Why was my one-off meta received poorly?

Question

Regarding my recent meta: So, what's your story?

I'd first seen a similar question on Interpersonal Skills (IPS) and I was initially the strongest voice against having it on the site, since it was a question more about the users, and not exactly about the site. Few days later, reading the answers and similar questions on other metas, I had second thoughts. The similar metas are asked and answered by their top users and moderators, and are well-received.

I understood that those metas had a purpose, that is to engage with the users, to have them open up about the good and the bad about the site and why they keep returning to it.

ELU is sorta my home site, and I thought I could have a similar question here. But I'm told it's not a good fit for ELU. And cue the downvotes.

To avoid extended discussion in the comments under it, I've created this second meta.

• What went wrong? Why was my question received poorly?

• Can it be on-topic here as well?

• How may I improve the question?

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Related discussion on MSE; thanks to RaceYouAnytime.

Is asking for user stories off-topic on meta sites?

The general view so far expressed by moderators of other stacks is that this can be on-topic on those stacks.

I hope we can accept this question here as well. What does the community say?

Answer 1

Update:

I posted this question on Meta.SE because it seemed to me that the Help Center page being cited as evidence that the question was off-topic doesn't actually address this subject. The relevant portion is quite vague, in a way that struck me as possibly intentional.

Meta is for...

• ...English Language & Usage Stack Exchange users to communicate with each other about English Language & Usage Stack Exchange (asking questions about how the websites work, or about policies and community decisions)

In my reading, this snippet does not seem to prohibit asking questions about users' experiences on the site, nor does it explicitly condone such questions.

I didn't find a definitive conclusion in the help page, and I couldn't find anyone citing why the question was off-topic with any other justification. I expected that my question on Meta.SE would get squashed, or that my viewpoint would not be shared, but instead (at least so far), the answers on MSE seemed to be largely supportive with the widest consensus being that this is something that has to be decided by our site. That means our community can choose to allow and accept these sorts of questions, or not.

I don't want this to be a post cluttered with hand-picked quotes from the MSE page that support my opinion, but there were many interesting and relevant viewpoints shared and I would especially recommend reading Catija's answer, which includes links to relevant comments by community manager Shog9♦. I will include one of those comments where Shog9♦ seems to interpret the Help Center snippet I pasted above as meaning "whatever the community agrees is acceptable discourse."

This is the generic "What is meta" description, @Matt. Purpose #1 covers pretty much anything where y'all are talking to each other. What that means in practice is mostly up to you: if there are things you don't want to talk about, then they're off-topic. My point was simply that this was rather less controversial before the question was asked than it has become afterwards - hence encouragement to cite an actual problem rather than hand-waving at non-existent rules. – Shog9♦ Dec 30 '16 at 2:47

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I hope users here understand why I posted that question on Meta.SE: It was not my intent to raise a fuss, but rather to get some outside perspective on a vexing question. Having said all this, below is my opinion on whether the question should be on- or off-topic on EL&U Meta:

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I believe the question is on-topic for Meta because the stories it solicits are specifically about users' relevant experiences with the main site. Discussing the main site is the purpose of Meta.

It is true that Stack Exchange is not a social network, but stories about people's background with EL&U and what they value about the site are already a central part of moderator elections. During these elections, candidates essentially give a breakdown of their experiences, background, and vision for the site. In my view, the question posed by NVZ is an opportunity for ordinary users to express themselves similarly.

I think the most important point is the one mentioned in this question here:

I understood that those metas had a purpose, that is to engage with the users, to have them open up about the good and the bad about the site and why they keep returning to the site.

With that in mind, it seems like the original question has the potential to do good for the site, in that it could expose the elements of EL&U that are attractive to ardent members, which could lead to insight on how to keep the site relevant and interesting for serious users with the potential for significant contribution.

Answer 2

I didn't vote either way on the close question, but I think the question is probably on-topic for Meta, in the spirit of asking "how and why this site works the way it does." Knowing more about users' ELU-relevant background and why users use the main site ought to provide some insight into the many small individual decisions that feed into the character and foibles of the site as a whole.

That said, I'm not surprised that the question was initially closed, and I'm not particularly excited to answer it myself. Taking the last point first, I'm just one of those users who "prefers to maintain an air of mystery". I don't mind if others want to answer, though.

For why the question was received as it was:

1. You set yourself up for failure. The very first comment on your question is from you, saying that the question is probably off-topic. That's just inviting close-votes on your own question.
2. You didn't answer it yourself. Instead, you directed folks to another Meta answer of yours whose main point is that you are "disheartened" by ELU and prefer to put more of your time and energy into answering questions on a different site. That's not exactly enthusiastically inspirational.
3. You didn't (initially) focus on English language and usage. About half of the other similar questions that you mentioned are somewhat tailored to their particular main topic or site. For example: PPCG's question focuses on how the site can better fit into the SE model/system as a whole; Code Review's focuses on how to turn one-time users of the main site into repeat visitors (and why that might not be happening); Worldbuilding asks whether answerers have "any worldbuilding projects going on"; etc. Several of the questions were also asked when their respective sites were in beta, and really still trying to define themselves. Your question in its original form was fairly generic when it could have been more specific. For example, perhaps you could have asked whether folks consider themselves linguists, etymologists, and/or serious English language enthusiasts. For those who don't consider themselves any of the three, what brings them to a site for such folks?
4. You might be overestimating the popularity of these questions on other sites. MathematicsMeta has accrued the greatest number of answers of the questions linked: 29 since the question was asked in March 2014; most of the other linked questions have somewhere around 15 answers, and a couple have only five answers (including WorldBuilding's question, which was asked in April 2015). Your question has so far collected six answers in two weeks, which seems like a respectable response.

The question is reopened now, with a net positive score, so hopefully it will ultimately serve its intended purpose. I would still encourage you to go ahead and post your own answer, though, for the look of the thing if nothing else. Even if you just move the paragraph about why you're not answering, with links to other answers, out of the question and into an answer.

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Some specific suggestions:

• As mentioned above, move your penultimate paragraph to its own answer. Consider saying a few more words about yourself in relation to ELU.SE.
• Rephrase your specific questions to have something to do with either EL&U the site or EL&U the topic. In particular, "how [the site] has helped you" seems out of place. Ask about something like why people are interested in the English language, whether they mostly ask or answer or just read, where they see themselves fitting in to the official user base of "linguists, etymologists, and (serious) English language enthusiasts," etc. If your primary concern is a perceived barrier to becoming a regular user, then focus on that (and maybe link to some of the meta posts that led to your concern).
• Move your first paragraph, about all the other similar questions, later in the post. Right now you start out comparing us to other sites; let the focus of your question be THIS site. Maybe drop the bit about "blatantly stealing an idea from IPS", since you will in fact have substantially modified the question and properly attributed it.

Take all those suggestions with a grain of salt; some folks are never going to like the concept, no matter how you word the question. And of course don't make any changes that you think might invalidate any existing answers.

Answer 3

It's off-topic.

Meta is explained in the Help pages, which say

Meta provides a legitimate space for people to ask how and why this site works the way it does.

Meta is for...

• asking questions about how the websites work, or about policies and community decisions
• posting bugs, suggesting improvements, or proposing new features, and
• for Stack Exchange to solicit feedback on new ideas or features, or discussing policies that affect the whole network.

I referenced this in my comments on the other question.

This certainly is off-topic. "Stories" like this are what the profile page is for. There's nothing wrong with encouraging the use of available facilities, or with asking about how to make rage-quitting or other upsets less likely. Meta is intended for questions about the site, not about users.

Users' background and goals are not on-topic on meta. Meta is for "asking questions about how the websites work, or about policies and community decisions; posting bugs, suggesting improvements, or proposing new features; soliciting feedback on new ideas or features, or discussing policies that affect the whole network." Discussions about users don't fit.

Can you point to where it says that discussing users is on-topic?

So far, there has been no justification of how discussing users fits into the on-topic subjects which the Help lists.

This question is on-topic. It's asking whether the other one should be on-topic or not. The evidence from documentation is that it should not be.

If something is on-topic, it's on-topic; if it isn't, it isn't. If something should be on-topic, then make the case. You can do that in an answer to this question. Say how it encourages better use of the site; if it is actually on-topic, then justify that. But appealing to a "one-off" nature of the question is irrelevant: if it's off-topic but allowed then other similar questions may follow the precedent, which means it won't be one-off.

Other sites may still be formulating their own policy, particularly something like IPS which is very new. But that doesn't mean that what might be accepted there should be accepted everywhere.

Opening the door to off-topic issues, however interesting, however harmless, would take the site out of its scope. I guess there are other more suitable places on SE where this sort of personal disclosures are appreciated and welcome. [Comment by Josh]

As I commented elsewhere, there's nothing wrong with encouraging the use of available facilities, or with asking about how to make rage-quitting or other upsets less likely. That is about using the site, and encouraging best practice. Simply getting users to introduce themselves does not encourage best practice.

What you should have done was to ask whether such a question would be on-topic (or granted a derogation) before asking it. Making your case in a preliminary discussion on whether and how the question was beneficial would have saved you having to mount your rearguard action. If community consensus was that such a question would be beneficial, then there would have been enough in the discussion to allow it to be asked in such a way to steer answers to point to best practice with the site.

The issue is that you have unilaterally decided to post a question which is off-topic, however superficially attractive it might appear.

I see the question has [currently] gained two more close votes since it was re-opened. In total, it's had six close votes (including my moderator vote) and one "Recommend closure" flag, and Review yielded one "Reopen" against three "Leave Closed" votes. The "Reopen" reviewer also cast one of the five reopen votes, along with your good self and one of the answerers.

Answer 4

The question here is not whether your 'what's your story' meta question is off-topic [it has received 6 close-votes but rather more importantly 5 users think it's on-topic, because it was reopened], but literally

why is a one-off meta looked at with such negativity?

At risk of getting a lot of downvotes may I dare to completely agree with your statement @NVZ that

It is quite clear to me now that there's an air of negativity on ELU compared to other SE sites, and I understood that only when I participated on some other sites for a change.

Like you my Stack Exchange 'home site' was also ELU, but I was uneasy from the first with the overall contentiousness and argumentative atmosphere.

I originally thought ELU users are too passionate about English language and grammar, and that ELU has become a battle ground for the 'grammar wars' but later realised (after following your lead and spending parallel time on some other SE sites while maintaining some regular activity here at ELU) that it is almost in the personality of [not all but] many dedicated users of ELU to be pedantic, opinionated and argumentative, and they are not very particular to 'be nice' with it either, although their comments might not be crude, but might actually be distinguished by the most polished examples of sarcasm and irony.

We also take ourselves and the English language far too seriously here.

I think ELU attracts pedantic persons to become regular users. So naturally they care more about the letter of the rules than the spirit [Notable exception: posting answers as comments.]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pedantic

Forgive me for pointing out that you are often pedantic, @NVZ.

Also, I can be very pedantic myself over so many matters.

That is how it is. We are like this only.

And that is why your one-off meta Q asking about users and 'their story' is 'looked at with such negativity', as you say. Moreover, close-voting a lot has become so ingrained in our culture, as you should know better than anyone else yourself, and at least 5 members will not tolerate any questions that fall outside the strict definition of a clear, narrow, on-topic, non-opinion-based, well-referenced question that (on meta) is concerned only with the ELU website and its workings, or the Stack Exchange network...

Completely missing the point that the users are the network.

However, 5 members did vote to reopen it; its downvotes are balanced by upvotes leaving a net score of 0 or +1; and at least 3 members have written answers; so the response is not entirely negative.

So why you haven't got more answers, @NVZ?

It's just that ELU members hate talking about themselves, I think. The folks are certainly not similarly shy over on IPS.SE!