Judge a question by what is being asked, not how its being asked

Question

I've seen a lot of discussion lately based on how a question is asked, not what is asked, and I feel questions are getting unfairly closed because of how they were asked, not because of the actual question being asked.

There seems to be an opinion floating around that users should ask expert questions, as well as provide expert answers, and I don't think that is healthy for the growth of this site.

A Q&A site needs questions to survive, and the users seeking advice are usually not aware of any rules regarding how to ask a question. I think by downvoting and closing questions just based on how they are asked is going to drive users away from the site, and I don't want this site to get closed before it leaves beta due to lack of user participation, like some other sites did recently.

Of course, there'll always be some questions that should be closed as low quality or off-topic, however they should be questions that really can't be answered at all because of lack of information, or are off-topic for this site. They shouldn't be good questions that are badly phrased.

Jeff even has a blog post about how to ask good questions, and it provides some things to look for in a question, not a list of words/phrases that should/shouldn't be used. To summarize, valid questions should:

• provide enough detail so we know what you're talking about
• tell us the reason for your question (note, idle curiosity is mentioned as acceptable)
• don't give us your whole life story - just the basic context for the problem
• share what you've already done/tried/researched

There are other guidelines around about how to ask good questions, but keep in mind that they are guidelines, not rules.

For example, we discourage asking questions disguised as a rant, however asking "wah wah wah, am I right?" is basically saying "I'm frustrated with this situation and am looking for sympathy" and should rightfully be closed, while saying "wah wah wah, what can I do about this" is essentially saying "I'm frustrated with my situation, what can I do about it", which I don't think should be closed. If you care that much about the fact there's a rant there, edit it out, but don't downvote and close an otherwise good question just because of how it's asked.

Similarly, questions asking something like "what is the best way to do X" shouldn't get attacked with downvotes/close votes because they didn't specify the best for whom, or best in what way, but should instead be guided in comments if more information is needed, and answered to the best of our ability. Per Area51, "in a healthy site, questions receive multiple answers and the best answer is voted to the top". Which one is the accepted answer is up to the user.

I mean, you can have a site that requires both expert questions and expert answers if you want, but then you'll have a very small site and need a fairly large editing squad to maintain the question standards, and there's a chance the site won't make it out of beta. I spend a lot of time on SO, and there's no way it would be nearly the success it is now if they decided to limit questions to only well-phrased questions, because of the majority of users seeking answers do not know how to write a good question (by SE standards).

So please, judge questions based on the question being asked, not how they are asked. Many users already do this (as seen by some highly-upvoted, closed questions), however it only takes 5 people who judge a question based on how its written to get it closed.

If you see a good question badly written, and have time to edit it, please do so, but don't downvote and vote to close unless the actual question being asked is off-topic, undefined, or just plain bad. Save your downvotes and close votes for questions which really don't belong here, not for questions that are simply phrased badly.

Answer 1

I agree completely. It's not just on this site, programmers suffers from this to a large extent as well. At the moment, it feels like a majority of the comments on each question here is if the question is well-formed enough and fit into some narrow definition of the faq.

Is this site being overly pedantic at the moment? Yes, I think so.

Do you want an example? Look at comment #1-4 of this question, all about whether or not this is an appropriate question. And this is meta! Where we are supposed to be able to discuss these things.

I'm not going to point fingers, but I think there are some people on this site that should probably spend a little less time closing questions and commenting on style and a little more time addressing the vast body of subject matter questions that is being posted here, subjects I'm sure they could contribute greatly to.

I'll leave you with this, the first line of the FAQ:

Stack Exchange is for members of the workforce navigating the professional setting.

To me, that covers a very wide area of subjects and I firmly believe that a tad less rigidity from the community moderators will benefit this site on the long-run.

Answer 2

Impossible and not entirely reasonable. Poorly worded posts need to be closed and improved. The wording is the content, and if I have to peel away multiple layers of poor English, awkward phrasing and one-sided wording, that's not good. If I have to work to understand it, your question is bad.

That's not to say these questions are unsalvagable, but these questions absolutely should be judged harshly and improved aggressively. I would agree that people should edit before downvoting but that's expecting a lot of more casual users.

Questions and answers should be posed thoughtfully the first time around. Edits are supposed to be minor to correct typos, mistaggings ect. There is not supposed to be an expectation that you can post whatever the heck you want and the community will save your post.

If you think a post is really saying X, which is on topic, when it looks like it's saying Y, edit it. But for the love of Pete, if you're asking, please just say X very clearly the first time.

As for whether downvotes/close votes are appropriate...of course they are. This is a great way to signal that something is wrong with a post and discourage the behavior. I've edited and salvaged a lot of posts across the network but I also don't particularly enjoy encouraging the "post crap and let the community fix it" attitude.

Answer 3

It is important to note that closing is not a permanent end-state. It is a temporary limbo to give the question the opportunity to improve. The two eventual possibilities are deletion of the question (if it really is a bad fit, or never gets improved) or reopening of the question.

In the case of a poorly written question that asks something useful/interesting, closing is a very viable option. The ideal, of course, would be to edit/improve it beforehand, but if it gets closed in the meantime, it gets closed. No big deal. The question can still be improved (without half-baked answers flowing in from people who misunderstood the question). Once the question is improved enough that everyone can easily understand what is being asked, it can be reopened, and become a meaningful addition to our site.