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My question is on hold for being too broad. I am an absolute novice in Workpace SE, so I do not know much other than all the questions and answers from others I have seen.

I was afraid of the question being off-topic since it is half-way through job-search and statistics, but apparently that was not the case, instead, the question has been flagged as too broad.

My question is however detailed enough, I believe I explain all that has to be explained to be answerable, and the problem to solve is clear. I do not believe making it even longer (i.e. add details to narrow the answer set) could possibly improve it. I honestly do not see why it was flagged as too broad, and no comments was made by anyone in order to say why, so I am lost here.

Can anyone help me to refactor the question so that it fits the rules of Workplace SE? Thanks.

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I have had a similar problem with my very first question that I posted on another SE. No matter how emphatically one states the actual question, there are those who will project their own interpretation onto the question and obtusely ignore the asker's intent. If you want an answer in a reasonable amount of time, it may be best to delete the original question and post a new question as the process for resolving it seems to take an indefinite amount of time. Some people get their rocks off on being able to hinder others with a little red tape. Rather than get angry at them, which would only give them more pleasure, it is best to go around them. At least that is my experience.

Your question can be improved by completely eliminating your personal situation and ask a flat bland question asking for the procedure to obtain the data. I don't actually think of it as an improvement, but it should prevent those that would be trolls from choosing to interpret your explanation as the question itself.

These people who do this are a cancer on SE. Unfortunately it is difficult to eradicate cancer without also harming good cells, thus the cancer is allowed to grow. It's no different from any other position of power. People in such a position derive pleasure from making the 'little people' bend over backwards to pass under the red tape. They are of course 'just doing their job'. That's the excuse so many give.

In my own experience, in NJ, USA, there is a department of labor and workforce development which gathers the information you would be interested in. Of course, each state may have such statistics gathered by a different department or a department that does the same stuff but is named differently. You might find equivalent statistics kept by a trade commission or a commerce department. The process to find the statistics is to contact any department of commerce and ask if they can help you locate those statistics. Government is always keeping track of local business so that they can better tax them. Bureaucracy being slow and inefficient as it is, the statistics may be years out of date. It will still give you a general indication of whether an area is worth looking at more closely.

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    Fist, I am not angry or anything. Just wanting to find out the problem. I attempted to remove much of my personal situation from the question, although this definitely does not narrow it, it might make it more appropriate? Most other questions I've seen here are closely related to personal situations, as opposed to, for example, Stack Overflow or History SE. – Bregalad May 31 '15 at 8:59
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I was one of those who voted to close. My reasoning was that, while your question was detailed, it asked a question that cannot possibly be answered here. You could get five different sources and end up with five different answers. "Definitive source" is dependent on many factors, not just sector.

By definition it can't be answered because it's too broad, opinion based (which was my close reason) and you can't give a deterministic answer that is true in all cases.

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    Oh, ok. If I had 5 different answers it wouldn't be a problem for me. Many questions on SE have more than one correct answer, and there is a reason the format allows multiple answers. Is Workplace SE somehow different in that questions should have an unique answer? – Bregalad May 20 '15 at 12:50
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    The goal isn't to have a single answer (as you noted, that's true across SE). But it needs to be possible to evaluate an answer against the question, which is where many subjective questions fail. – Monica Cellio May 20 '15 at 15:20
  • My question is not subjective in any way, I ask for (economical) facts. If it appears to be suggestive then I worded it badly. – Bregalad May 20 '15 at 19:23
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    Actually, the fact I was only getting subjective information on the matter and don't know how to get my hand on facts is the very reason I asked this. I surely do not ask for a suggestive answer. – Bregalad May 20 '15 at 19:27
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I upvoted this question and don't think it's too broad. It's not asking "what can I make as an X?", which isn't a good fit here; it's asking how to do the research. That seems perfectly reasonable to me, and I'd like to see the community reopen it or say more clearly what's wrong with it.

  • The worst part is that I still have absolutely no slight idea why it was closed. – Bregalad May 20 '15 at 19:25
  • Yeah, I share your confusion. I hope somebody who voted to close (or thinks it should stay closed) will explain more clearly, and/or that community members will cast some reopen votes. – Monica Cellio May 20 '15 at 19:28
  • Well, I did give my reasons for closing in my answer, but to be honest I could vote to reopen if there is the belief that it is indeed qualitatively answerable. – Jane S May 20 '15 at 22:36
  • @JaneS Thank for giving me your reason to close, but still I don't see how to edit my question to fix the problem and thus having a valid question. – Bregalad May 25 '15 at 19:56
  • per my reading, title "Where to find information..." is (was) a pure list-question, prompting for answers like, "you find it here..." "and here...", and "here...", "and for England you can find it here..." – gnat May 31 '15 at 8:50
  • @gnat that would be true for a question like "where do I find good restaurant reviews?", but a question about where to find objective information is not a list. It's like asking "where do I report unfair labor practices in the US?" -- there's a government agency for that. – Monica Cellio May 31 '15 at 14:00
  • title doesn't (didn't) ask for objective etc. It was plain where-to-find. I know what you think, you as moderator have a power to remove answers that match only the title yada yada. But I as a regular user simply do not want moderators to use their power like that. I don't want moderators to decide how much question title fits its body and both of them fit the answer. I want moderators to intervene only in straightforward cases - and for that it is really important for title to match the question (and yes, I've seen good questions polluted by garbage "answers" only because of slippery title) – gnat May 31 '15 at 17:53
  • @gnat no moderator has intervened that I've seen. Mods are also community members and entitled to express our opinions. That's what I've done. I didn't use mod powers to reopen; I said I hope the community does. – Monica Cellio May 31 '15 at 19:27
  • I was addressing your statement that "question about where to find objective information is not a list". Per my reading, original title of the question was not like that – gnat May 31 '15 at 19:29

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