Vegetarians and especially vegans can face social situations where their dietary choices or lifestyles are misunderstood or not respected. Are questions relating to handling these situations on topic?
I see these questions as something that provide value, and attempted to add to this area with the following two questions, and the [living-with-omnivores] tag.
- How can I explain my decision to refuse to purchase or handle animal products for others? (Now open)
- Is it appropriate to insist my guests eat vegan when I host them? (Open)
While these types of questions will be mostly subjective, that doesn't necessarily mean they can't receive good answers. In fact, Stack Exchange has a set of guidelines for subjective questions on the don't ask help page.
avoid asking subjective questions where …
- 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.”
- you are asking an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if ______ happened?”
- your question is just a rant in disguise: “______ sucks, am I right?”
...
Constructive subjective questions:
- inspire answers that explain “why” and “how”
- tend to have long, not short, answers
- have a constructive, fair, and impartial tone
- invite sharing experiences over opinions
- insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references
- are more than just mindless social fun
My first question was put on hold for being too opinion based. Given that these questions may be difficult to appropriately phrase, are there tips for ensuring that these situational types of questions encourage experiential answers?