Is asking advice from experienced people considered as off-topic?

Question

This question entitled as "Leaving academia at 39" basically asks advice from people who had similar experience during their academic career. I believe that his question is highly relevant to academia, and very beneficial for people who have the same issues.

The most voted question in this site is How should I deal with discouragement as a graduate student?. Referred question is absolutely open-ended, the answer is based on purely personal experience, but nevertheless, it considers a very common problem among academics. Therefore, I believe that it is a valuable question and should not be closed ever.

Hence my point;
Why is a question which considers a very common, and very important thing in academic life is closed due to the reason being off-topic?

Answer 1

I think the question we were hoping OP would ask is this one:

Is it common to leave academia after 40? What factors should I consider when deciding whether to leave?

I would that would be a great, on-topic question.

But instead, the question was:

Does anyone have managed [sic] to leave academia after 40? And are you happy with the change? I need to hear happy stories.

Our Q&A / voting format is not compatible with story requests (how would we vote for the "best" story? Or the "happiest"?).

If we had caught this at an earlier stage, I would suggest that we edit and reopen. But there are now half a dozen answers (including the top one) that provide anecdotes.

So, I recommend that OP (or someone else) asks a new, answerable question. We can then post a comment in the closed one linking to the new one.

Edit: Looks like OP has edited the original question along the lines of the above and the community voted to reopen. So, perhaps, problem solved.

Answer 2

What factors should I consider when deciding whether to leave academia?

This is off-topic because it is not about academia. That's implied by the word "leave".

The question is also should be closed as needing clarity because it does not specify the asker's goal. No career advice is going to help if there is no goal.

I am completely depressed

The asker appears to need a councilor or therapist, not career advice.