Does rhetoric fall under EL&U

Question

Due to organic nature of SE sites, both in their genesis and usage, there are and there will always be cases where there are sites that overlap in their subjects.

Classical example are all of older sites - stackoverflow, serverfault, superuser and their offspring e.g. drupal. In these cases it is fairly simple to determine where does a question really belong - the subjects are well delineated (though borderline cases can still occur).

Looking at EL&U the relatives are: literature (will soon become beta) and writers (active). These sometimes overlap in their subjects and will probably continue to do so in a way that is different from stackoverflow and superuser.

This raises two questions, one general and the other specific to this question:

1. What should be the attitude towards ambiguous questions? Should such questions be left to see if they get good answers or immediately referred to other site?

2. The question I referred to is one of questions tagged with a tag rhetoric. The problem is that although rhetoric deals with effective use of language in general, the names of figures (see the right pane here) are mostly known from analysis of literature (poetry and prose) and are perceived as specific for those subjects.

I am biased towards keeping rhetorics in EL&U, though have no objections to take it wherever it belongs - the primary goal here is to lower the discussion noise by making the rules easier to follow.

Answer 1

I am not actually seeing what the problem is here. Why would the linked question get sent to Writers? These are the questions I can see about rhetoric:

• What is [form or type of rhetoric]?

• What does rhetoric mean?

• What rhetorical technique is used [in sentence]?

I see all of those forms as on-topic. The linked example appears to be like the last.

These types of questions are all on-topic for other styles of technique:

• What is [type of fallacy]?

• What fallacy is being committed [in sentence]?

And, really, the heart of the question is a classification of sentences instead of words. Sentences are still on-topic here at EL&U:

• What is a run-on sentence?

• What does this sentence mean?

And so on.

Answer 2

I don't think we should be too strict in our interpretation of what does or doesn't constitute a proper question for EL&U. We run the risk of reducing our now thriving site to an empty, forbidding place full of frowning pedants whose main concern appears to the outside world to be which questions are worthy of our attention (the elect) and which questions should be cast into perdition (i.e. Writers.SE).

Rhetoric is a part of the English language, and it is also a part of writing. There is virtually nothing (save perhaps pronunciation) that falls under the topic of English that cannot also fall under the topic of writing, and vice versa. If a question is asked in such a way that it appears to be asking for instruction in how to write, I say send it to Writers.SE. But if it is merely asking how a rhetorical figure means something in English, I say we should deal with that here.

Again, much of our success may be attributed to our eclecticism. And I don't think we should try too hard to find a verbal monoculture that suits a chosen few.

Answer 3

Well, you already know my opinion. If I'm allowed to rephrase a bit, if there is a better site for a question, it should go there. If some sites are more generic than others (like stackoverflow and superuser you mentioned) then the less generic one should be prioritized. In our argument the question was, in my opinion, about a literature. Although it may be proper for EL&U, there is a better site to ask it, thus I agreed with Alenanno's comment, that writers is more fit for it (I'm sorry I used stronger word "wrong forum").