9

Questions on EL&U frequently lack context in one form or other, whether to understand the intent of the question or to narrow the scope of answers sought. To counter this, we often refer users to rules and checklists, but it can help a lot to see good examples of what we have in mind. A good example is the recently-updated tag.

The tag doesn't provide any examples. I'd like propose the following question for that tag as a model question that we can refer users to:

Term for being unable to see glaring errors after working for some time on a task?

Here are some reasons why it's a good question:

  • the title clearly and concisely frames the question;
  • there is good background information to understand the motivation of the question;
  • research has been demonstrated;
  • it notes several discarded options, together with why they weren't a good fit; and
  • it provides a reasonable level of guidance on the qualities of an ideal answer.

I can just edit the tag myself, but I'm asking this meta question for two reasons. I wanted to highlight the question above - it deserved more than just a +1. I also wanted to seek consensus before effectively laying down the standard and model for the tag.

The question fits the OP's tag, but it could be a model answer more broadly. Perhaps it would be appropriate to link to the question on the How do I write a good answer? page as well. That page also has a lot of instructions and no examples.

Does the cited question sufficiently embody everything that EL&U wants in a question that it deserves a place as a canonical or model question on the help and/or tag information pages?

6
  • 3
    I like this question a lot, and upvoted and favorited it; my only reservation is that it Is long to use as an exemplar.
    – ab2
    Oct 12, 2017 at 1:51
  • 1
    I also like this question, although I too find it a little long. It's really interesting. But isn't it close to writing help, a little broader (but not much) than the awful SWRs? A decent answer would depend on understanding the mental phenomenon, not the English language, and finding something in the literature of the psychology of intensive task work that might lead to a phrase. Is it really broadly applicable? So far it's produced nothing remarkable.
    – Xanne
    Oct 12, 2017 at 7:47
  • @Xanne Perhaps you're right about the broader application. Within the -requests family of questions, though, it contains so much of what we often ask for, almost as a reflex. It would be good to 'show' as well as 'tell' by linking to it from the tag info. As for the acceptability of -requests questions, that debate comes up regularly, but I think the consensus is that they are a bit of fun and on topic or at least tolerated, given sufficient context and answer-acceptance criteria etc. ...
    – Lawrence
    Oct 12, 2017 at 8:07
  • ... On the content of the linked question, that's a little subjective. Even if the existing answers may not be particularly exciting, the phenomenon described pops up in many contexts and so would be familiar to many. It looks like it should have a label - a common label, not something made up on the spot. That's the core of a good SWR.
    – Lawrence
    Oct 12, 2017 at 8:07
  • @Lawrence I think this matter requires us to know just what the difference between translation and phrase-request is. Since this mentions a foreign phrase, it seems more like an example of the former than the latter, and for some reason translation questions seem better received here. Actually, I'm somewhat curious if translation is a meta-tag, because the differences seem to mostly regard motivation and best practices.
    – Tonepoet
    Oct 13, 2017 at 12:55
  • @Tonepoet Good point, though I think the phrase-request tag could do with some good examples. I wouldn't mind having this example listed on the translation tag as well.
    – Lawrence
    Oct 13, 2017 at 13:17

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

Following a +6/-1 vote on this meta, I've updated the tag info page with the specified sample question, closely following the introduction of the parallel section on the tag info page.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .