I've noticed a number of questions as of late regarding "what elements should I use to make this layout," usually about the new elements introduced by HTML5. Here are some examples:
- What is the correct way to layout this page using HTML5?
- Semantics navigation NAV vs ASIDE [on hold] (thankfully closed as opinion-based)
- “Broken” links inside a <template> tag
- Submenu title, h1 or span/other [duplicate]
That last on was closed as a duplicate of Best practice for providing a caption, title or label for a list in HTML, which itself seems to be quite opinion based, and indeed the accepted answer provides several alternatives.
I realize that not all subjective questions are off-topic, but it seems in these cases, there is no way of providing an objective answer, beyond what is mentioned in the specifications themselves.
Quite a number of questions of this sort get closed as opinion-based, but just as many are not. I could use my daily allotment of close votes for several years trying to close these old questions, but I'd like to get the community's opinion on whether these types of questions are actually off-topic.
I realize the answer is likely "depends", but I think it would be a healthy discussion to have.