How broad is too broad?

Question

I am going to do research in Japan for 4 months, as such I want to ask questions about Japanese academia. How broad can I make my question? For example:

What do I need to know before travelling to Japan for an academic fellowship?

is an open ended question, that has an infinitude of potentially correct answers, and thus doesn't really fall inside your guidelines.

How does British academia differ from Japanese academia with respect to etiquette and other social niceties?

is a very broad question, but is likely to give long, high quality answers that explain "how", and invites experience based answers. However it doesn't really tell me what I need to know (i.e. what's going to trip me up when I go there), and if you remove the 'academia' part, it's non-obvious that the question remains specific to the site (as presumably the differences between Japanese academia and British academia are massively overshadowed by the general differences between British and Japanese culture).

Do I need to bring omiyage for my host on a first meeting?

is specific, but as I am unfamiliar with Japanese culture I don't know what questions I need to ask, so it doesn't answer my real question of what do I need to know. Furthermore I'll end up asking a large number of questions, most of which will have insignificant answers, as I don't know in advance what will be different.

What questions should I ask on Academia.SE before I go to Japan for 4 months to prevent embarrassing myself?

technically fits your guidelines (although it is a bit poll-y) but it's a bit too meta for my taste and is likely to give bad answers.

What are some good resources for preparing to study in Japan?

is obviously just asking for short, link-based answers, and even though it is probably helpful to me (although Googling hasn't really found me anything massively helpful) it isn't a high-quality question.

How can I ask my question in a way that I get answers that are useful to other people planning short-term study in Japan (something the Japanese government is actively promoting, and thus something useful to a large number of others)? Is this an appropriate venue for such a question at all? Is this question always going to fall under the category of too-localised?

Answer 1

There is a similar question about a short-term visit to the U.S. that seems to be well-received:

What's the etiquette for a short visit to a US university department?

In May, I'll be visiting a department at Columbia University in the US for a few days. What's the etiquette on visiting (answers relevant to US in general are welcome, to prevent this question getting too localised)?

I'd like to spend some time with quite a few of the researchers, and compare notes on ongoing work. I'll read their recent publications in advance. Should I be inviting staff out for a coffee and a chat; or dinner; or a talk in the lab?

Context: I'm a faculty researcher, and would be looking to spend a bit of time with postdoc researchers, and those professors whose jobs are primarily research, rather than admin or teaching.

Any reason an analogous question for Japan would not be suitable for you?

Answer 2

What do I need to know before travelling to Japan for an academic fellowship?

Travel Stack Exchange would be a better bet for you with a question like this. Probably stuff like health insurance, visas, documents, immunizations. Nothing academic-specific comes to mind in relation to a topic like this.

How does British academia differ from Japanese academia with respect to etiquette and other social niceties?

This seems okay for the site when you frame it "as a fellowship student from a foreign country" I think. Might not get a lot of responses since it's a small subset. Removing "British" might yield more responses.

Do I need to bring omiyage for my host on a first meeting?

U wot mate? (Very low yield question, since probably 99.5% of us don't know what an omiyage is. Is it tasty?) Might be better to use Travel.SE, or Japan.SE if one of those actually exists. Or even a travel website.

You should target for questions that are applicable to more than you, in the vein of the second question. The country of destination will likely matter little in terms of actually coming up with an answer, except for very culture-specific questions, which will likely belong on a different SE entirely.