Question: The answers to many questions on this site will depend on the specific culture in which the OP lives. The norms of interpersonal contact vary a lot from one culture to another. (I realised this when I read [this question](https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com/q/11/25); in Britain, if someone bumps into you in the street, you'd probably apologise even if it wasn't your fault, but that might be considered strange or excessively polite in other countries.)

How should we clarify and clearly distinguish between different cultures in questions on this site? Should we always leave comments asking the OP where they come from? Should we create tags like [united-states](https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/united-states "show questions tagged 'united-states'") to add to every question? Should we vote to close as "unclear" if a question doesn't include this information?

Answer: 
Like I said here:

> 
> Social skills and norms, traditions, values... etc vary so much depending on where you are and the culture of that region. Pakistani social norms will be different from Canadian norms, which themselves will be different from those of South Africa.
> 
> 
> 

### So, what does that mean?

Questions that ask the same thing are still different if they ask about a different cultural framework. The answers to those questions would be starkly different. The key here is being culturally relative - recognizing that cultures are different, and that the answer from one culture should not apply to another culture. Such behaviour would be severely damaging to users and this site.

Therefore, cultural differences are *extremely* important. They change everywhere. We can't ignore them. So what does it all entail?

**Questions must distinguish culture.**

Questions should ideally indicate where they are, and what culture they are trying to work with. This can be done through tags, but it *must* also be done through the question as well. You can be asking about Canada, but as a pluralistic, multicultural country, there will be subcultures, countercultures... you get the point. Details need to be specified in the question. Indian-Canadian culture is quite different from what you might expect.

Questions that can't do this should be closed. Not doing this could drive an culturally imperialist tone to this site, where people might also mistakenly take answers and apply them everywhere.

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This answer is evolving; we have to actually see what happens to the site too!
You can specify in the answer which locale/culture you're referring to, provided the OP hasn't specified.

Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, we could make tags such as [united-states-culture](https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/united-states-culture "show questions tagged 'united-states-culture'"), to specify wthe locale.