Proposal: Expatriates
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I myself and others have listed off topic examples of questions before, using the 5 example questions we are allocated.
Since each sample question in Area51 has a close menu beside it and a series of close reasons, specifically, off-topic, is it really a good use of our 5 questions to submit examples of off-topic questions?
I myself have stopped purposely posting examples of off-topic questions because they get downvoted or closed, which suggests that this isn't in fact what we're really looking for.
While I'm pretty certain the answer to this question is that the goal is to post 5 great examples of on-topic questions, I'd like to hear this from the official source before I go around commenting on everyone's sample questions, politely suggesting that they replace them with on-topic examples. ;)
To clarify, are we looking for the 40 questions with 10+ upvotes to include questions marked as off-topic that have 10 upvotes, signaling that the community agrees, using upvotes to signal that said questions are off topic.
Here is one example:
Off-Topic Example: How can I set up my computer to handle Japanese/Chinese/Korean/Sanskrit/... documents
And another:
Off-Topic Example: Where can I eat great Portuguese food in London?
From the FAQ:
The goal is to come up with at least 40 questions that embody the topic's scope. When at least 40 questions have a score of at least ten net votes (up minus down), then the proposal is considered "defined."
One might argue that off-topic questions, explicitly declaring what the site is not about through great, examples of bad questions, does indeed help embody the topic's scope. The most important part of a scope is sometimes identifying what you are not going to do.
So, what is the official word on this? If what we're looking for are examples of on-topic questions only, then can we clarify that in the FAQ? If we're also looking for off-topic examples, as provided in the above two examples, could we also clarify that in the FAQ as well. Does the question box in Area51 clarify this too? Could we add something that says: "Reminder! We're looking for on-topic questions".
I believe this needs to be more clear. Thank you ;)