Help Center Scope - On Topic and Off Topic

Question

The On-topic section of the Help Center (which is new, for those of you who just noticed) is the defining point of any Stack Exchange site; it is, in essence, exactly what a site here is. I've combed through the Area51 proposal and the questions on the main site, and I've drafted an FAQ scope below, but it's up to us as a whole to refine this, perfect it, and graduate from private beta (done) after finishing this and establishing a base of users.

Keep in mind that this is a draft. It's up to the community to finish this; post away with comments, suggestions, alterations, and so on.

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Now that we are using the Help Center (instead of "FAQ"):

For: https://freelancing.stackexchange.com/helpcenter/on-topic

What topics can I ask about here?

Freelancing Stack Exchange is for Self-employed and freelance workers. If your question covers...

• Agency work while freelancing
• Selling services to different employers without a long-term contract with any of them
• Client responsibilities to freelancers
• Cross-border requirements and laws for freelancing

and isn't about...

• Working in a part-time of full-time setting for a company
• Asking for life experiences or opinions on freelancing

...then you’re in the right place to ask your question!

Please look around to see if your question has been asked before. It’s also OK to ask and answer your own question.

Edit: In addition, we need to think about custom off-topic closing reasons. Which of these are the most commonly asked questions so far?

Answer 1

I'm not sure I'd explicitly put work laws in the FAQ. The law is a very complicated animal, and even people who have what seems to be a very similar problem may in fact have different results due to a wide variety of factors. Moreover, federal laws may preempt local laws. Contracts may contain loopholes, or they may supercede rights that would be reserved to one party had a contract not existed.

Some of these questions may have answers that won't apply to future visitors, and it may be difficult for those visitors to determine what does and doesn't apply to them.

However, I wouldn't list them as off-topic either. Let the questions stand on their own. If the legal component is too strong, we can suggest edits to reword the question, or close the post if it is too localized to the specifics of the asker's legal situation.

If we do feel we need to list work laws, perhaps there's a way we can word it so it's clear we aren't experts on interpreting the law.

Answer 2

Looking at the current questions that we have on the main site, we might want to add "Advertising and Marketing" as an on-topic subject. However, we would have to make sure that we don't evaluate specific marketing campaigns.

Example On-Topic Questions:

• Phone or e-mail when attracting clients?
• How to approach local shops to offer them my service?
• How can I advertise myself?

Example Off-Topic Questions:

• Look at my marketing campaign; what do you think? (either too localized, not constructive, or in particularly bad cases, spam)
• How to approach Hechinger's for a bid? (too localized)