What is our criteria for deciding opinion-based questions? Are they applied consistently?

Question

What are the criteria for a question in this website to be considered opinion-based, and is it somewhat consistently applied?
Such criteria would be necessary for moderators for a topic like chess.
I feel like many questions are closed off unfairly as opinion-based whereas some clearly opinion-based questions are allowed. Is such decisions made to avoid useless disputes? (To me, this doesn't seem to be the case).

For example, the question "What are the general principles for playing hypermodern against hypermodern?" was marked as too opnion-based and it was re-opened later after asking a meta question (by the way, it is not the case that the edits redeemed the quesiton).

On the other hand, there are obvious opinion-based questions which are let on.
Examples: one, two, three, four, five
The above question listed below for quick reading (without links):
Why isn't Chess960 the standard?
Why are opening books so popular?
Why do people prefer different chess engine evaluations?
What are some good podcasts to listen to?
What do I do next?
I could list many more. Similar to the last one, there are some many questions encouraged in this community that basically ask for opinions and tips on how to improve in chess (more examples: one, two, three).

Answer 1

I'll have a crack at this.

I'd classify any question that cannot be answered with a Right or Wrong answer , and leads towards a responses/discussions based on personal belief or conjecture.

So questions such as "Why is [insert chess variant] not played at the same level as classical chess?" leads to responses as , "Its not as exciting" etc. You cannot receive a factual response with any empirical evidence to support the response.

This is where it gets a little gray because there are some "opinion" style questions such as "How do I improve my Rating" that can generally be answered correctly with non opinionated responses, eg: Study and improve your end game, play longer time controls, study tactics, improve middle game, don't set all your focus on opening theory until you have middle game / end game theory locked in. That said I absolutely despise this questions because its no different to "How do I make a million dollars?" , perseverance.

The biggest issues with this is Stack Exchange isn't designed for communities like "Chess" in mind. Its primary design is for programming and leads to factual, measurable responses. Something not necessarily applicable to all facets of chess.

Answer 2

I hope this gets clarification from moderators. It's been a year already.

Afaik, the purpose of opinion-based is to avoid 'What's your favourite (...)?' kind of questions. There are many speculation questions that are on-topic eg

1. If Hans Niemann is cheating, how?
2. Why isn't Chess960 the standard?
3. Would a classic full time armageddon tiebreaker be balanced?
4. Why isn't there more classical armageddon with auction?
5. Why didn't Wesley So get full championship privilege in the 2022 WFRCC unlike Magnus and Vishy did since 2008?

I don't see these as any different from asking on movies or scifi/fantasy SE like 'Why did character X do action Y?'

Based on the previous post

Are questions involving opinions allowed?

I think the moderators should clarify...

1. Glorfindel: 'Of course, there is a gray area'

• Clarify as to what exactly the criteria are and how they are applied and if so far they've been applied consistently given that

What are the general principles for playing hypermodern against hypermodern?

was incorrectly closed by a moderator before 5 votes.

2. Brian Towers: 'The key point is that suitable questions should have definitive answers. If my opinion on a subject is different from yours and both are arguable then the question is not suitable. The site is not supposed to be about arguments and discussions. It's supposed to be about facts.'

• Clarify a distinction between 'theories' and '(complete) opinions'. For example, it's plainly on-topic to theorise/speculate 'Why isn't there more classical armageddon with auction?' because it was answered by a moderator. We don't necessarily need interviews from FIDE or tournament organisers because people with enough experience are able to tell. Another such question might be

Why aren't OTB superGM chess tournaments done using 1 computer per player like in the 2022 Meltwater Finals where players still showed up physically but made moves in their chess.com / chess24 account on provided respective computers not on a physical board?

People can have different 'opinions' in the sense of 'theories'. No one's going to have an 'opinion like 'I think a magic fairy from another dimension forbade it.'