This site's custom close reasons have now been reworked!

Question

Prior discussions from the past couple of years:

• The need for changing our guidelines for etymology questions
• What should be done about "language-specific grammar and usage"?
• Does the no-tree rule improperly conflate two valid reasons to close?
• Etymology questions and close votes
• What should the site-specific close reasons be?

I'd like to make another push to rework our custom close reasons. I'll make proposals for each close reason, so please give feedback on them.

Translation

So the most straightforward is the translation reasons. Currently it says:

Questions seeking help with identification of or translation of specific samples of text are off-topic.

We should change this to include speech, not just text. And maybe also include transcriptions:

Questions seeking help with the identification, translation, or transcription of specific samples of text or speech are off-topic.

Trees

Questions requesting to make syntax trees are not within the scope defined in the help center. For any doubt, please ask on Meta.

This close reason is clear, but it could be better. And those links are too generic to be of much use.

These two discussions raised some suggestions of what we could edit it, in particular changing it to refer to homework questions instead of trees:

• Does the no-tree rule improperly conflate two valid reasons to close?
• What should the site-specific close reasons be?

Thinking again now, I don't think that gets at the big problem. Lazy homework questions is a problem, but arguably the bigger problem is that we can't make a tree for them when we don't know what tree model they're using. I think a close reason like this gets at both issues:

Questions requesting syntax trees are not allowed unless they ask how a specific grammatical feature can be represented in a specific grammatical framework's syntax tree model.

The idea is that questions like "How do these inalienable possession markers from X language get represented in Role & Reference Grammar trees?" would be allowed, but anything less specific than that would not.

Etymology

Prior discussions:

• The need for changing our guidelines for etymology questions
• Etymology questions and close votes

I'd like to propose that we add a new close reason for the etymology of specific words. I think adding one will remove a lot of the messiness currently felt by many in the community over how the grammar and usage close reason gets used. We'll need to ask staff to increase our custom close reason limit, but this is a real need so I can't imagine they'd decline.

Languages are always changing; words change their meanings and are borrowed between languages unpredictably. So questions asking for the origin of words or phrases are off-topic unless they demonstrate that there is a reasonable assumption of systematicity, by situating themselves within a historical context of language change or contact.

I think this close reason would distinguish between the good etymology questions we get and the low effort ones that are trying to use this site as an etymology look-up service. No doubt there will be disagreement over some questions, and that's where we'll use our judgement.

Grammar and usage

The way this close reason is currently used is quite messy and not consistent with what it actually says. But if the other close reasons are changed, then this close reason actually looks quite focused to me now.

Language-specific grammar and usage questions are off-topic unless primarily concerned with linguistics rather than usage. There are many language-specific sites where such questions are welcomed; see: http://stackexchange.com/sites

Maybe we could add something about language learning? Maybe change "usage" to "meaning and usage"? And I'll change the final sentence so that it doesn't misleadingly suggest that all languages have a site where you can ask these questions.

Language-specific grammar, meaning, and usage questions, as well as questions about teaching and learning languages are off-topic unless primarily concerned with linguistics rather than usage. Many language have their own specific sites where such questions are welcome; see: https://stackexchange.com/sites

Edit: 15 June 2022

The first three of these close reasons have now been implemented. We will wait to see if we do need a fourth one for grammar and usage or not.

Answer 1

I wholeheartedly agree. But since we can only have three custom reasons, I propose getting rid of the "language-specific grammar and usage" reason, replacing it with the etymology one.

In my experience, "language-specific grammar and usage" is used as the default close reason for all sorts of questions. The intent, I imagine, was for this reason to apply to ELU-style questions: "is it correct to say 'whom' here?" But instead it gets applied to everything from etymology to translation requests to theory questions that people don't especially like.

Moreover, language-specific questions aren't always poorly received here. From a descriptive standpoint, I've asked and answered various questions about Egyptian, Sumerian, and Hittite that have very limited applicability to other languages but still seem to have been accepted and enjoyed by the community.

The result is that "language-specific grammar and usage" feels like a general "this question is bad" reason that doesn't give the asker any real information. If a question can be better answered on ELU, Language Learning, or one of the other stacks, it should be migrated (which can be accomplished by flagging the question even if we don't have established migration paths). If it's a translation request, close it as a translation request. And for any actual usage questions that don't have a migration target and don't seem like a good fit for the site, a custom reason is always an option.