Let's talk with X about Y so we can achieve Z

Question

I rummaged through our questions from last week and noticed they most all fit into certain categories:

How to talk to X about Y, so I achieve Z?

• How to ask a friend to do professional work?
• How to ask ex to not be too personal
• How do I ask my Dad to finance my computer?
• How do I approach telling my date that I won't lend her money?
• How to determine if someone is busy or just doesn't want to spend time with me?

How to talk to X about Y?

• A birthday greeting
• How to discuss that I have codependent behavior?
• How to voice my concerns to a friend with mental health issues?
• How to ask cashier out for date
• How can I tell my wife that her fears and mistrust are hurting us?
• How to ask someone not to lie?

How to talk to X?

• How to talk to a girl who's sitting next to me but wearing headphones?

How to achieve Z?

• Father wants me to give him my work number and I don't want to
• How can I "chill" about my position on game rules without looking like I'm just "taking my ball and going home"?
• Hard to have productive political discussion with significant other
• Boyfriend always responds "I didn't mean to" when he gets feedback
• Dad wants me to invite his mother to my wedding. How to push it back?
• How should I deal with my friend's anger issues?
• How can I switch a conversation from a language to another?
• how do I get back in touch with my estranged mother?

Yep, that's a massive list. And those are just a selection from last week's questions.

Now, don't get me wrong, but I thought this was an Interpersonal Skills stack, not an Interpersonal Problems one. Right now, I think this stack has a problem.

Looking at the extensive list of questions above, they often aren't so much about Interpersonal Skills as about solutions to Interpersonal Problems. As in, often they invite answers saying 'just explain it like you did here' or 'use your words', which comes with several 'try this' answers giving variations on the same sentence. We often have to poke answerers to explain how or why their solution works, and even then it doesn't become clear which Interpersonal Skill is at the bottom of the answer. Good Subjective, Bad Subjective provides six points for a good question, out of which 4 focus on the kind of answer that is to be expected. In other words: A good question invites good answers, and our current questions don't seem to be doing that.

As was said in chat by Cascabel:

I'd be wary of questions where the OP doesn't really know the root cause, because it invites a lot of guesswork.

If the OP doesn't know what Interpersonal Skill they have a question about, how are we supposed to focus our answers on explaining an Interpersonal Skill?

Also, another chat message from Shog9 that made me think:

And communication between people is a fine topic for the site. As long as you're focused on what you do and not what you're trying to get someone else to do.

We do have a 'questions require a goal we can address' policy for a while now, but I can't help but wonder if the 'goal' is often not just 'wrong' for this site, because the goal is getting someone else to do something?

I am wondering if 'How to talk to X about Y to achieve Z' or variations of that should be held to a higher standard than they are now. Yes, solving an Interpersonal Problem may require learning a new Interpersonal Skill, but since I often see questions where the answer focuses on things very different from Interpersonal Skills, I think 'How to talk to X about Y to achieve Z' might need a bit more scrutiny.

I found some example questions that show it is possible to ask about a specific Interpersonal Skill, for example:

• How can I learn to be a good active listener?
• Does talking about mildly taboo topics with people normalize the subject for them?
• Is there any research showing whether sandwich feedbacks are more effective than other forms of feedback?
• How to non-verbally communicate that I am listening?
• How can I prevent an appearance of micromanaging someone?
• What impact does "mirroring" have on other people?
• Does prefacing an insult with a "softener" make it any less rude?

IMO these are about a problem a specific person has with a specific Interpersonal Skill (at least, that's what I interpreted them like), and a much better fit for this site.

Should we be more critical of 'How do I talk to X about Y to achieve Z' types of questions?
Are they a problem for this site?

I'm not saying we should make all these questions off-topic, but how do we make this a site to focus on Interpersonal Skills instead of Interpersonal Problems?

Answer 1

We should have a low tolerance for questions asking "How do I get someone to do x?".

Questions asking how to manipulate someone aren't good interpersonal skills questions. They're far to specific and entirely dependent upon the individual being manipulated to really be answered without their complete history.

To quote Shog 9:

And communication between people is a fine topic for the site. As long as you're focused on what you do and not what you're trying to get someone else to do.

To me they should be closed as primarily opinion based, since without knowing lots about the person being manipulated any answer is going to be just a bunch of guesswork.

I've seen people who will just edit "How do I get someone to do x" to "How do I talk to someone about x". I think we should be cautious about this sort of edit. There's a big difference between having a conversation about something and getting someone to do it. Oftentimes successful contentious conversations end in compromise or a mutual understanding of each person's positions rather than "win" where someone's mind has been changed. I think that a big part of what makes those conversations successful is an understanding that their purpose isn't to get your way but to work collectively towards a mutually beneficial solution. Unless the OP is aware of the distinction between conversation about x and get someone to do x they won't be able to use any of the answers provided.

It might be a good idea to consider having a custom close reason for this type of question.

Answer 2

Questions about interpersonal problems including how to talk to X about Y to get them to do Z are currently on topic here. If we think that objective is manipulative, or not a good fit for this site for the valid reasons you brought up here, we can come to a community consensus to redefine "on-topic" to exclude that particular type of question. Specifically, that

questions asking how to make someone do something are off topic here.

Unfortunately so many of the questions we get fall under that category and I am not at all sure that interpersonal problems as a generic type could be deemed off topic here anyway, because for the last 8 months we have typically been addressing the solving of interpersonal problems through good interpersonal skills.

Thanks too for adding a list of example questions that actually ask about a particular interpersonal skill. It really helps us understand the difference between questions asking about interpersonal problems and questions asking about interpersonal skills. Looking at that list, 4 out of those 7 Q were asked in the first 2 months of this site and the other 3 were expertly constructed more recently by senior members. Such questions are relatively rare here.

Now please see the first 50 'closed' questions when arranged by relevance -- at least 20 Q are actually asking about an interpersonal skill but got closed mainly as "too broad" because OP was unable to restrict it to a specific interpersonal situation.

Additionally the close message for "too broad" says

please limit your question to a specific problem with enough detail to suggest an effective solution (paraphrase)

which can be misinterpreted as asking one to limit the question to a specific interpersonal problem, when read by a new user.

Even a good interpersonal skills question written by an experienced member who knows how to frame such a question can get closed as too broad based on certain interpretations of what is too broad on Interpersonal Skills Stack Exchange.

Case study: How do I learn to pick my battles a little better?

A very experienced member posted this question about a particular interpersonal skill (learning to pick their battles) but the Q was closed because the member declined to restrict it to a specific interpersonal situation and 5 members deemed it "too broad" for that reason. It was reopened because 5 members felt it was not too broad, mainly because it is actually about a specific interpersonal issue, which is that OP has had trouble with picking their battles, and I have always called it a good interpersonal skills question that fits this website. The Q got 10 upvotes and the best answer later won a 200 points bounty [please ignore any other debatable aspects of that post for the purposes of this meta question.]

It is true as noted in a previous answer that more people tend to ask a question about an interpersonal problem rather than an interpersonal skill, thus setting a pattern when new users read our questions list. Also, the way we approach closing questions here, which heavily emphasises that questions should be non-opinion-based and limited to a specific interpersonal interaction (unfortunately many people interpret this as 'interpersonal problem') unintentionally favors 'specific practical solution' questions of the "how do I talk to someone about getting them to do a certain thing" type, while a more generalised Q about a specific interpersonal skill, when asked by a new member not yet expert at navigating all possible close reasons [unlike an experienced member who can actually construct a high quality 'not too broad' question about a specific interpersonal skill] runs a significant risk of being closed as too broad.

What we can do when a question about a specific interpersonal skill is phrased too broad, is to help OP narrowly focus it on a specific interpersonal situation relevant to that skill -- a specific example that best illustrates the question -- and thus save the Q from getting closed as too broad. For instance, if I ask how to be a good listener, you can tell me to limit myself to a specific interaction, maybe with a particular relative or friend, which illustrates my need to develop the interpersonal skill of good listening. Or else we can agree to consider a question "not too broad" as long as it asks clearly about a specific interpersonal skill, even if it is not restricted to a particular interpersonal situation. The aim is to ensure that such questions remain open and get answered so that we can develop an "interpersonal skills" question model here to balance the currently numerous model of "interpersonal problems."

And if someone asks a question about getting someone to do something, we can possibly take a collective decision based on the community consensus on this meta Q, to advise OP that as noted in a previous answer, manipulation is not good IPS.

Update: the 'case study' question referenced here has now been closed again as too broad. Closing that question gives a clear policy response to this meta question by saying in effect that a Q about a specific interpersonal skill will still be closed as too broad, if it does not restrict itself to a specific interpersonal situation with enough detail to provide a good solution. All I ask for is consistency and I am fine with that most recent assessment of the matter by the community.

Answer 3

Interpersonal problems are often how people notice a need to work on their interpersonal skills.

Much like how a site for auto mechanic skills, would likely have more questions about common automobile maintenance and repair rather than questions about best practices for wrench turning. Basically people don't tend to think about auto mechanics until their car breaks down or they become aware that they need to do some preventative maintenance.

Analogies also carry over to sites like Stack Overflow. It's a programming question and answer site, but I think you'll notice that people only ask questions when their code isn't working. (If I remember correctly, code review and best practice questions were usually closed for being primarily opinion based)

Likewise here, people ask questions when their interpersonal skills aren't working, or they're unsure of which interpersonal skills to apply to a given situation. This isn't always the same as not having a clear desired outcome, it's usually just a matter of not knowing which skills to apply to get there.

To put it simply, people don't tend to ask questions when there's no problem to be solved.

Answer 4

After rereading this question, I'm a little concerned that we may be setting unhelpful hurdles...

Most of the "interpersonal problem" questions could be reworded into "interpersonal skills" questions. Basically I suspect that setting a new policy on this would lead us to close nearly all questions while we pedantically prod new users into wording their questions a specific way.

You may be asking what the problem with that is. Well, I'm not seeing how this would meaningfully limit the field of questions, it just places a large hurdle on how questions are worded.

So:

Father wants me to give him my work number and I don't want to

Would become:

How do I set a healthy boundary between my work life and my relationship with my father?

Or:

Are there any studies or statistical analysis on the effectiveness of different methods commonly employed by young adults setting boundaries with parents?

Effectively the first two are still the same question, and they'll likely receive the same sort of answer. It's not much more than a semantic difference that's easily circumvented by some, while at the same time creating a stumbling block for others. The third is likely somewhat unanswerable as often times the studies haven't been done, and a study on such a broad subject would probably be a little suspect.

The other problem is that forming "interpersonal skills" questions would sort of require users to have the language skills required... People who aren't as fluent in these things may know that their father is being pushy, but may not have the forknowledge that this is called "crossing boundaries" and a user who knew the term "crossing boundaries" might not need to ask this sort of question.

I guess I'm thinking that going down this road my create more problems (pun intended) than it solves. Yes having some higher skill questions would be nice, but I'm not so sure that adding hurdles is a great way to get there. We may end up having to rewrite nearly every question to meet a functionally useless standard.

Answer 5

Should we be more critical of 'How do I talk to X about Y to achieve Z' types of questions?

Yes. This doesn't mean we should close them right away, or discourage them from being asked altogether.

It does mean we encourage people asking these types of questions to think a little bit further, to write their question in such a way that it becomes clear they are asking for/about an Interpersonal Skill, instead of writing down a problem and just have it solved for this time. Also, we need to encourage describing the actual Interpersonal Skills problem over the Interpersonal Interaction Problem.

Are they a problem for this site?

Yes. The questions are not inviting answers focusing on Interpersonal Skills (how to use a specific skill in a specific situation, how to implement a specific skill, or what skill to use).

What they do invite, is answers that are speculating what may be wrong, answers that are just sharing experiences (and comments saying those answers are wrong, because hey, I never experienced the world that way). We get answers saying 'just explain it like you did here', or 'just say this'. Yes, we may need to moderate our answers more heavily, but I think that by tweaking questions a little, the 'Skills' part of this stacks name will already become a lot more prevalent.

Basically, they are all bordering on being 'bad subjective' questions, by inviting the wrong kind of answers (answers not mentioning skills - why and how to use them, short answers, opinion based answers/common sense answers over experiences and references to sources)

I'm not saying we should make all these questions off-topic, but how do we make this a site to focus on Interpersonal Skills instead of Interpersonal Problems?

I'd like to see questions more focused on Interpersonal Skills than Interpersonal Interaction Problems. Maybe we can start some quality guidelines, like SFF or Literature do for their Identification questions.

Such a list for Interpersonal Skills, in my head, looks like this:

• An explanation of what was already tried, preferably focusing on how it was tried over what was tried.
• A description of what went wrong, if at all possible with a bit of introspection on what Skill you think you failed on.
• If nothing was tried, details on why it wasn't tried already, what are you afraid of?
• If you know the word for it, the specific Interpersonal Skill you're asking about, like asserting a boundary, starting an unpleasant conversation, being persuasive.
  • If you think you failed on a single subpart of this like picking your moment or tone of voice, great! Put it in the question, ask about that.

So, basically, help users! 'How do I talk to X about Y to achieve Z' might be rephrased to 'What skill can I use in situation X to achieve Z?' or 'How can I use skill X in situation Y to achieve Z?'.

Have the question focus on the situation, the interaction between two people taking place, and what the asker does in that situation. Don't make the question about the other person (X) eventually doing something (Z), ask about what I can do when X happens. Have the question invite answers that explain an actual Interpersonal Skill.

---

Practical Example: How do I ask my Dad to finance my computer?

The question is a text-book example of 'How to I talk to X (dad) about Y (financing a computer) to achieve Z (the financing of a computer)'.

It's not focused on what Skill to use (which would probably be 'be persuasive'). It's focused on 'how can I make Dad finance a computer', on making Dad do something. Instead, it could (and should) have asked about what the asker could do in this situation: 'What can I do if I'm in this situation?' or 'How can I be persuasive given these circumstances?'. The question isn't really focused on the situation, the interaction between two people taking place, and what the asker does in that situation. There is no information on what was already tried or what OP is fearing might happen, there is no information on the interaction between two people taking place because there hasn't been one yet. We don't know the root cause of the problem here (too shy? Dad refusing because there's no money? Entitled brat?)

And the answers reflect that. None of them is actually mentioning 'be persuasive'. Not a single answer is referencing a source, although there are a lot of good resources on how to convince people, sell an idea, be persuasive.

The top answer is suggesting yet another skill: compromise. Yet, there is just a list of suggestions for what the OP could suggest as a compromise and no mention of any 'skill'. There isn't any guidance on how to make a compromise, how to effectively word a compromise, how to let the parent know this is a compromise. The word 'compromise' isn't mentioned once. There's no explanation as to why compromising will work, why in this case it is better than offering a false choice or trying to persuade dad to finance the entire expensive rig.

---

I don't think worrying about close voting a lot of our traffic is necessary, although a lot of the XYZ problem questions are often about the same skills. I think we should be careful by sticking to taking things like cultural background and power balances into account, just like we do now. If the situation is sufficiently different, it would do no harm to have a question explaining how to use the same skills in that situation as well as in another situation described by another question.

The question should invite answers that mention actual skills, how and why to use them. It should invite long answers over the short 'just explain it like you did here' or 'try this' answers. It should invite answers sharing experiences over answers based on opinion or common sense. It should insist opinions (common sense) be backed up with references to sources.

If it's lacking that, then sure, go ahead and close it as a duplicate of an earlier one that did to that, as unclear what you're asking or primarily opinion based. Becuase if it doesn't do that, it's not a good subjective question.

Answer 6

I'm just going to throw this out there, but I think maybe this is more of an issue with answers than it is with questions (most of the time).

In the next paragraph, I'm going to be referencing the "Fastest Gun In The West" syndrome from the meta post How to get a better sense of community going?, so feel free to browse if you would like to know more about that specific term.

Anyway, again, I think it's an answer problem more than a question problem. While it's true that we have some great questions that are specifically asking about interpersonal skills, I think there can still be a lot of value from these questions asking about interpersonal problems (and how to solve them using interpersonal skills). The issue, however, is that answerers are essentially posting responses as though they're writing for "Dear Abby", and not providing thorough and thoughtful information on the interpersonal skills they're suggesting be used. I believe this is due not only to us not having stricter restrictions on answers, but also partially due to the previously eluded "Fastest Gun In The West" syndrome. Eager to answer, and with no real moderation against it, we end up with answers that explain what to say to someone and how it should help the situation, but we don't provide factual context or references to such skills, as many other SE sites do (maybe because a lot of the time we end up saying "Well, this worked for me once" and call it good - but maybe that's exactly what we shouldn't be doing if we want to focus more on the interpersonal skills necessary to solve a problem).

Now it'd be easy to say that if we restrict questions from being so focused on personal problems that "Dear Abby" answers would go away, but I think we could yield better results from not being so narrow. Ask yourself the following question:

• Should questions with the format of "Which interpersonal skill(s) can I use to help resolve an issue between myself and someone else?" be on topic?

If the answer is yes, then I think it's fairly safe to say we can edit about any question (that would fit our current guidelines) to be a good fit for this site. If the answer is no, I'd like to hear why, because I think these specific example questions could still pose a great amount of value. Instead of only having broad questions about "Why is this behavior rude?" it would allow us to still maintain specific examples of why the behavior is rude.

Often times I believe the people asking these questions would have no great awareness of the skill they actually need to talk about, similarly to how on Stack Overflow we can find questions where people are completely lost on what code library they need to import to accomplish their goals (they might not even be asking for a code library, but let's use it as an example). Their question might not reference said library, because they don't know it exists yet! That's where great, truly helpful answers come in. Explain which library (interpersonal skill) is best for that scenario and why. Other people might even share other libraries (IPS) they think are more efficient. However, the community will vote based on their knowledge and experience, and the OP should still end up using the best library (IPS) for their situation, while leaving all other library (IPS) information in place for whoever else might need it.

Anyway, I won't go on any longer, since this is a question about question scope and not answer scope, but I do think we could achieve more value by having a discussion on answer scope instead.

Answer 7

We should start closing "How to talk about x?" questions as duplicates.

If that's the level of understanding that the OP is showing about their problem then we should direct them to a generic question with a series of well written answers talking about general techniques for having productive yet difficult conversations. Answers to that question should focus on one conversational technique and provide a detailed explanation of what the technique is, and how it works, along with a few well written examples.

If people are wanting more specific help, they should ask a more specific question. Hopefully pointing people to an answer that covers the basics of how to have difficult conversations, they will be prompted to edit their questions to focus on how to apply a specific technique to their situation.

We shouldn't be blindly editing questions just to make them on topic. Edits should always preserve the OP's original intentions. If those intentions are off topic, or duplicating an existing question then unless the OP edits the question, or indicates their intentions in the comments, it should be closed.

Answer 8

I really like English Student's answer.

To address your question: I do agree that the questions that are categorized as "How do I talk to X about Y to achieve Z" can be improved. But, I don't think we should scrutinize these questions too heavily and start an aggressive closing campaign.

I think that one of sphennings' answer is a bit presumptuous and assumes bad faith. I have not seen any questions that have had malicious intentions kept open for answers, and it seems that the community is moderating just fine. Moreover, sphenning's repeated claims of there being questions of how to manipulate others doesn't seem to be true.

Manipulation implies unscrupulous behavior, and such questions violate the Be Nice policy and are handled pretty quickly by the community. Instead, I think we had better be careful not to conflate "manipulation" with negotiation, which, to my mind at least, is a very good goal to aim for - and effective negotiation requires strong interpersonal skills. (The question regarding asking a friend to do professional work is an example where I think the aim was for negotiation, not manipulation - there was a market rate compensation offered in exchange for labor.)

Answer 9

• Stack-Exchange questions are not about programming, they are about programming problems.
• Worplace.SE is not about the workplace, its about problems with the workplace
• ...

This is a Q/A forum- what do you expect? Especially one where discussions are discouraged and generalized questions like this are closed with We aren't here to answer hypothetical questions. comment.

If now also actual questions about actual problems are also defined off-topic - whats left?