text:
Debate on whether a hardware question is appropriate for bioacoustics
There is a long and lively discussion on whether this question is appropriate for the forum which should be moved to meta. Is this an appropriate question for bioacoustics stack exchange?

Having asked the question I would strongly advise that we allow these types of questions on the forum for these reasons

Computer hardware, even if it is applicable to other fields is a vital component of bio-acoustics research and there is nuance in how it is applied to acoustics. For example FFT calculations are integral to our field and perform differently on different types of processors.
There is a specific question here which is about how much faster these processors are when applied to a deep learning model.
If this question is closed because it is too broad then what else - only stats questions that are absolutely specific to bioacoustics? We can't talk about how to use the ADC on an Arduino or ask about ocean equipment because it's widely used on other fields? It doesn't make any sense to me.
Finally, there is a balance here between allowing an open forum and restricting content to have good quality questions/answers. If we move too far in the former then we will put people off using this site - we are still a small community and I would be mindful that overly enthusiastic moderation will have long term negative effects.

I am not saying the question is perfect - I'm sure we could modify it to make it better but closing (and thus setting a precedent for what is allowed on the forum) is not appropriate here in my opinion.

Your rhetorical questions "what else" e.g. stats, ADC are not helpful, in my opinion: indeed, there are stats questions for which I would advise you to use https://stats.stackexchange.com/ and ADC questions for which I would advise https://dsp.stackexchange.com/
If the question itself, and a "good" answer to your question, would not really contain anything bioacoustics-specific, then why not ask somewhere else? There's no insult or harm in doing so. S.E. is not a closed world, we can happily use those other Q&A sites, and get more+better answers!

My original response to your question was not an attempt to shut it down, though you seem to have reacted as if it was. My first response was "what makes this a bioacoustics question? Why do you feel bioacoustic deep learning would be different from other deep learning" - and these are questions I would expect you to clarify, in the wording of your question.

@DanStowell - you are right. I should not have used the word instantly as you did coment beforehand. I have edited the answer to reflect that. I still think that these types of question are applicable to bioacoustics because it is cross disciplinary and the bioacoustics context in both the question and answers can be more valuable than a stack exchange which is more immediately focussed on the topic.

@DanStowell. I have edited the question to add context. I feel this has been a useful exercise. I think the main issue here was that this type of question is still (in my opinion at least) appropriate but it was not explained in the question SPECIFICALLY WHY it was appropriate. That's a lesson for me and I think the community as a whole and should be taken forward as we moderate the site.

A general roadmap could be (not only for hardware-related questions):

If the question is very broad and is associated to general knowledge of computer/stat/etc, it should go to the associated SE site (hardware,  signal processing, physics, engineering, stat, etc). Very general questions will find better answers in specific sites.

If the question is borderline, the author should add a note below their question to say why they need to ask it in the context of bioacoustics, with significant arguments, and/or why an already existing question/response on another SE site is not enough in this context.

Justifying the site relevance of questions in notes below the question will help:

the community to upvote or downvote the questions
the editors to review the questions (e.g. vote for a closure), also based on the community upvote/downvote balance
the future moderators to take decisions in case of conflicts

When we disagree on the borderline definition, after a small discussion below the question, we could trust the community according to the number of users who upvoted a comment saying it should be closed, as compared to the upvote/downvote balance.
Probably we should also have a look at other meta SE sites, as I guess it is a common issue in new SE sites, even if ours is probably more multidisciplinary than the average.

I like Noil's phrasing of "If the question is borderline" here, and Noil's way of expressing the rule number 2. It's "borderline relevant" questions that are the issue we need to resolve.
@Shannon this is exactly why I posted a comment on the OP's question, to give a chance to edit it and clarify the relevance. I think Stack Exchange's built-in mechanisms already allow a "grace period" for this kind of thing, since it requires multiple moderators to vote to close a question - it's almost never going to happen instantly, for good-faith questions such as the OP's.

Yes, I think that a combination of guidelines as Shannon has suggested along with the mechanisms Stack Exchange provides should provide a good framework for us to moderate the site.

Bioacoustics, at its core, is multidisciplinary-- and that is fundamentally WHY we created this site. And so this will be an ongoing problem. I see 3 problems here:

What are guidelines to ask a good cross-discipline question?
How should community/moderators respond to cross-discipline question that do not follow guidelines outlined by (1)?
One question per post!  I feel this is an ongoing problem, and this is why I feel that (1) and (2) should be DIFFERENT questions, so that there can be individual answers/debate on each question independent of the other!

To that end, I will post two different questions (or 3!) here on Meta to allow our community to address each one independently.
If you agree with this post, please upvote.
If you disagree with this approach, please downvote this answer. I do not take this as a hit to my ego-- this is just how our community expresses their opinion to what we are saying.
If you have a more nuanced view-- comment!

Well done, these 2 questions (and associated answers) would be very helpful as references in the future

Agreed, I think these guidelines are definitely needed and means we have a framework to solve disagreement.

Thanks for bringing this up @Jamie. This reminds me of a question I'd raised early on about 'only software' questions on this SE ("how to do X", "Solving Y error message...") - arguing that all 'only software' questions need to go on SO or we can just point out their non-bioac analogs somewhere else on the internet.
What changed my mind was @Henry Ecker's (one of the SE staff) detailed answer to the question. My summary of it is even if the question could be answered on another SE - as long as there is enough bioacoustics content in it, it's still worth being kept. (keeping tracking of various SE's is hard, common problems need accessible solutions, etc.). So, if the hardware question is bioacoustics'y at all - we need to keep it here for posterity.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Defining what too broad a question is for the community
Recently a question I submitted on the advantages and disadvantages of using different programming languages was closed. The reason was that the question was deemed too broad.
I can see two sides to this decision.
I agree that the question was indeed quite broad and near the boundary of what should be acceptable, however, it was deliberately asked in a way where it was supposed to be focused on the advantages of programming languages in the context of bioacoustics. I also agree that some the answers were also getting a bit ridiculous e.g. “as a proponent of XX language I think that…” and I don’t believe we as a community came down hard enough on them.
However, whilst I admit there were issues, the question was extremely popular with a lot of views and engagement. This is something I get asked about a lot and I believe is of interest, especially to early careers researchers and students. The site should be able to ask question like these, which are perhaps broad, but supply much needed information. Asking a more specific question such as, “which language should I learn for bioacoustics deep learning?” is less broad but also less useful because bioacoustics requires integrated acoustic analysis which involves signal processing, data management, compatibility with software etc.
So the question is, how do we, as a community, allow useful questions like this without letting the site become overly opinion based?

The moderator (and SE staff) @V2Blast who closed it justified it by "That whole table seems to effectively be a self-answer to the question, and would probably be more appropriate as an answer than as part of the question. That said, however, this sort of question is not a good fit for the Stack Exchange Q&A format. "What are all of the things that these 3 languages are good and bad at?" is way too broad for a single Q&A, and also seems quite subjective (especially at the level of simplification being done in this post). As such, I've closed this question. "

Thanks for adding - good to have the official reason here.

I found the gathered information very useful, and not that broad to my opinion.
Would a wiki style be more appropriate (your question without the table, and your table as a wiki response so that everybody can add things to the table)? The other responses and the comments could be used to discuss about it.
To deal with the opinion-based issue, maybe a link should be the requirement for each table cell  (or line?) to support the judgment.

I think a wiki may have been the way to and I agree that I should have specified links in the answers with some evidence. I think part of the reason this was closed is that it was too close to the classic "which programming language is best" question that is never useful. However, this was a more specific context and perhaps a community wiki is a better fit.

I agree that I did appreciate that question (and see how it would be very valuable to students, ECRs, and even later stage folks that might not be up to speed on new programming languages being used more widely. At the same time, I do see some of the reasons it was closed...particularly how the table itself was actually a good answer (or good starting answer!) in itself. The way many answers interacted with the post suggested additions or modifications to the table, which to me, points to this type of question being a great candidate for a community wiki as @noil suggested.
I'm glad you brought this to Meta for discussion because I think there are two things to address
(1) is there a way this question could be reworked to allow it to be reopened as a wiki? I don't have any suggestions at the moment but will keep thinking about it! As its written, to me it is different than a "shopping" question because it asks specifically about pros and cons not just a simple "what should I use?" (I know it wasn't closed as a shopping question, but I am still sort of trying to learn about those and how to avoid them so that is what most quickly came to mind with this closure)
(2) this is a perfect example to discuss how we can tackle these sorts of questions.
So, perhaps in the language of our sites help, we can give examples of what types of questions are too broad ("Should I analyze my data with Matlab or R?") and how they could be modified to be appropriate ("Which programming language is faster (R vs Matlab) for doing automated detection of sterotyped high frequency dolphin sounds?")
*Note - is that a better way of asking? Open to feedback :)

I was also sad to see this question, as well as the other question on startup, closed down. I think the vast amount of users here will be scientists in one or another capacity, and we have no problem parsing through answers of a more subjective nature.

Maybe there could be a tag that would highlight these types of questions - career-advice or something like that. That would allow those questions, but give them a specific home and maybe a specific set of guidelines.

I also agree that the question & answers were helpful and provided valuable information, and that there should be a place for that type of question to exist somewhere.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/