Why does opinion based VTC exist?

Question

-Vote to close question because it's ''opinion based''

or

-Don't answer with opinions.

There's two options, but option 1 has no reason to exist

Answer 1

You're forgetting the rest of Stack Exchange

Worldbuilding.SE is only one of 170+ Stacks in the Stack Exchange network, and more graduate Area 51 every year. Worldbuilding.SE has the dubious distinction of being the least objective Stack of the lot and the only one where the Opinion-Based VTC reason might not be reasonable.

All Stacks operate using the same network-wide template. What's good for the other 170+ Stacks is, by definition, something we're stuck with.

Yeah, but why isn't the SE rule against opinions enough? Why even have a VTC reason?

Again, you're not taking Stack Exchange into account. Stack Exchange believes questions should be closed quickly. SE's goal is to be the world's resource for specifically useful answers to broadly applicable questions (we're back to not being quite like the other 170+ Stacks). Given that goal, they want to STOP any and all answers that aren't specifically useful before they ever get loaded into the system because deleting answers is intensely rare — and as the number of irrelevant, not specifically useful answers grows, the value of Stack Exchange to the world decreases.

So, from SE's perspective, we should be slamming closed every question from every user that doesn't meet SE's rules or our Stack's expectations until someone edits the question to meet all those rules and expectations.¹ You might not appreciate or approve of their reasoning, but given their goals, it makes sense.

Stack Exchange does not see themselves as, per se, a social media service. Unfortunately, a great many users do. That conflict comes to a head with questions about question closure. What SE sees as a way of improving the quality of their overall service we see as a mean-spirited policy that drives away new users. Trust me, they don't care — and from a business perspective, they can't.

OK, so what do we do about it?

We've tried everything.

We've tried ignoring it. We've tried redefining it. We've tried scoping it. We've even tried going to meta.SE and asking for it to become Stack-dependent so we can get rid of it. None of it works. Why? Because Stack Exchange controls the rules, the text, and the associated Help Center pages. Anything that varies from those (and this is important) canonical sources requires an unbelievable amount of policing, educating, and cat herding — and every effort has failed because it's exhausting. And our Stack Exchange overlords aren't going to change the base software for just one Stack.

So, my good friend, you... like the rest of us... are stuck with it. We all have this coming-of-age moment when we realize there's nothing we can do about Opinion-Based but deal with it.

To add insult to injury, it really is a valid and viable VTC reason on Worldbuilding.SE — even for questions about magic

Why?

Because the goal of this Stack is not to tell stories or generate ideas. It's to help build worlds. Even worlds meant to express utter chaos are required to have predictable sets of rules. And it's those rules that we're here to help people develop. Rules are reasonably objective and questions about rules are reasonably focused. Answers aren't Opinion-Based because they're based on everything from empirical examples to scientific reasoning to logic. In most instances, questions closed as Opinion-Based lacked conditions, restrictions, limitations, and expectations that would have guided answers to higher quality responses. In fact, most Opinion-Based problems (indeed, a LOT of problems) would be resolved if querents simply included the following in their questions:

1. What is stopping them from answering their own question?
2. What are their goals or expectations with the question?
3. How will they judge a best answer?

If a querent can't answer those three questions for themselves, the question they want to ask on Main is almost certainly not ready to be asked.

So, if you're getting questions closed as Opinion-Based, you need to courteously ask why people felt the question was that way — and then you need to change to avoid the problem.

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_{¹ We're also a bit unique about editing. Where pretty much every other Stack on the network encourages anyone to jump in and edit a question to improve its quality, we kinda hate that unless you've earned enough rep to represent basic trust. The problem is that it's pretty straight forward to know how to keep the idea of "what's 2+2?" intact, but it's a lot harder to preserve the idea of "I'm trying to balance the power of my bugaboos, which use anger as a motive force for causing damage, against their peace-loving brethren the Ababbas. How can I balance anger and peace?" We also have an unwritten rule that no edit to a question should ever invalidate an answer. I personally disagree with that, but it's what the community wants.}

Answer 2

The straightforward answer is that "one is meant to head off the other".

Suppose someone asked, "What brand of shoes should my main character wear?" Being a clearly opinion based question that has nothing to do with worldbuilding, no one should answer it. Rather than get thousands of people to coordinate on not answering, it would be easier to get 5 ranking community members to close the question, thus eliminating the temptation.

As for the broader question of "why VTC opinions at all? Is subjectivity so bad?", there is a lengthy writeup about this (cherry picked quote: "There is a growing list of proposals about increasingly subjective topics, and we believe many of them are going to make great Stack Exchange sites!"). SE is well aware of the concept of subjective Q&A. They support it, and encourage it, within reasonable bounds.

Therein lies the rub. What are reasonable bounds? I think the linked writeup covers it pretty well. To some, though, it's clear that anything short of pure fact is opinion and therefore against the rules. They misunderstand the rules, but it's hard to blame them for their overly literal interpretation when one of the close reasons literally says "Opinion based" (although they have years of questions to look back on for guidance on what is acceptable for a given stack).

Just as each stack has its own community, and its own spinoff community rules, SE rules must also be subject to some local interpretation. Workplace SE might actually be even more subjective than Worldbuilding, as it is almost nothing but opinions and anecdotes. Should Workplace be closed? Is it unfit for SE? Should the community there mash VTC on every question that might incite an opinion? No. It just needs to be on topic, focused, and helpful.

Good subjective, here, is helping someone build a world, even if it means giving an opinion, so long as it is focused, on topic, and not, itself, a big debate or sheer "mindless fun".

Sometimes, it's the good answer that saves a mediocre question, and SE recognizes this too, so there is actual incentive to salvaging a question if you think you can. Vote To Close is the nuclear option -- the biggest hammer in the drawer for the rank and file user. It should be a last resort, not a first choice.