Can we not assume questions are going to be bad?

Question

This has been something that's bothered me since I joined EL&U, but it's not something that can easily be discussed because it's mostly an attitude thing. We get a lot of bad questions here, but there are always more good ones to be asked as the language and its usage is always changing.

So why do some users (usually the high-rep ones, though this isn't a 1-to-1 trend) seem to assume that questions are going to be bad until they themselves are perplexed? An example I noticed recently came from the hot network bar where lots of users can come to the site and see responses to this curious question that include

D’you know, that’s actually a really good question

and

It is a good question.

To me, these imply the assumption that the question was going to be bad before the replier didn't have an immediate answer. Even if it wasn't intentional, this gives off an air of condescension that is really off-putting to new users of the site. I like attracting more users so I would like it if a more welcoming attitude was the first thing that they see =) Thoughts?

Answer 1

I disagree with your interpretation that the phrases meant that the assumption was that the question would be bad. To me, it reads more as an exclamation of 'huh, I never thought of that before, and did you also consider these other implications and complexities that add to the puzzle?' But that's neither here nor there.

With regard to your fundamental question, yes. We are able to not assume questions are going to be bad. This presents a couple of challenges:

1. We don't have much control over how community members respond to questions, at least not until I get these nanites working correctly. The methods at our disposal here can provoke heated exchanges about censorship &c., which compounds the problem.

2. A lot of questions, at least initially, are pretty bad, so making the assumption that questions are going to be bad is pretty reliable.

So I know you are wondering what my plan is then, because I did, after all, just now, say that we are able to not assume questions are going to be bad. Here is the plan, which addresses the above challenges.

1. Post a nice, welcoming counter-comment. You don't even need to acknowledge the other comments. You can also upvote. That always takes the sting out of any potentially negative comments. Plus, the more other users see this nice behavior, the more they will be likely to emulate it. In short, be the change you want to see.

2. Take the time to edit the question. We often leave helpful comments suggesting what to do for edits, but often the best thing to do is to show not tell. Is it missing a reference? Add one. Does it need formatting help? You can do that! Did the OP put all the details in a comment instead of the post? Go ahead and incorporate that information in the question, just like you know should be done.

This does two things. First, it models good behavior, not just for the poster, but also for other community members. Second, it makes it less likely people are going to see bad questions and therefore assume most questions are bad. Plus also, people are less likely to perceive a question as bad if it's upvoted.

Answer 2

Another case where this comment crops up is when the question looks, from the title, like it's going to be mundane, naive, duplicate or something like that, and actually turns out to be much more nuanced.

In extreme cases I've been known to only open the question to flag it (I'm very sparing with downvotes) but then find it's interesting (where "interesting" has to take into account my state of mind at the time). I'll normally respond with an answer or a comment on the question material, rather than one of the comments mentioned in the question, because I know I struggle with the tone saying something like that.