Headlamp question

Question

I have some issues with this topic:

Why might one need a 2000 lumen headlamp?

Like I wrote in the comments I do welcome answers like that from @nhinkle a lot, especially when it comes to gear. Still it's not answering the asked question "Why one needs strong headlamps" and because of the high quality of the answer it's on first position now.

I vote to split the topic (by a moderator) so we have a new question like e.g. "What does the 'Lumen' specification on headlamps mean?" or maybe better "Is this headlamp really as good as a high end item 10 times more expensive?". Nhinkle's answer would fit better then.

Also I don't favor to create a tag on lumen because this is simply too narrow/specific for TGO. It fits great on physics or engineering but we won't get enough questions with that tag on Outdoors. Also it's not that relevant here. A tag like headlamps suits that very well.

What do you think?

Answer 1

Unfortunately there's no way for moderators to move only a single answer from one question to another. It's possible to merge two questions, but that irreversibly migrates all answers from one question to another. That shouldn't stop us from starting a new question though and I can always delete and re-post my answer.

I do however agree that my answer doesn't quite fit the question as-asked. If we try to distill Weda's question and my answer to their core messages, it's:

• What headlamp output level is necessary for a particular activity?

• What specifications are used to define the performance of headlamps and flashlights?

We should get Weda's input on this, as it's his question, but I would be happy to ask and self-answer a new question to address the second point, and to modify my answer to the existing question to better address what it's really asking.

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Regarding the lumen tag, I agree that it's unnecessary. It would be like tagging a question about hiking with kilometers or a question about sleeping bags with celsius.

Answer 2

I did something very similar to what you're asking. I answered a question on rehydrating dehydrated foods, but in my answer I ended up going on a tangent about the pros and cons of the different processes between dehydrated and freeze dried foods. I recognised that my answer wasn't a very good fit for the question as it was asked, so I asked a new question which I copied my answer to, tailored it a bit to be a better fit for the new question, then deleted the original answer on the other question.

So the question could be split, but it would involve deleting the original answer, which does result in the loss of any reputation that may have been earned on it.

Another option that I think is fairly acceptable, is if an answer gets a significant amount up upvotes, and is chosen as the accepted answer by the OP, then it makes sense to me to edit the question to better fit the answer, and re-ask the original question with a narrower scope.

That Lumens question got the answers it did mainly because the OP linked to that cheap Chinese headlamp. Had he left the quest at, "What are super high powered headlamps used for?" He would have got more of the responses he was looking for.