Aggressive and offensive comments on questions [closed]

Question

Occasionally, questions that seem very simple or straightforward disguise some depth of insight into English language. These are the gold dust of this site and of inquiries into language in general. However, it's not always easy to frame such questions clearly.

One such question can be found here: Is the sentence "How is name?" localised to game-specific forums?

Now, it is quite understandable that one might not quite get the issue with this question. It is quite fine-grained and so kernel of it might easily pass you by if you weren't reading it closely. This shouldn't in any way stop you giving your opinion about the question. In fact, if you have something constructive to say, you positively should do so.

However - posters, and readers wanting to read other people's posts, should also be able to ask questions about why posts have been closed or migrated. The fact that such questions might not be so simple as they at first seem, is one of the reasons why. Posters should not be subject to aggressively negative responses here merely because they are asking the question. More importantly, we should refrain from being overly judgmental or abusive to the people asking such questions. This is firstly because doing so is against the principles of this site, but secondly because it may show up our own flagrant ignorance.

Abuse such as this:

Your profile doesn't say whether you're a native speaker. But if you're not, you should be able to understand that the question is a better fit to ELL. And if you are, I don't know - perhaps your mother never asked "How was school today?" when you got back, or perhaps you really are a bit of an idiot.

... should be unacceptable here purely on the basis that it is offensive.

Unfortunately, this commenter's attitude is discernible in a depressingly large number of comments and answers on this SE site.

This particular comment by this particular Stack Exchange poster makes one wonder, what is the correct response to:

• How is this poster?

Answer 1

Occasionally, long-standing members of this community may get frustrated with the assumptions made by askers in formulating their questions. These frustrations may leak into comments.

As you say, this is undesirable, and it’s already been dealt with in a question on flagging. If you feel that a comment is not constructive, or undesirable in some other way, flag it.

If that comment had appeared on the question in question, the moderators would almost certainly have deleted the comment and migrated the question. If it were elsewhere, or even if the question were not to be migrated, the flag brings the comment to the attention of moderators, who can either remove it entirely or edit it.

I’m uncertain about the examples you bring forward to support your case. It is certainly possible to say “How is your school?” to mean “What is your school like?” or “Do you like your school?” It’s colloquial, and the exact meaning is dependent on context. It’s exactly the same as “How was school?”, merely brought into the present — as can be seen from that question’s current answer. Any question which makes wrong assumptions like this is highly likely to be migrated to ELL.

Answer 2

It was my comment, so I suppose I'd better say something about it. I must admit it never occurred to me anyone would find it "offensive". I was just whimsically echoing OP's own words ("Or am I just a massive idiot?") - but I distinctly recall thinking at the time that OP was being too hard on himself, which is why I toned it down to a bit of an idiot.

I will admit I was (very slightly) irritated by the fact that the OP's profile didn't specify whether he was a native speaker, because that seems extremely important in the context of the question. One comment that hasn't been deleted (or significantly edited like mine) currently reads...

I don't understand how someone with your command of English can ask such an inane question

...and the only existing answer on the migrated question starts with...

I am surprised that you, a native speaker of English, find this use of How is/was X? odd or novel

I'm not going to flag those as offensive (if it bothers the OP, let him do so). But let's face it, at least my comment invited the OP to say "But I'm not a native speaker", in which case I'd simply have repeated my suggestion that the question be moved to ELL (with no implication that the OP was to be ridiculed for not being familiar with the usage in question). I don't see any way OP could refute the implicit ridicule in the above comment (and, to a lesser extent, the answer).

---

That answer above implies I must have missed the fact that the OP in question is actually a native speaker. Without wishing to be disparaging, I also am surprised that any native speaker wouldn't recognise a "syntactic continuum" along the lines of...

"How was school today?" (What did you think of school today?)
"How is your hamburger?" (Are you happy with your hamburger?)
"How is your wife's hamburger?" (Are you and/or your wife happy with her hamburger?)

Nevertheless, I would not refer to such a person as "an idiot" except in the specific circumstances where I was facetiously echoing that person's own words. (Okay - I should have added a smiley! :)