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I have noticed the influx of ELL type questions. [And the ELL, barely English answers - but that is a different meta]

I see a lot of questions where it is obvious that the writer has little grasp of the English language or they are intoxicated or both. Obviously these are better suited questions for the ELL. But they are answered and kept open. [Even worse IMO is the fact that people go through and edit their poor grammar/spelling/whatever and try make a proper question of it.]

These are not the questions but the background to my question. My question is - Why do we keep closing out good questions as primarily opinion based?

Most of the questions on this site involve a lot of opinion. If someone writes an intelligent question with research or context and they display a perceived knowledge of the English language why would we want to close their question? If anything reword their question title or make a few small edits to help it pass through.

Personally I have closed a lot of questions on ELU in a short amount of time. I like going through the review process rather than reading the front page because I tend to miss things on the front page. I have closed maybe 10 questions out of 1100+ because of primarily opinion based. I have no disposition against closing poor questions but I would like to know others' opinions on this and what they want to answer.

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    Just because an asker can't spell/write properly doesn't automatically mean that his question is a better fit on ELL. If the question itself is interesting, regardless of whether you're approaching from a foreign-language perspective or a native-language one, then there's no reason to chase it off to ELL. In such a situation, it is perfectly appropriate to edit out the grammatical and spelling errors.
    – Marthaª
    Commented May 13, 2014 at 19:13
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    @Marthaª - I was generalizing. Of course your situation occurs but what 10% if that? In some cases I think it is acceptable to edit. In others I think you lose context of the person asking the question if you edit it too much. Commented May 13, 2014 at 19:15
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    Maybe this question gets closed as "primarily opinion based". Commented May 13, 2014 at 19:20
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    I really feel that this has snowballed into a tragedy of the commons. Sturgeon’s Law is recursing on us.
    – tchrist Mod
    Commented May 13, 2014 at 20:54
  • @tchrist - I think you may be right in more than one way on this site. It is funny some times and sad others. We get crap questions, we have people answer that don't know crap (English), and people upvote crap. Some of my most upvoted answers are crap while some of the better ones I am explaining to non-native speakers what they mean as they downvote... Commented May 13, 2014 at 21:00
  • @RyeɃreḁd - I don't know why how people upvote seems to surprise you. If 90% of everything is crap, then so is how they base their up and down votes. Why try to figure it out? Not to equate anything here with such a momentous event, but Jesus cured 10 lepers, only one of which came back to thank Him. That's 90% who didn't appreciate what He did enough, and if you know ANE history, curing leprosy was huge back then (socially, not just medically). I answer what I want to answer. If it's mostly meaningless, that's what it is. Commented May 14, 2014 at 5:33
  • @medica - I am just reading between the lines... So I am Jesus and I need to cure people? Commented May 22, 2014 at 17:27
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    @RyeɃreḁd - I would've read between those lines a little differently. ;) Commented May 22, 2014 at 21:58

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