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Had this question pop up today

Have you attended the 3 day course "Space Electronics" by Dr Rajan Bedi, UK?

Now, we allow some discussion about space education, and this seems related. However, there are some opinionated parts.

  1. Is this kind of general question on-topic?
  2. If so, how much opinion is too much?
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  • $\begingroup$ Immaterial. I've deleted the question. It's causing too much angst. $\endgroup$
    – My Other Head
    Commented Mar 2, 2020 at 18:55
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    $\begingroup$ @MyOtherHead while some users may generate angst or experience it personally, an SE question is just a question and a good SE community like this one should be able to handle it calmly and helpfully. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Mar 2, 2020 at 22:57
  • $\begingroup$ While that specific question has been deleted, it doesn't mean the type of question shouldn't be discussed. Rather, the very fact @MyOtherHead deleted it because of the angst it was causing them suggests we should understand the issues to be better able to provide guidance to authors of similar questions in future. $\endgroup$
    – user20636
    Commented Mar 6, 2020 at 6:49

2 Answers 2

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  • What topics should be revised, studied, or well understood, prior to the course?

  • Have you been able to apply what you learnt? To what sort of project or system/subsystem have you applied, or will apply, your course knowledge?

  • If you had to pay for this course yourself for professional development (and hopefully it's tax-deductible in your jurisdiction), would you attend?

I think the last two of the three questions in bullets takes the question from "kinda off-topic, but also open to interpretation" to "Hey! this is really off-topic!".

It seems all right, in my opinion, as long as they stick to asking about specific aspects (such as topics explored, prerequisites etc.) of space exploration-themed courses, but asking "would you invest?" or "have you applied this knowledge?" are almost an absolute no-no for SE.

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    $\begingroup$ for the first question, an answer other than "those the course recommends" would be opinion-based $\endgroup$
    – user20636
    Commented Mar 6, 2020 at 6:46
  • $\begingroup$ @JCRM True. That will depend on the users attempting to answer. But this is true for all questions! $\endgroup$
    – William R. Ebenezer
    Commented Mar 9, 2020 at 2:42
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The last comment there about shopping questions being general SE no-no's is pretty conclusive, as is asking for people's opinions. Both of these off-topic reasons are fairly self-evident. It looks exactly like a promotion to me btw. It doesn't matter if it is or isn't, because one can't be sure, if it looks like one, then it's probably off-topic.

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