Should the motivation of a question and not the activity determine whether it's on topic or not?

Question

The tag wiki for the knots tag currently reads "utility of or method of tying knots for use in any of the following activities" followed by a bullet list of a few obviously outdoor-related activities.

Meanwhile, a user has recently come along, on April 9, 2018, asking about a good knot to use to create an adjustable loop in a length of leather cord, and revealed that this would be used for a piece of jewelry. Because of this, the question is receiving down votes and close votes.

NOTE: The question was edited on April 11, 2018, and the reference to jewelry, as well as type of cord (leather) were removed. Here is the text of the original.

Apologies for the incompleteness of my former entry here. My question relates to a leather thong loop used to hang a pendant on. The knot needs to be at the point of the join of the 2 ends so that it will sit at the back of the neck. I can remember seeing this knot a long time ago on a pendant from India and it meant the length of the pendant could be adjusted from almost zero to any length at all but clearly only as wide as the back of the wearers neck is best for aesthetic reasons I don't know if there are any commonly used "outdoor" knots that might suit but thought it worth a try. Hope someone can help.

This has me wondering, consider the following two examples:

I need a knot that forms an adjustable loop, so as to hang fenders from the railing of my pontoon boat.

versus:

I need a knot that forms an adjustable loop, so as to hang a sun-catcher from the rod of living room curtains.

The two questions begin the same and will have essentially the same answer. Therefore, we need to decide whether we will judge the first question as on-topic and the second off-topic. Also, what if the question did not specify the intended use at all?

I need a knot that forms an adjustable loop, so as to hang a modest weight object from a vertical bar.

I am intentionally not stating my own opinion here nor my arguments for that opinion. I want to see what the community will have to say.

Answer 1

I would say that we should keep it open, but with a few edits. There are a few good examples of whistles/compass being tied using knots. I'm not sure how to edit the question without losing the orginal content, hence I've not edited it yet.

Answer 2

If you read the guidelines yes it seems out of scope.

This site in general seems to allow a lot. If it can be used in the outdoors then it is in scope.

I did not vote to close and OP got a good answer.

I almost voted to close because the original question was not clear.

A question on wattage was allowed and it is not specific to the outdoors. The site electronics would have been a better fit.

A knot is related to the outdoors and there is expertise on knots in this site. This site is the best fit in the stack exchange network for a knot question. I could have easily been a small compass rather than a pendant.

I get you don't allow just because another was allowed. Knot where I would draw a line in the sand.

Answer 3

I found it easy to vote to leave the Q open, because the OP provided a fig leaf in his next-to-last sentence. That fig leaf is now gone because the question has been edited, but this is what it said:

I don't know if there are any commonly used "outdoor" knots that might suit but thought it worth a try.

I don't know what I would have done if the fig leaf had not been there. I think of knots as very outdoorsy things.

This doesn't answer your fundamental question; my response to that is if the Q has even peripherally outdoors contents, I would probably leave it open. I think. If the Q had been about needlepoint, a quintessentially indoor activity, I would have VTC.

Darn -- why did you have to ask such a confusing question?

Answer 4

Edit: 4/11/18 The question being discussed as an example has been modified. The original text can be found in the discussion question above, and the current version is here. I withdraw my concerns with it.

Yes the intended use is critical in the case of knots.

In this case there are number of potential answers. Ultimately the end use the knot will be asked to support is critical for deciding if it should or should not be used. The use in the question starting this post does not carry over to outdoor activities.

For the OP question about a necklace, a square knot or even a bow knot could or would be appropriate answers. For a pontoon boat the square knot 'might' be ok, but the bow knot not so much. For curtains the bow know might be the best answer purely for aesthetics. And if you are going hang something that your life might depend on (like yourself) then different answers would be more appropriate.

Edit: I posted a comment on the question, that further expands on my concerns.

Lito I suspect that the answer by mike is exactly what you are looking for, so your needs here are met. We are discussing scope issues with your question and if it should stay as is or be modified to unquestionably be in scope. I also suspect that you are asking about adjustable for aesthetic reasons, as you will be selling them (which is fine) but also further out of scope. Would you be ok with @Ricketyship (or someone else) significantly modifying you question to bringing it clearly into scope?

Follow-up I just realized there is a Arts & Crafts.SE which would be a better home for this question, and their need for increased traffic is greater than ours. .