Is "opinion based" a good reason to close a question?

Question

Recently there have been many close requests with the "opinion based" reason and I am wondering if having this close option is useful. In a way most questions on this site are opinion based, and what exactly is opinion based and what isn't is ironically very much based on opinion.

In the majority of cases where questions are requested to be closed for being opinion based, I actually agree that they should be closed, but there are usually better reasons available. Usually such questions also have no clear goal or are lacking detail or focus.

In the case where non of the other close reasons apply I usually think that the question are worth answering. One recent example, and three other re-open voters seem to agree with me, would be the question about how much backend TL should know about frontend: As a Tech Lead, to what degree should I learn about frontend technologies?

In general I feel that questions on how to navigate the workplace cannot be answered with scientific rigor and exactness and any answer will always have a good portion of subjectivity to it, with that in mind nearly every question could be considered "opinion-based" and what would be considered "objective answers" are only considered to be objective, because there is a very wide consensus about its truthfulness. I understand that SE is not the right place to have a debate, but I think there is no harm in having a specific, focused and on-topic question with clear goals with a variety of different answers, based on different experiences.

PS: As a Meta Meta comment; while writing this, SE shows me that there has been this motion 7 years ago. Can we eliminate the close reason "Primarily Opinion Based"? Since the user base is different now, I think there is no harm in bringing this up again, and I hope the rules of meta allow duplicates.

Answer 1

I kind of prefer the old "primarily opinion based" or "not constructive" phrasing a little better than just "opinion based", but yes, it is.

Questions can be at least somewhat opinion based here; even in hard sciences, there is usually at least some room for professional judgment in almost any question. Questions cannot, however, be opinion based to the point that it's no longer possible to defend answers with facts and logic.

See also: Real questions have answers.

Answer 2

It's worded poorly by someone at the SE mothership who didn't know the difference between OPINION and CONJECTURE

There is a very real difference between an educated opinion and wild conjecture.

Conjecture is essentially an untested hypothesis with incomplete data, while opinion tends to be based on informed experience.

An opinion from someone who has survived several rounds of layoffs, and gives an assessment what the signs to look out for would make up a decent answer, and would be able to detail their experiences.

"Okay, the first thing to look out for are senior executives jumping ship, followed by the long timers suddenly retiring. Then, you look for other cost cutting measures being implemented. If you see them trying to save every last penny, like getting rid of the plants, it's probably time to move on"

As opposed to:

"I think that layoffs are coming because those rich SOBs don't care about the workers!"

The first was an opinion, the second was conjecture

Answer 3

Yes, purely opinion based is a good reason to close a question (hence the reason that close reason exists) and a reason to downvote answers.

The way it's supposed to work on SE is that while certainly, there are domains that don't have objective answers, you are intended to use the guidance in Good Subjective, Bad Subjective to leverage people's actual expertise and not just Internet Tough Guy posing. The linked article contains six guidelines as to how to tell a good subjective question vs a bad subjective question.

Guidelines for Great Subjective Questions (see the linked article for more)

1. Great subjective questions inspire answers that explain “why” and “how”.
2. Great subjective questions tend to have long, not short, answers.
3. Great subjective questions have a constructive, fair, and impartial tone.
4. Great subjective questions invite sharing experiences over opinions.
5. Great subjective questions insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references.
6. Great subjective questions are more than just mindless social fun.

You can then answer them using the Back It Up! principle.

Back It Up! means that your answers must be based on either:

• Something that happened to you personally
• Something you can back up with a reference

We implemented these guidelines on RPG.SE and had really good results, allowing meaningful discussion of the more experiential parts of role-playing games without it just being people spitting out their unsubstantiated opinions of what practices "suck" or not. We could use more of that here. Many of these questions could be answered with references or personal expertise, but mainly since the community is tolerant of random personal preferences, that's how they get answered and are of low overall quality. That then leads to more aggressive closing, as it's likely that a questionably subjective question to become a time-waster rather than a useful Q&A.

Following Good Subjective, Bad Subjective both on questions and answers mean more clear opens vs closes and better answers to open questions.