What constitutes a subjective question on superuser.com? I'm thinking of a RAID setup and want to throw around ideas, is that too subjective?
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Can you be more specific about what kind of ideas you are talking about? If you have very concrete ideas, it may work– Discount Gucci HandbagsCommented Jun 26, 2012 at 19:39
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I have a good idea for a RAID setup and I want to see if anyone can see flaws with it– CeleritasCommented Jun 26, 2012 at 19:43
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6You could also try asking it in our chatroom Root Access and see what specific questions you we can come up with. Asking it on the main site is not the way to go– Ivo Flipse ModCommented Jun 26, 2012 at 19:49
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2 Answers
"Throwing around ideas" is usually subjective, and usually not a question anyway.
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5"throwing around ideas" is usually not a question. Subjectivity doesn't really matter for non questions...– Yannis RizosCommented Jun 26, 2012 at 19:34
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@YannisRizos I added that to my answer.– amanaP lanaC A nalP A naM ACommented Jun 26, 2012 at 19:38
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2We can migrate this, you know. (Although it's probably going to be a duplicate anyway.)– BoltClock's a UnicornCommented Jun 26, 2012 at 19:41
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@YannisRizos I think it would be even more subject if I were to ask what the best RAID setup is– CeleritasCommented Jun 26, 2012 at 19:44
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2@Celeritas that is most definitely subjective!– amanaP lanaC A nalP A naM ACommented Jun 26, 2012 at 19:45
TL;DR
By definition, if a question doesn't have a canonical answer--or at least, a very small set of equally viable answers--then it's really just opinion-polling.
Analysis
If you can draw a straight line from the question to the answer, then it's a good question. If you need a mind-map to cover the answers, then it's not really a question in the Stack Exchange sense.
If you think about it, you can make anything a question by narrowing it down enough. Granted that yes/no questions are generally bad questions, that still leaves a lot of room to maneuver.
Some made up examples, using your topic, may illustrate.
Will MySQL read performance be better with RAID-6 than RAID-4?
Benchmarking questions are generally bad, but at least this allows one to point to published facts about a given use case.
What's the best RAID level for running a server?
Not enough context. No way to point to any real data. Any answer will be conjecture or opinion, or simply an abstract use case.
Not every problem has an orthogonal solution, but if the set of possible solutions is very large or a matter of personal taste, then it's subjective. Q.E.D.
