Over on my other favorite StackExchange site, there's a problem with quality questions that's so pervasive that the community has sort of adopted a no-tolerance, no exceptions approach to such questions. The question is always a rephrasing of the following:
I want to accomplish X. How do I do that?
(With no detail other than what they want to accomplish, what they've tried, where they're confused, or half a dozen other details that would be helpful.)
This particular type of question is so awful that community doesn't even bother trying to improve the question, they simply vote to close it with the same comment.. Over and over again... "What have you tried?"
There's an excellent blog post, by the way, that details why people react this way, and why such questions elicit no mercy from the community. The comment borders on the snarky, is utterly unhelpful, and would, on the surface, seem to violate the precepts set forth for the Summer of Love.
If the OP doesn't improve the question, it's closed. Asking the question (and for some, posting the link to the blog post) is a way to let the OP know that the question isn't acceptable in its present format, gives them a chance to improve the question, and if they don't want to take the effort to bring it up to site standards, it gets closed in short order.
Just as SO has one common, persistent, inherent, hard to kill problem that keeps cropping up, so do we. We continue to have "new kids" (and I don't mean that in a mean way) coming to the site looking for "Truth". Today alone, we've had six of these, and the experienced members are answering. (Except for those that are closed as duplicates)
- Of whom is God jealous?
- Is it possible to get into heaven, but then be cast out at a later date?
- https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/10039/why-did-god-create-people
- What could persuade a presumably otherwise-rational Satan to turn on God?
- Genesis 19. 8 Why should he protect strangers above protect his daughters?
- Original sin and its consequences
Not all of these are necessarily bad questions (although some of them are). It's just that they miss the point of what the site is supposed to be. I don't know what the will of the community is, but it doesn't seem consistent to say we want questions about Christianity, and to still be answering questions about Truth.
Many of these questions could be rephrased to "what is the x teaching on this subject" and be salvageable.
I thinks we need to be nice to the new kids, but this isn't the site to come seeking that kind of truth.
I'm wondering if we need (or already have) a blog post, or a Meta post that can address this in a way that's as friendly, yet descriptive as the "What have you tried" blog. Something that kindly, and nicely steers users away from asking these types of questions, or gives them tips for improving them.
Thoughts?
+
supplied the first and2
the second ;)