2

"I have no question of my grandmother's dedication"
"I have no question of whether my grandmother is dedicated"
"I do not question my grandmother's dedication."

Which can be used, grammatically?

https://english.stackexchange.com/posts/325303/revisions

Granted, the formatting of this leaves something to be desired (though in 20 hours, no one thought it would be good to reformat it)...

Also granted, the question isn't very well asked, the OP didn't bother to address any of the comments... fine.

Why was this closed as "off topic" (migrated to ELL) and not "needs more info"?

The language in this doesn't sound like it's coming from someone who's learning English... the punctuation and capitalization are good... All three versions of the sentence are complex and they are all valid.

The answer here does a good job of explaining that and also explains when each version would be more appropriate.

Why is this off topic?

Is it the format? The lack of detail? Do you not entertain questions about grammar?

If a decent answer was so easily attained, why not edit the question to suit this site better... "In what cases should I use each of the following?"

I'm not here complaining about the migration... I use both sites (though I use ELL more) I'm honestly trying to understand the thought process of why this doesn't fit here.

I know that it only takes three out of five close votes to migrate a question, so perhaps not all of the votes were for migration... It would be nice to know why the people who did vote to migrate did so over voting to close for another reason.

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  • 1
    Does it even take three? By my understanding, a simple plurality is enough to establish any close reason, including for migration. In the case of a tie, the system goes which whichever reason got the most recent vote, so in theory it could only take one vote. (I'm basing this on the answer I got to this Meta post: Detailed mechanics of closing as duplicate). But I may very well be wrong.
    – herisson
    May 14, 2016 at 1:13
  • According to Shog9 on a related question, it definitely takes three for migrations specifically... And for SO migrations it actually takes four. But that doesn't relate here.
    – Catija StaffMod
    May 14, 2016 at 1:27
  • On this question, there were three votes to migrate and two "unclear". @sumelic is right that the most recent vote wins in the case of a tie, but a single vote would not be sufficient to win: there would have to be at least one other similar vote. (Three choices with 1+2+1 votes; the fifth vote could make any of the existing choices win; but choosing a fourth option would not win.)
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    May 14, 2016 at 10:11
  • 1
    @AndrewLeach: What if all five votes are for different reasons?
    – herisson
    May 15, 2016 at 3:02
  • @sumelic That did occur to me some time after I wrote that comment (1+1+1+1 means that a fifth different vote would win), but I think it's hugely unlikely that it would happen: after duplicate (with auto comment), unclear, too broad, POB, the fifth vote would have to vote for migration, and that migration vote would have to be fifth for the migration to happen. Yes, possible, but not very probable.
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    May 15, 2016 at 8:57
  • 1
    No. Votes to migrate require three minimum. Shog9 was very clear. @AndrewLeach
    – Catija StaffMod
    May 15, 2016 at 13:46
  • 1
    I saw your comments to ab2's answer. 1. "Lack of research" is an off-topic reason here, it might be a dowvote reason on ELL, but it isn't. We clearly mention in the comment "Please include the research you've done, or consider if your question suits our English Language Learners site better. Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references are off-topic.". 2. If the question is unclear, it is unclear. We need to put it on hold expecting the OP to make it clearer. If the OP doesn't respond, the question will be (automatically) closed and deleted (by the system or vote).
    – user140086
    May 16, 2016 at 9:44
  • I think any question that just has examples and asks "is this grammatically correct?" sounds like it comes from a EFL learner. I think ell.stackexchange.com/q/84764 is a better example of an odd migration. That one sat on ELU for over a week before it was migrated and generated a long chain of comments and some answers, but ended up getting sent over to ELL for some reason. There's also meta.ell.stackexchange.com/q/2942 that the migration was asked to be reversed. It would be good to understand the thinking on those questions.
    – ColleenV
    May 17, 2016 at 20:14
  • @ColleenV I think the first link is a very interesting and useful question for ELU. I also don't understand why it was migrated to ELL. Voting is not always done in a short time span and I think it took a long time for ELU users to decide to migrate it. I am thinking about close-voting it on ELL (to migrate it back to ELU) and vote to reopen it here. But... you know...
    – user140086
    May 18, 2016 at 3:34
  • @Rathony once it's been migrated and accepted, I think it's better to leave it be, but I think it would be helpful to understand why some people thought it should be migrated.
    – ColleenV
    May 18, 2016 at 12:15
  • @ColleenV I can only guess it was considered as a simple question asking about the difference between "anywhere" and "where". I agree to leaving it there.
    – user140086
    May 18, 2016 at 15:36

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

I am the second close-voter and I never close-vote any question to migrate to ELL at all. I did it a few times when I was new, but stopped after I realized that posting a comment to guide a new user to ELL could be better than migrating the question. It's just my personal opinion. I don't believe many OPs whose question has been migrated to ELL return to ELL to post another question.

The question seems to have several issues.

  1. We don't know what the OP wants to express. We can only guess what it is and I think Sven Yarg's comment answers the question. Dedication to what? The question is unclear.

  2. A question should have a reasonable amount of research. I don't think it is easy to do research on the question, but at least the question should include what bothers the OP most and what specific part he can't understand so that a definitive answer could be made with proper research and reference. There is nothing other than "which is grammatically correct"? This is close to a request for proof-reading. For example, For someone having taught themself has received two close-votes up to now (if I vote, it will be three) for proof-reading. I think it was triggered by "which sentence is correct?".

  3. I don't see any value of this question in terms of whether it will be useful to current and future users of this community. It is a typical homework or preparation-for-test question. If it depends on personal preference on how to express "My grandmother's dedication is beyond question", it could be primarily opinion-based.

I don't understand why you think

(1) The language in this doesn't sound like it's coming from someone who's learning English: We can never know. It does to me.

(2) The answer to the question does a good job of explaining...: I think No. 1 and No. 2 sentences have a problem even though they could make sense. Who would use the two sentences in what context?

The question generated two close-votes and one down-vote on ELL. I think it is up to ELL to decide whether to close it or not. I don't think migrating the question is a bad idea as the OP seems to be a learner.

I personally believe a question like the linked one Is its grammatically correct to say “As we grow old we will encounter many a situations together..”? could be migrated to ELL. But it received 4 close-votes as general reference. However, one user introduced ELL to the OP and hope it works well.

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