Could we have fixed this question […] encouraging the user to edit or rephrase the question himself?

This is mentioned in the banner below:

Also, commenters have been very verbose, including Darth Android, who said:

If you could clarify exactly what criteria would define a "correct" answer to this question, it would be a large step to making it much more suitable for SuperUser

That's the main point.

I feel that in this case, the user basically shared their opinion and then asked for others. Actually, I didn't really see the actual question until the last paragraph — everything before was (all valid) reasoning, but in that sense they already answered their own question, right? They already had their opinion and asked others about what they thought.

The problem that always exists is that these kinds of topic inspire everyone to have an opinion. While we do have the means to put up a banner below the question asking people to include specific references and backing up their claims, this message is often ignored. A question then slowly drifts into the state where every answer is equally valid, which is absolutely not what we want.

If the OP were asking for specific evidence of malware being a threat to Linux systems, and factual references supporting that, then I guess the question would be acceptable. Also, asking for reasons, yes. To some extent, that is an acceptable question.

However, most other users don't feel confident enough to completely change another user's question on their own – rightfully so. If you can come up with an edit to improve the question, and then post a good answer, that's of course something we'd appreciate.

Understand that the past has shown us that we can't let questions sit around forever until they spiral into becoming a pile of personal opinion, and then close them. We need to encourage askers to read Good Subjective, Bad Subjective, and we need to be more strict about point number 5:

Great subjective questions insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references.

 

Opinion isn’t all bad, so long as it’s backed up with something other than “because I’m an expert”, or “because I said so”, or “just because”. Use your specific experiences to back up your opinions, as above, or point to some research you’ve done on the web or elsewhere that provides evidence to support your claims. We like you. We want to believe you. But like wikipedia itself, {{citation needed}}. And good subjective questions make this clear from the outset: back it up!

To wrap it up, you can of course suggest an edit to the question, then ask for the community to reopen it if they think that salvaged it.

Could we have fixed this question […] encouraging the user to edit or rephrase the question himself?

This is mentioned in the banner below:

Also, commenters have been very verbose, including Darth Android, who said:

If you could clarify exactly what criteria would define a "correct" answer to this question, it would be a large step to making it much more suitable for SuperUser

That's the main point.

I feel that in this case, the user basically shared their opinion and then asked for others. Actually, I didn't really see the actual question until the last paragraph — everything before was (all valid) reasoning, but in that sense they already answered their own question, right? They already had their opinion and asked others about what they thought.

The problem that always exists is that these kinds of topic inspire everyone to have an opinion. While we do have the means to put up a banner below the question asking people to include specific references and backing up their claims, this message is often ignored. A question then slowly drifts into the state where every answer is equally valid, which is absolutely not what we want.

If the OP were asking for specific evidence of malware being a threat to Linux systems, and factual references supporting that, then I guess the question would be acceptable. Also, asking for reasons, yes. To some extent, that is an acceptable question.

However, most other users don't feel confident enough to completely change another user's question on their own – rightfully so. If you can come up with an edit to improve the question, and then post a good answer, that's of course something we'd appreciate.

Understand that the past has shown us that we can't let questions sit around forever until they spiral into becoming a pile of personal opinion, and then close them. We need to encourage askers to read Good Subjective, Bad Subjective, and we need to be more strict about point number 5:

Great subjective questions insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references.

Opinion isn’t all bad, so long as it’s backed up with something other than “because I’m an expert”, or “because I said so”, or “just because”. Use your specific experiences to back up your opinions, as above, or point to some research you’ve done on the web or elsewhere that provides evidence to support your claims. We like you. We want to believe you. But like wikipedia itself, {{citation needed}}. And good subjective questions make this clear from the outset: back it up!

To wrap it up, you can of course suggest an edit to the question, then ask for the community to reopen it if they think that salvaged it.

Could we have fixed this question […] encouraging the user to edit or rephrase the question himself?

This is mentioned in the banner below:

Also, commenters have been very verbose, including Darth Android, who said:

If you could clarify exactly what criteria would define a "correct" answer to this question, it would be a large step to making it much more suitable for SuperUser

That's the main point.

I feel that in this case, the user basically shared their opinion and then asked for others. Actually, I didn't really see the actual question until the last paragraph — everything before was (all valid) reasoning, but in that sense they already answered their own question, right? They already had their opinion and asked others about what they thought.

The problem that always exists is that these kinds of topic inspire everyone to have an opinion. While we do have the means to put up a banner below the question asking people to include specific references and backing up their claims, this message is often ignored. A question then slowly drifts into the state where every answer is equally valid, which is absolutely not what we want.

If the OP were asking for specific evidence of malware being a threat to Linux systems, and factual references supporting that, then I guess the question would be acceptable. Also, asking for reasons, yes. To some extent, that is an acceptable question.

However, most other users don't feel confident enough to completely change another user's question on their own – rightfully so. If you can come up with an edit to improve the question, and then post a good answer, that's of course something we'd appreciate.

Understand that the past has shown us that we can't let questions sit around forever until they spiral into becoming a pile of personal opinion, and then close them. We need to encourage askers to read Good Subjective, Bad Subjective, and we need to be more strict about point number 5:

Great subjective questions insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references.

Opinion isn’t all bad, so long as it’s backed up with something other than “because I’m an expert”, or “because I said so”, or “just because”. Use your specific experiences to back up your opinions, as above, or point to some research you’ve done on the web or elsewhere that provides evidence to support your claims. We like you. We want to believe you. But like wikipedia itself, {{citation needed}}. And good subjective questions make this clear from the outset: back it up!

To wrap it up, you can of course suggest an edit to the question, then ask for the community to reopen it if they think that salvaged it.

Could we have fixed this question […] encouraging the user to edit or rephrase the question himself?

This is mentioned in the banner below:

Also, commenters have been very verbose, including Darth Android, who said:

If you could clarify exactly what criteria would define a "correct" answer to this question, it would be a large step to making it much more suitable for SuperUser

That's the main point.

I feel that in this case, the user basically shared their opinion and then asked for others. Actually, I didn't really see the actual question until the last paragraph — everything before was (all valid) reasoning, but in that sense they already answered their own question, right? They already had their opinion and asked others about what they thought.

The problem that always exists is that these kinds of topic inspire everyone to have an opinion. While we do have the means to put up a banner below the question asking people to include specific references and backing up their claims, this message is often ignored. A question then slowly drifts into the state where every answer is equally valid, which is absolutely not what we want.

If the OP were asking for specific evidence of malware being a threat to Linux systems, and factual references supporting that, then I guess the question would be acceptable. Also, asking for reasons, yes. To some extent, that is an acceptable question.

However, most other users don't feel confident enough to completely change another user's question on their own – rightfully so. If you can come up with an edit to improve the question, and then post a good answer, that's of course something we'd appreciate.

Understand that the past has shown us that we can't let questions sit around forever until they spiral into becoming a pile of personal opinion, and then close them. We need to encourage askers to read Good Subjective, Bad Subjective, and we need to be more strict about point number 5:

Great subjective questions insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references.

Opinion isn’t all bad, so long as it’s backed up with something other than “because I’m an expert”, or “because I said so”, or “just because”. Use your specific experiences to back up your opinions, as above, or point to some research you’ve done on the web or elsewhere that provides evidence to support your claims. We like you. We want to believe you. But like wikipedia itself, {{citation needed}}. And good subjective questions make this clear from the outset: back it up!

To wrap it up, you can of course suggest an edit to the question, then ask for the community to reopen it if they think that salvaged it.