Adding a tag for general (non-specific) questions

Question

I think this site could be improved by the addition of a tag for a "general" question, or a "non-specific" question.

This tag could be used when the person asking the question is interested in a general answer not in help solving a specific statistical problem or troubleshooting an issue.

I think this would help people answer questions, as they wouldn't have to ask a poster for more details about the specifics of their problem when they have no specifics to give. Instead they could concentrate on a general answer or not answer if they think it would take too long.

I also think this would make the site more friendly to new people who might have broad open questions about statistics, but no particular use case in mind. I think having good answers to broader, less specific questions will make the site more useful, and more used. It may also result in more answered questions!

Finally, I think it would avoid frustration on both ends caused by a misfit of intentions and expectations!

Edit:

As noted in the comments this is a grievance of mine, so all the examples are my own questions! Here are some examples:

1. Do you lose information when you encode numerical columns with two values?
2. Are large samples always needed for a Z-Test?
3. Calculating the probability my observation, $Y_i$, is drawn from a random variable $X$? (Long string of comments and revisions before an answer is given, when what I was after was mdhak's comment, but as an authoritative answer).

I'll add more as I find them.

Answer 1

At the very outset, let me share my own quick assessment of your cited examples (your own posts) based on the original forms (without looking at any of the comments, at first):

$\bullet$ Are large samples always needed for a Z-Test?

There were improper usage of notations and terminologies and some misunderstandings. I feel a bit hesitant seeing words like good too.

$\bullet$ Do you lose information when you encode numerical columns with two values?

This seemed to be also not replete with proper usage of notations; in fact it was outright ambiguous which prompted it being closed. Finally you edited it to provide better structure and I was one of the reviewers who voted to reopen it.

$\bullet$ Calculating the probability my observation, $Y_i$, is drawn from a random variable $X$?

Again it is infested with the same problem: improper usage of notations and terminologies.

However, I do feel all those queries were not bad; they were sanguine and intended to be valid queries - unfortunately they were not adequately articulated, at least in the original form.

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We don't know everything. That's why questions arise (that's basic). However, there is a certain extent of knowledge that we apparently take for granted as if we were well versed with those notions and concepts. So when we mould a query resorting to the language from that for granted knowledge that we acquired (might be a quick reading of a blog, site, video etc.), we are certain we have raised a legit proper question.

But things go awry when we see responses from people that implicitly attack that for granted evident knowledge. It might start to seem nitpicking to us: instead of answering in a general way to our evidently clear queries, their comments are vacillatory and moving back and forth.

However, then a mature way to react is to take a step back and try to read between the lines of the comments: what are they are trying to air and communicate? Then we can realize what we have been regurgitating might not be correct. The notations and handwavy concepts might need to be altered or outright restructured.

Then we would be able to conclude while the query could be genuine, the way it was raised proved to be its own impediment in getting a good concise answer.

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Comments are absolutely necessary. When it gets long, chances are OP is not able to clearly provide ample explanation of what they are asking: the question could be sensed, but a proper useful answer warrants an explicitly clear post, even the confusion that evoked the question at the first place.

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Users like Christian Hennig, Tim, Dave, utobi, Sextus Empiricus and all other respected users could have easily dissuaded from interacting and commenting for the sole purpose of eliciting further details and informing you of any misconception. They didn't. Why? Because they understand the value of this community and the site's goal: create a repository of high quality contents: be it an undergrad homework, a research based query or an industrial programming query.

Finally you were able to receive a good answer to one of your posts thanks to those interactions.

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Seeing comments as response instead of an answer that solves everything can be indeed frustrating. But for the latter, you need the former in the light of the perspective added above.

One's knowledge can be limited, what I think is correct need not have to be. Those long comments help to remove those misconceptions.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would assert comments are quintessential. You need to be patient.

[It takes days for me to sometimes understand something, takes hours for me to sometimes solve a problem which when seeing the hint/solution showed me how my approach was wrong. But instead of getting frustrated, I take a break and try to learn the necessary materials needed or other things.]

I appreciate you reacted rationally by asking a meta question rather than ranting at those users (I have witnessed many things during my not so long stay here).

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To answer your titular question, I am of the conviction that such kind of tag is not necessary.

Answer 2

First cent:

I had a short interaction in the comments about the question Do you lose information when you encode numerical columns with two values? and I didn't respond yet (instantly) to your reply because I am still confused about your question and what it means. (With or without 'general' as tag)

Instead they could concentrate on a general answer or not answer if they think it would take too long.

So my thought process is like, ok let me read that post a second time, or a third time again before answering. Often I might be juggling multiple questions at the same time and some end up on the floor and so forgotten if they are not shiny enough. I actually have a quite long backlog of open questions in which I had an interest to answer them, but which were in a way requiring some additional work to get it done and that I could not quickly fix. Questions being posed in a general way and with several unclear definitions, expressions, motivations, background, etc. are among them.

So currently my mind goes like 'not answer' (yet) because it takes too long. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to clarify your question better. Adding a tag 'general' isn't changing people's responses.

While a question might be non-specific, the problem remains that you still need specific examples to easily explain the non-specific issue. Examples are maybe not neccesary, but they are still helpful. You can not replace that helpfulness with a tag 'general'.

Second cent:

Tags are mainly metadata that help to easily classify questions. The purpose of the classification can be variable, but functions like communicating how one would wish the question to be received or how it should be interpreted might be far stretched (one tag that has such a function is self-study and it is a bit of an abuse of tags). #Dont-take-this-the-wrong-way #yes-that-is-an-ironic-hashtag #this-aswell-and-showing-how-tags-shouldnt-be-abused