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In regards to this question:

How does the meaning of terms diverge in different regions?

Should questions like this be on topic for the site?

For me this is not something that could be answered by your average Chinese speaking expert, but is aimed more at a language expert. As such, an expert for this type of question is not on this site.

The FAQ states questions should be "practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face."

I think this type of question is not practical or answerable on this site and not sure if it as an "actual problem" for the user.

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The question per se seems on topic, but its problem is that it's not specific. We can say it's not "practical", in any case, the question is not asking about a specific problem, but rather about a general tendency between two "dialects" of the same language.

I think the part in the FAQ that refers to this case is this one: "Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much."

A small side-note: The question is not a bad one, so I am not sure I agree with the down-vote, and indeed I didn't downvoted it. There's a difference between a bad question and an off topic question. The two things don't necessarily match. I've seen off topic but still good questions, just not fit to the SE sites. :)

In any case, I'd say to ask the OP to narrow the "aim" of his question and if that doesn't work, close it as off topic, not constructive or not a real question, I'm not sure which one fits most.

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  • I'd mostly agree, and I think off-topic is the closest reason for closure. – brc Dec 21 '11 at 17:41
  • @brc寇百强 mostly? That means you don't agree with something? – Alenanno Dec 21 '11 at 18:35

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