What's wrong with the "empirical research" question?

Question

This question asks what empirical research exists on the subject of increasing salary by changing jobs versus seeking promotions in the same company. That sounds on-topic to me, but it's been closed by the community. One comment said it was asking for links to other resources. I commented:

I think a good answer to this question would describe this empirical research, not just point to it. That seems like an on-topic question to me.

Chad responded:

I would agree if someone asked a question that said I have this reseach can someone explain what it means in this context. Asking for the research is not though.

Actually, I would think that "explain these research results to me" would be off-topic for us, unlike "what is the research". But I digress.

This isn't the first question asking about evidence/research on a workplace topic we've gotten. That one was pretty well-received by the community and got a good answer (not just a link).

I still don't see the problem with the present question, but obviously at least five community members do (and there are no reopen votes). One of our persistent problems is questions that seek and/or attract opinion-based, unsourced answers -- here we have a question that's explicitly asking for sources, but it's closed. The topic about which it seeks research is solidly in our scope: it's a question about wages and raises.

Why is this question closed?

Answer 1

What's wrong with the “empirical research” question?

I think far too often these questions can be interpreted as "I'm too lazy to use search engines, can someone please give me a bunch of links to sites showing 'empirical evidence' for my topic?" As such, I think that should be off-topic (as I've been told that answers in the forms of links are off-topic as well).

I agree with Chad that asking for a discussion about the topic, and perhaps an explanation of the empirical results would be on-topic. In that case though, I would expect that the original poster should present the links resulting from her/his own search, should explain her/his own interpretation, then ask for clarification or alternative interpretations. Basically, the same as I required of my children when they asked for help with their homework: first, show your work.

I think it's hard for someone other than the original poster to "improve" these "empirical research" questions enough to save them, since (at least by my definition) a "good" question like this requires work from the original poster.

Answer 2

I think you misunderstood my comment. I was agreeing that explain the research to me would be on topic but only if you already have the research you want explained. Go out and find the research and then explain it to me is not what we are here for. We are not a crowd sourced search engine we are a question and answer site.

I could see room for questions that ask "Has their been any research into this and what were the results?" If that is basically what you were trying to say then I agree.

This question is asking for a list(BAD) of research results. They are not looking to have it explained or to find out if it is true.

To make matters worse lets parse the question that they want researched.

Does empirical research indicate whether changing jobs CAN improve your salary? emphasis mine

So here a sample set of one result that says yes is enough provide a yes result. where a sample set of millions of nos is not enough to definitively provide a no result. For this reason there is going to be no research data on this because it is not a question worth researching.

What I think the OP probably actually wants is something like:

Statistically, over X years do people have an increase in overall salary by switching jobs regularly or sticking with one employer?

This question can be asked and answered in our format but the OP does not want our answers they only want a link to an external reference. That question is probably a good question for here, and a great answer should be able to link the OP to the information they desire.

We have a set standards for how our site operates and when you try to go outside of those standards with a question the question is off topic. The question could be modified to be on topic but first the OP needs to concede that a normal Workplace SE answer is desired and rework the question as such.

Answer 3

True, I am not all that concerned with workplace.SE at all, however this seems to be just plain weird. Why would asking for research be wrong here, whilst at least on UX.se, skeptics.SE, biology.SE, physics.SE and money.SE these questions are either accepted or even encouraged. StackExchange is not meant to answer personal questions (which are deemed too specific), but questions which have future value. Asking for empirical research fits that perfectly. And it's not like the answers will become too long for a Q&A format as long as the question itself is specific enough. It might happen that nobody feels like answering the question, and that's fine, but closing the question as off topic seems like a great great waste.

Additionally, as becomes extremely evident on sites like skeptics.SE, it's never just linking to research, it's also about critically evaluating it's value in the context of the question. The question discussed here for example asks just for the research, but if it would've been phrased like the following

I would like to know if you get more wages by working for the same company and asking for a promotion, or by changing jobs. Please support any answer with proper emperical research, I am not looking for anecdotes.

it seems like a perfect fit for the Q&A format. The difference is that now the focus of the question is on the career path one should take to maximize wages rather than research about which career path one should take to maximize wages, but this unclearity was only introduced by moderator intervention either way.