "drop dead" letters. It would have a policy of closing far fewer threads, and only for much more clearly defined reasons. If a post were more appropriate to the English Language Learners, for example, the response would go like this: "Unfortunately this is outside of our competence. We feel comfortable answering questions about English in general, but if you're learning the language we're afraid we couldn't do a very good job responding. But we could post your question to that forum. Would you like us to do that?" That would not give the unpleasant (and ridiculous) implication that your rejection of a question reflected an important flaw in the question.

I'm just saying.

-Chaim

Answer 1

It sounds like you're asking for two things.

1. A requirement for more close votes before a question is closed.
2. A change in wording for questions deemed off-topic but which are on-topic on ELL.

(your other two points might be debatable: that we don't clearly indicate the scope of the site, and that people rush to close questions in order to score points, using any old justification - Aside from noting that there are no points for closing, I won't address these two concerns).

First, requiring more close votes. It's possible that requiring more close votes would prevent questions from being undeservedly closed. But the problem with small numbers strikes again here: relatively few users have enough reputation to be able to cast close votes. Making the number too high will make all questions uncloseable. It's possible there is some tweaking to be made, but I don't feel it would have the effect you think it would have, unless you are basically objecting to closing any questions.

Second, it's definitely possible to change the wording of the close reasons. The wording as it currently stands is already a softened tone from what the site used to have. Now it says something like

put on hold as off-topic by user1, user2, user3, user4, user5 44 mins ago

This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:

• "Please include the research you've done, or consider if your question suits our English Language Learners site better. Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references are off-topic." – user1, user2, user3, user4, user5

If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.

Frankly, the message is pretty business-like and straight-forward. It tells you that this question was deemed in its current form to be off-topic. It tells you why it was judged as off-topic and what you need to do to fix it: either include the research you've already done, or post it on ELL. It tells you not to bother asking us for dictionary definitions, because one of our stated goals is to not be a giant slow proxy for people looking stuff up. Finally, it tells you that you can edit the question to get it reopened.

If the question is edited, it shows up in the review queues, which will allow it to be re-opened.

Is this perfect usability? Probably not. There appear to be two problems:

1. Users don't read the message at all. <- I'm not sure what we can do to help these users.
2. Users read it but don't notice that the "edit the question" is a link that leads them to the editing. I think it would make sense to make the edit feature stand out more, especially for the question author. I've heard people complain that once the question was closed they couldn't find a way to do anything with it. But given that many users don't even read the notice at all, improving its wording won't help much.

Answer 2

The title question is "Why is Waltzing Matilda so rich with distinctively Australian words?"

This is unanswerable definitively because it's just idle speculation. Easily closable here.

The body explicitly asks a number of questions:

• "Was it deliberately written with a lot of Australianisms?"

  Again, asking for idle speculation.

• "Or does the use of a lot of Australianisms reflect something about social class, the way Cockney English would?"

  This might be a good question about sociolinguistics, what the preceived class of Australianisms is. I think the answer is they are considered a little lower class but not as bad as Cockney.

• Do Australians think it's funny because of this quality?

  'Funny' is fairly opinion-based which is considered off-topic.

• "The question is really whether that manner of speaking is artificial or natural...My question is whether anyone ever naturally phrases his thoughts the way the singer does."

  Interpretation of song lyrics is considered off topic because it is so opinion based. But it is nothing special about English to realize that song lyrics/poetry in general are not natural no matter what. But the vocabulary? Sure, some of that vocab is still 'correct'; for example, a lake formed by a cutoff river loop is still called a billabong. Is that what you want to know for each of the 'peculiar' vocab items?

  If so, then maybe you could reword your explicit question.

Answer 3

Is Waltzing Matilda comprehensible outside of Australia? In Australia?

The question as it now stands is answerable. Please reopen the question.

It now shows research, but it never asked for the meaning of the lyrics, users can verify it for themselves.

Perhaps only an Australian etymologist or lexicographer can provide a satisfying answer, but on EL&U we have users who have answered questions on different English dialects from their own.

If it counts for anything, I believe the question is interesting for experts and useful for future visitors.

ADDENDUM

I would also argue that technically speaking, the question was not closed by the community. Two users voted to close it but the third, and decisive, vote was cast by a mod, whose decision was probably misled by the title of the question.