What sort of resource request questions do we accept on meta?

Question

We often migrate resource request questions to meta, and there's no denying that some resources are very useful to the users of this community.

Here's my attempt at broadly categorising these requests:

1. For resources that help the community in doing research for better questions and answers.
2. For resources that help only the OP and are probably useless to others.

I'd like to see us reach a community consensus. Please express your opinions in an answer. I'm writing one myself, and expect your votes on that answer to show your approval or disapproval.

Answer 1

Requests for resources that help the community in doing research for better questions and answers should be on-topic on ELU meta.

This actually goes against our established SE policy that meta should be for questions about the main site, but let's make an exception here. We have a user base that are experts in the language, and who else would know about these resources, if not us? If these resources help the main site have better questions and answers, I am all for it.

I mean, we have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

I do not see this as anything other than a win/win situation. We learn about new resources; the questioner gets what they wanted; our list of resources stays maintained; the main website remains free of clutter.

Moreover, I see no harm done: Resource requests only ever come by very rarely so migrating these questions to meta and answering them here poses no major problems, and only regular visitors of the website read meta, so the tolerances can be much higher here. It seems especially harmless because reputation is not earned on meta, meaning that the behavior is not incentivized.

However, A Certain Course of Action Should be Kept in Mind:

We should refrain from telling people on the main site that these requests are answered here. Regular members of the website should know better than that. First, we should see if our existing list of resources already covers it first.

If it does, just close the question on main, and just guide the questioner to our list instead. It should only be migrated if we do not have an existing category in the thread for the resource request for us to help establish a list of resources for consideration.

Whatever then happens to OP’s question after we are done compiling the resources is unimportant. Keep it, close it, delete it, send it to heck, send it into a black hole, erase it from existence and replace its empty husk of a shell with a torch for all I care. Its already fulfilled its purpose by that point.

Answer 2

As a known lexicophile, a lover of lexicons, I do hate to be a party pooper since learning about new resources is actually of interest to me, but staff decisions override any community decisions and most other forms of authority, so this really must be mentioned. A while ago in chat a link was provided to this post on Meta-S.E. by Robert Cartaino, who is the Director of Community Development for Stack Exchange. The most relevant portion of the post is this:

_{administrative note:}

I'm seeing these list-of-resource questions being posted in meta as a way to somehow allow questions that would otherwise not be allowed on the main site. Meta is meant to provide support for the operation of this site and we cannot let it morph into an alternative type of subject Q&A.

This is obviously predicated on the fact that everything that is not directly related to website policies, or the S.E. software, as defined in the help center is off-topic:

Strictly speaking, this edict was only mentioned on Latin S.E's. website, so perhaps it can be interpreted as only being a binding ruling on their website, but the message comes with the strong implication of applying to the entire S.E. network. If it is binding on the whole of S.E., the corollary effect is that since we locally banned them on the main site, most resource topics may not be posted anywhere on English Language & Usage with the existing policies, including the Meta website.

I am not exactly sure how broad Robert meant to be with this edict, but it seems to me that we simply can't have these topics on meta, unless maybe we have some sort of excuse that gives it a relationship with English Language & Usage's policy or software.

Our most popular resource topic on meta is probably safe presumably being used to help define what kind of "commonly available resources" are off-topic in this custom close 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.

If that is really the case, I have some objections to some of the resources listed there as being "commonly available", since they aren't available anywhere online, but that is besides the point. The point is to note that the question itself is somehow related to one of our policies, so maybe it is permitted. [Sidebar: I say "maybe" because I am not exactly sure if he meant that to serve as a qualifier, or if the the broader context of the Latin S.E. subject makes it a general prohibition against all such topics. We should probably seek guidance on that matter.]

Otherwise we must stop making resource request questions on meta, or migrating them to it because it has a reserved purpose that they do not fulfill.

However, I would also like to mention that we are not currently stuck without an alternative. With all of the options presently available to us, it is worth note that there is a relatively new Language Learning website which expressly allows for resource requests in its help center at this present point in time.. Keeping in mind the standing restrictions we have here, I would propose we asking such questions there in the future, using their resource request tag, as well as redirecting newbies who ask them here to that website.

Otherwise, instead of writing new resource-requests questions on meta, I propose we add new subjects as needed to the existing list. This has three benefits:

1. Everything is centralized, so if it is deemed off topic, it is easier to dispose of one thread, rather than many, preferably with a historical lock.

2. Everything is centralized, so it is easier to locate. Using the share link under the individual answers which categorize topics can be used to direct people to more specific resources, and linking to the thread generally exposes them to other resources they might find available.

3. Last but not least, it is arguably related to policy, and arguably allowed.