Let give me crystal clear standards. — Which question to go busted ---

Question

Recently, after Trump's inauguration, I had had several questions put "on hold", for example:

• What drove this U.K rant? Regarding an explicit racism [closed]
• What exactly is Trump's economic policy, and is it consistent with his previous statements? [closed]

The 2nd question is literally asking the question in the title.

However, How could Trump leave office?, seems to me an opinion-based question, remains open. Isn't that above question insinuating "Because I don't like Trump, what kind strategy is available?" Am I wrong here?

Are people insinuating that this site is none of the business of non-Americans?

Or, are you deliberately choosing which is right and which is correct per your preference.

Or did this site choose amongst turmoil in your very country to choose Trump side?

Okay, here is the question. I am actually perplexed about this which lead to my my posting question 2. This article "Abe-Trump Meeting May Yield Clues On Trump’s Trade Vision" says your President and our PM had a good time at a golf course and they had a nice "High Five".

Hadn't that very president just only 2 weeks earlier "condemned" the Japanese Auto makers? What is the point of his statement?

If the scope of my question is too broad, isn't it because Trump himself does not have any detailed plan on economics??

Do you even say after reading this article "Trump's plan to declare victory on the economy", in which the writer says,

Bogus economic data can be used to justify new policies that might appeal to Trump personally—and appease his populist supporters—while failing to address real economic problems and even damaging the economy.

...that my 2nd question is opinion-based?

What you are saying is that that writer is too opinion-based.

He even says:

and appease his populist supporters—while failing to address real economic problems and even damaging the economy.

Appeasing the supporters? Could you tell me what this means. The time when I asked the question, I didn't know exactly what his administration's economic policy is.

If I can not cite news articles, would the only way be for me to ask Trump aides directly???

---

So...since the chat was deleted, I remember that one commentator saying that -- "you should wait, This administration has just begun. Even the Obama administration needed 1 month to roll out their economic policy" ( Not exactly word by word, since --- I can not find the chat discussion -- ). Now, it's been 2 months waiting to find out what this administration's point on economics is, is there anything? Pooof...

Answer 1

Are you insinuating that this site is none of the business of un-Americans?

I am German and they elected me moderator. The runner-up candidate was Ukrainian. So by empiric evidence, no, there doesn't appear to be hostility against non us-americans on this website.

So why were your two questions received so negatively?

First of all, let's look at the first two paragraph of the article "what topics can I ask about here?"

Politics Stack Exchange is for objective questions about governments, policies and political processes. It is not a place to advance opinions or debate, but rather for exchanging objective information about the policies, processes, and personalities that comprise the political arena. If you can't back it up, it's subjective.

We are here to spread information. We are not here to spread our opinions or start debates. Your question, unfortunately, seem to just be thinly veiled rants to voice your opinion. There is nothing wrong about having an opinion. But this website is not the right place for it. If you would like to exercise your freedom of speech rights, you could choose a more appropriate platform, like twitter, facebook or starting a political blog.

Now you might ask "why didn't anyone edit these questions to be more appropriate in tone for this website?". The problem is that if reduced to just the question, the remaining questions are incredibly broad. The first question would be just "What's the US foreign economy policy?" (although there seems to be a more reasonably scoped question about currency politics in there, but that seems to be just a side-question), the second just "Is white supremacy rising globally?". You could write a whole book about either question. We expect questions on this website to be reasonably scoped and possible to answer with a text which fits on one screen.

Regarding the question about how the Trump presidency could be ended prematurely might seem anti-trump at first glance. My mouse cursor was already hovering over the close-as-primarily-opinion-based button. But it is in fact an interesting question about political processes in the United States and provides valuable information about the safety of the office of POTUS. So I decided to leave it open and I did't regret it (much).

Answer 2

the question, How could Trump leave office?, is not opinion based at all. It is asking what legal processes are available to remove a president.

It is a question about civic law, which in the United States is explicitly defined. It might be complex enough that people could come to different conclusions about the law, but it is a subject matter that is very clearly defined.

On the other and, asking "why" the president made a rant is opinion-based because nobody has specific information why. You can only speculate.

Asking whether something is "coherent" is opinion-based because what is and isn't considered "coherent" might differ slightly from person to person. Secondly, asking if one exists it too broad because it's like asking us to determine whether or not a needle exists in a haystack.

Answer 3

We have a help topic: What types of questions should I avoid asking? It gives several examples of subjective forms, including

your question is just a rant in disguise: “______ sucks, am I right?”

Your questions:

1. What drove this U.K rant? Regarding an explicit racism

The first half of this title might have been all right, but then you went on to link three separate events: Brexit; Donald Trump's travel pause; a rant by a random drunk on a train. You asserted that all three were racist. Then you asked if that was the rise of white supremacism.

The assumption that the first two are racist is offensive to many of us who favor one or the other of those positions. Some of us might have responded with counter-facts, but you lumped together multiple things. I doubt that anyone can explain that particular drunken rant.

Calling Brexit racist is problematic because the migration they're trying to stop isn't from Asia or Africa but from Eastern Europe. A large number of non-English speaking immigrants are causing frustration in the UK (United Kingdom). Some voted for Brexit because they want more English-speaking immigrants, like Indians or Australians. Or in one example, a guy with an Asian wife. It may be many things, but letting in the brown Indians and keeping out the white Eastern Europeans is not white supremacism.

At least Trump's travel pause is actually aimed at people of different races from the white majority of the US. However, it has always been described as an anti-terrorism tool. Whether it is the most effective tool or the best targeted tool is up for debate.

So how do I answer that? Do I briefly discuss British politics which I don't know so well and then do a longer explanation of American politics, all while ignoring the linked rant? The question title claims to be asking about the rant. But you already said the rant was racist.

That's vintage “______ sucks, am I right?”

'Don't you agree with me?' is not a good question for this site. But that's basically what the question asks. It feels more like you are looking for a discussion. But we're not a discussion site. We're a Q&A site.

2. Is there, any sort of ( or whatever that kind ) consistent and coherent economic policy with Trump?

Again, you spend the entire question arguing that Trump's economic policy is inconsistent and incoherent. Then you ask for our thoughts. Once again, “______ sucks, am I right?”

Note that I personally agree with your depiction of Trump's trade policy. It's asinine. It's also popular.

The fundamental problem is that you are trying to answer a straw man question. Some of that content would make sense in an answer, particularly with some citations added. However, no one is actually asking that question.

This isn't a good site if you have something that you want to say. We aren't a platform for expressing your ideas. If we were, I have plenty that I'd be happy to advocate.

Your other example

How could Trump leave office?

It's true that the original version of this question was quite ranty. Note that most of that part was removed. But there was still a question there: How can a president be forced to leave office? That has objectively evaluable answers. The question may come from a partisan and have a definite objective, but that's a real question. If we edit out Trump's name and replace it with Barack Obama, Deval Patrick, or Andrew Cuomo, the answers mostly stay the same.

In that case we fixed the question. We could do that because it was obvious what the underlying question was. In your questions, it's not. We can't just edit out the rotten parts and leave the actual question. We'd have to rewrite not just the words but the very ideas of those questions.

Or did this site choose amongst turmoil in your very country to choose Trump side?

But your example of an open question is also anti-Trump. We removed the worst bits of it, but the final version certainly isn't pro-Trump.

Ideally questions shouldn't take either side. Note for example that Trump's trade policies differ little from those of Bernie Sanders. Yet hardly anyone who is anti-Trump calls Sanders racist or even economically naive.