Recommendations and "Titles should avoid being subjective" [duplicate]

Question

I'd like to better understand the meaning of two things that seems opposite to me.

To recommend means to give an advice to someone.

The etymology of advice is: advice (n.) late 13c., auys "opinion," from Old French avis "opinion, view, judgment, idea"

This section for its itself definition sounds like opinionable. Sometimes is possible to speak about facts, but recommendation are always subjective. I can ask about medicament effective in the threat of obesity. But they could be harmful. Can anyone here measure how effective is a drug and how dangerous it is? For being not subjective we would arrive at statistical level. Have you ever seen Medical Papers on Google Scholar? They are something similar to not opinionable reccomendetions.

Someone can argue that we can try to express the title in the less opinionable way. And I agree.

But where we should put the tradeoff between the need for flexibility and usefulness and the committment / effort to the form in which we write the title?

let me provide an example: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/864/which-are-the-best-language-translator-dictionary-android-app-or-website.

"Which are the best language translator / dictionary android-app or website?" Ideological review => too much subjective

Answers:

• When you say app, for what OS => useful in a pragmatical way
• you will have to be much more specific on what features you expect. => useful in a pragmatical way
• I use http://www.wordreference.com/ for myself. Many languages are available Translation Description Examples Basic Grammar => VERY useful in a pragmatical way
• Titles should be clear, concise, and avoid being subjective - you should avoiding asking for the "best" of something, as "best" changes depending on the person asking => I appreciate but it's more ideological an less useful than the second comment (..more specific..)
• closing vote and downvoting? => doesn't seem very useful to me.. I would prefer a "temporary close" the question until it satisfies some criteria with a mandatory comment.

I would also really appreciate you to document yourself reading this document about psychology: link. I know it's boring, but the I advice the same. Since I really believe in studying.

Answer 1

While necessarily we may have more than one answer, a good question dosen't generally poll for them, or ask for something subjective like 'best'. You have a problem - with various requirements and constraints, for which there may be an 'ideal' solution for you. Someone may see it differently. There isn't often a 'best' solution, rather a best compromise, and this may depend on your own needs

"Do you know any other translator or dictionary which offers idioms / word classification in noun / verb and examples?" In essence polls for answers (which is bad)

"Wordreference specifies if the word is a noun / verb / adjective and also provides example with common words. But doesn't support italian to german."

and

"Try to translate "mobili" (means furnitures) from Italian to German. The first advice is wrong and it's not easy to understand if the proposed translation is correct."

are good since they state issues with current solutions.

However, there's a certain lack of a 'thesis' - something that really spells out your issue

"I am looking for an accurate dictionary app that will run on android and has .... I intend to use it in $situations so ...." would be a good option.

Answer 2

While a recommendation can be subjective and some aspects are difficult to objectify ("Its easy to use.") we should try to be as objective as possible.

Also, nobody here will suggest you the worst tool (cause we don't want anti-suggestions) and every suggestion will think it is the most fitting anyway (or else no one will write a recommendation). Keeping that in mind causes one to realize that asking for the "best tool" is like asking for "wettest water". Of course you want the "best", whatever that is to you. There is no need to state that.

Answer 3

To me, asking what the "best" of something is soliciting a discussion, which goes against what we're trying to achieve. "Best" is one of those things that changes wildly depending on perspective and it's perfectly possible to ask for a recommendation without heading down this path.

Examples of a title that asks your question without using the word "best":

• What are alternative language translators to Google Translate?
• What language translation websites are available with <features>?

While it's true that this site exists to provide recommendations, these recommendations should be formatted in a way that objectively details why the recommendation fulfils the requirements of the person who asked the question. Asking for the "best" of something means you're soliciting an opinion, rather than an objective list of recommendations that meet a clearly defined set of requirements. It's the latter that we should be striving to deliver, not the former.