How about allowing people to post entire compositions?

Question

Comparing to stackoverflow or superuser, this site has much less questions, maybe allowing people to post their compositions here to ask for comments? Although word and many spell checkers could fix basic grammar mistakes, non-native English speakers often lack the ability to write natural English sentences because they often could choose the appropriate words and they don't know how to make some variations of the style of sentences.

It might help many people.

You may object that a composition is too long and users won't like to spend too much time on reading question. However, people who ask for help would learn to post short composition after a while after their learned that prolix questions are unlikely to be answered.

I hope I've made myself clear. Thanks!

Answer 1

I think this suggestion will be politely declined as per the emerging FAQ of what's on-topic and what's not — and, in fact, as per the site description itself: "English Language and Usage is for linguists, etymologists, and (serious) English language enthusiasts". Many people here will object to proofreading a single sentence, let alone a complete essay. This is simply not our mission statement.

Secondly, I am not sure whether the StackExchange engine is at all suitable for commenting on lengthy texts. However, if you think it is, your best bet is to propose a new site over at Area51. There are probably more than enough people out there who would not mind commenting on each other's prose (or poetry).

As to the comparatively low number of questions, StackOverflow has been around for more than two years, while this site is only six weeks old, as of the time of this writing.

Answer 2

Comparing to stackoverflow or superuser, this site has much less questions, maybe allowing people to post their compositions here to ask for comments?

There are already sites like this, for example lang-8.com or italki. Those at least give some motivation to help other people because one can also ask native speakers of other languages to check your writings in return. And lang-8 is also set up for "proof-reading" in a way which this site isn't, at the moment.

Although word and many spell checkers could fix basic grammar mistakes, non-native English speakers often lack the ability to write natural English sentences because they often could choose the appropriate words and they don't know how to make some variations of the style of sentences.

It might help many people.

Giving out free sandwiches at street corners would help many people, for example those people could save money buying lunch and save time going to restaurants. That might well help many people, but could you tell me what the motivation is to help those people, and why I should spend all my time and money making free sandwiches and handing them out to strangers? If you come to my house as a friend, maybe I will make you a sandwich, or I might think it was a good business to open a sandwich shop and sell sandwiches for money. But I have no interest at all in handing out sandwiches for free.