Discussion:
What should be done with questions that aren't overwhelmingly bad, but have little redeeming future value?
Background:
There are many questions on this site which aren't off-topic, and aren't innately bad, but at the same time don't help the long-term usefulness of The Workplace. Here is a recent example:
This question seems to have been accepted as a reasonably good question by the community (9 upvotes, 6 answers), but a slightly deeper look shows some serious issues. Using the Good Subjective, Bad Subjective criteria on a 0-3 scale:
- ★☆☆ Great subjective questions inspire answers that explain “why” and “how”.
- ★☆☆ Great subjective questions tend to have long, not short, answers
- ☆☆☆ Great subjective questions have a constructive, fair, and impartial tone.
- ★☆☆ Great subjective questions invite sharing experiences over opinions
- ☆☆☆ Great subjective questions insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references
- ★★★ Great subjective questions are more than just mindless social fun.
The question isn't impartial (it strongly implies that low turnover is bad, rather than asking whether it is). Instead of asking how to determine if low turnover is a benefit or a curse, it dodges the interesting part and looks for corroboration that the current situation is bad.
Because of the issues with the question, the answers aren't so great either:
- Here are some potential problems
- It depends
- It depends
- My personal experience was...
- It is abnormal, and therefore bad
- Let me rephrase the question
While there are some tidbits of useful information (the 5th answer has some good stats, though unsourced), for the most part it is just confirming the assumption the asker made rather than providing information valuable to people reading in the future.
You may disagree with my assessment of this question, but there are many others like it, where there are upvotes and answers, but very little long-lasting content of worth. How should we deal with questions like this?
The question isn't impartial
- Many questions have a point of view embedded within them. Are you saying that all of these are inherently poor questions? – Jim G. Jul 12 '13 at 6:04for the most part it is just confirming the assumption the asker made rather than providing information valuable to people reading in the future.
- The OP wondered if his/her assumption was valid. In a sense, the Community validated the assumption. This was a valuable exercise, was it not? – Jim G. Jul 12 '13 at 6:08