This is motivated by this question: [Did the Irish Catholic church have slaves in Ireland as recently as 1996?](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/15318/did-the-irish-catholic-church-have-slaves-in-ireland-as-recently-as-1996)

My understanding is that as far as possible skeptics is a place for learning about the facts. It is then up to the reader to make there own interpretations. The above linked question seems to fail in this regard. The discussion seems to be more about the definition of slavery than about the evidence supporting whether a specific fact is true or not.

In particular, the OP state: "I think my edit shows that I am more interested in their treatment as slaves rather than being classically defined as slaves. As MikeDunlavey said it is a very fluid term, and in my experience is rarely used in the classical definition". This is exactly the kind of overly broad question that we are trying to avoid

My personal preference would be to post an answer along the lines: "Slavery was illegal in Ireland since XXXX, but some have argued that the conditions of workers in the Magdalene Laundry were equivalent to slavery (link to reliable source arguing why this might be considered slavery). I think the question should also be closed, as any other answers are likely to be off-topic (arguing about whether the conditions should be considered slavery or not, rather than adding facts)

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to handle these kinds of questions?