Off Topic - Prior research, why only translation requests?

Question

Just by looking at this question one can see, that a great part of it can be answered by a small google search and some intensive thinking.

Is there an etymological connection between these two words["freuen", "froh"] that share a similar meaning? And also, do they share the same meaning?

Reading through this I thought to myself: these words have a similar meaning and they look somewhat similar, the logical comclusion is: they are derived from the same word originally.

Now as @elena posted a comment concerning research effort and nothing happened for 2 Hours, I decided to apply a close vote, as this question obviously did not show prior research effort whatsoever. This does not mean there was none, OP clearly stated "[the words] share a similar meaning", which means he at least looked them up in a dictionary, but no mention of that.

Thus I navigated to the Off-Topic close reasons and to my surprise found the following wording:

Questions asking for translations[sic] are off-topic [...]

Why do we restrict ourselves to translation requests only? Why not instead have following close-reason:

Questions that are not clearly indicating prior research effort are off-topic.[...]

Answer 1

The difference is this:

• Questions on any topic should be only asked after prior research effort. If a question can be easily solved by a short research, it should be closed. In this case the close vote should usually be accompanied by a comment linking to a Wikipedia article or similar to demonstrate the lack of effort. However, in general, questions are not required to elaborate on the prior research effort.
• Questions on translations and similar have to indicate prior research effort from the very beginning. Such a question without indications of prior research effort can be closed without further comment. The burden of proof is shifted to the asker.