What questions are not allowed on Japanese Language and Usage?

Question

Most of the questions that we have downvoted and closed as off-topic on JLU since the start of beta have been in one (or more) of the following categories.

• No Resource Questions
• No Study-method Questions
• No Direct Translations
• No Tech Support Questions
• No Purely Cultural Questions
• No Questions that violate other StackExchange guidelines

Note that almost none of these are beyond debate on meta. If a strong majority that opposes any one of these rules emerges, these will be modified. I would ask, however, that users who disagree with any of these rules please open a seperate meta thread to discuss their objections, and keep this proposed FAQ entry relatively focused. (We can make a link from here to the discussion thread)

Also note that none of these are offtopic in the JLU chatroom, and we welcome conversations about all of these topics in that environment.

Answer 1

We don't violate the general stack exchange guidelines (Theoreticals, Popularity Contests, non-questions)

The StackExchange-wide FAQ lists several types of questions which are not permitted. Here are the example bad questions:

• every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite __?”
• your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use _ for _, what do you use?”
• there is no actual problem to be solved: “I’m curious if other people feel like I do.”
• we are being asked an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if __ happened?”
• it is a rant disguised as a question: “__ sucks, am I right?”

In particular, you might want to take a look at our local interpretation of 'too localized' (one of the close reasons offered to people when they vote to close a given question). Depending on the individual guideline, questions could be closed as "off topic", "not constructive" or "not a real question".

Answer 2

We don't do technical setup questions

We are focused on the language itself, not on computer software that is required to use the language. Super User or a more specific site (such as Ask Different, Unix and Linux, or Ask Ubuntu) might be more appropriate for such questions.

The single exception to this is that we do allow technical questions about the JLU site itself to be asked on meta. Allowed questions on meta include topics such as how to make the furigana system or URL forwarding (such as to amazon.co.jp) work. Most of these features are at least briefly documented in the formatting FAQ.

Answer 3

We don't do purely cultural questions

The questions need to relate to the language, since that is the focus of the site. Language is heavily tied up in culture, and cultural context will often be an important part of the language discussion, but the question fundamentally must be about the language, not the culture.

Note that asking a translation question about a cultural item is frowned upon, but so far they have not been closed outright.

A "Culture of Japan" SE has already been proposed and is in its very early stages. If it is made, it would be entirely unfair and wrong of us to "steal" what should be their content.

Answer 4

We don't do translations

We do not offer a direct translation service. Our resources page shows several dictionaries that could and should be used to lookup individual words. Asking "What is X in Japanese/English?" is likely to be closed fairly quickly.

This can be somewhat nuanced however, since many questions on the site take the form of "I thought X meant Y, but that meaning doesn't fit in sentence Z". This is allowed, since these questions will usually reflect idiomatic or more complicated usages, and it's hard to describe them as "translation" questions at all.

At the phrase level, the community strongly frowns upon questions that can be summarized as "long japanese phrase here What does it mean?". On the other hand, questions that display the asker understands most of the phrase, but is simply confused about how an individual word or grammatical structure fits into the sentence are encouraged. Sometimes the misunderstood part of the phrase will radically change the meaning, but that is not the asker's fault.

Also note that context is vitally important anytime you are veering close to a "translation question", and occasionally can redeem what is otherwise a close-worthy question. Generally speaking, straight-up translation questions are only useful for one particular person at one time, so the community generally uses the "too localized" close reason in these cases.

meta discussion

Answer 5

We don't do "how do I study X?" questions

We are focused on the language itself, not educational methods or study systems. We'd rather not talk about flashcards vs sentence-memorization. We are particularly harsh on "how do I keep myself motivated?"-type questions, as these are well beyond the limits of the language.

We do reference various methods and tools for studying Japanese on our resources page. Several of the resources explain mechanisms for studying different aspects of the language.

Once again, the chatroom is likely to be particularly conducive to these types of questions. Questions asked on the main site will usually be closed as off topic

Answer 6

We don't do resource questions

Questions about resources are offtopic on JLU. Asking for dictionaries, books, streaming audio and other forms of books/software/anime/etc will generally result in the question being downvoted (unnecessarily) and closed as offtopic.

To help new users navigate the wide world of japanese learning materials, we have created a list of resources that new users (and others) may find useful. resources

meta discussion