Are demographics questions, like "How many Cantonese speakers who don't speak Mandarin exist", on- or off-topic?

Question

We recently had the question How many Cantonese speakers who don't speak Mandarin exist?. To my knowledge, comparable "demographics" questions haven't been closed previously, such as

• How widely is Mandarin used in Nanjing?
• Are there more people in Russia/Ukraine learning Chinese language than other white dominated countries?
• The most used Chinese dialect on the Web?
• How many non-native speakers of Chinese are there?
• How many people are learning Chinese as a second language today?

Moreover, I didn't find a meta post where the community declared such questions off-topic. This needs discussing.

Question: Are demographics questions, like "How many Cantonese speakers who don't speak Mandarin exist", on- or off-topic?

Answer 1

This is my take on things.

People seem to be confusing "I don't know the answer" or "I don't like this kind of question" with "this is off-topic". There are other people using the site too---maybe they can answer.

There are many aspects to the Chinese language; there are many ways of studying the Chinese language. I see no reason why demographics questions are off-topic. I see no reason why this particular question is off-topic.

If a question were truly "unanswerable", then just write an answer giving your justification. (But I'm fairly sure nobody here has actually done a literature review to find out if there's any academic papers on this topic.) Besides, who says that in the future, this data won't be available?

I feel like diamond-hammer closing a question which hasn't been established as off-topic, and without giving a reason (until prompted by me), is a symptom of a bigger problem. Closure is currently almost solely determined by a single diamond moderator. This is not healthy. This is not how the site's meant to function. I've been advocating against this for a long time now.

We're not meant to be doing this:

Moderators are human exception handlers, there to deal with those exceptional conditions that could otherwise disrupt the community.
_{Who are the site moderators, and what is their role here?; see also A Theory of Moderation}

Other people need to have a say too.

Maybe it's time to get back to Streamlining question closure: approximate roadmap (I kind of got distracted with the HSK). I hope we can find a way forward where closure is not primarily via the diamond hammer. Maybe this problem stems from unclear boundaries.

Answer 2

My comment: "If I want to know how many Cantonese speakers and Mandarin speakers are in Canada, I would look at the census. It would be about population statistics, just like the OP's question"

For statistic questions, we can find answers from searchable online statistics. If it is not recorded statistics, every answer would be a guess. My guess is: that 20 % of Cantonese speakers don't speak Mandarin. It is a good guess, but there's no way to prove it is correct

Also, by claiming yourself 'Mandarin speaker', what fluency level is qualified? I can't hold a conversation with a native Mandarin speaker, but I can use simple Mandarin terms, like ordering from a menu for the dishes I know...am I still counted as a Mandarin speaker?

Answer 3

Opinion:

These question have 2 extremes:

1. answerable by referencing an existing "census" (as mentioned by Tong Ho).
2. no existing statistics exists (or is very out-dated), and one must be performed.

From 2, I have the feeling that, as a Q&A site, we shouldn't be responsible for doing the census - it should be the responsibility for whoever that's doing the research.

If I were to make a case for 1, I would suggest that such source come from reputable institutions that very oftenly occasionally if not regularly conducting such census.

There's a "Can I Ask for Resources" section in the help center, that I think can apply to these questions. While demographics questions aren't asking for resources per se, their outcome, merit, and contribution to the site can be evaluated accordingly.