25
votes
Does a question which shows no research, no effort deserve a downvote?
Absolutely it can be downvoted. Even the tooltip on the downvote button mentions a lack of evidence of research as a reason to downvote. Stack Exchange has never looked kindly on gimmethecodez ...
Andrew LeachMod
- 94.6k
20
votes
“What’s wrong with single word requests?”
TL;DR
Single-word requests are not the problem, they are just the kind of questions where some problems (in particular lack of guidance) predominantly manifest themselves. Only addressing these ...
- 4,081
18
votes
Does ELU Have Worse Questions Than Other Sites?
The programmers site has a similar problem. Someone suggested that it might be due to the name of the site. The specifics are different, but the idea remains that the community's name may be ...
- 37.6k
17
votes
What can be done to bring up site quality?
Update: This suggestion is now live! You can see the discussion that led up to it here or experience it for yourself on the ask question page.
I didn't have time yet to go through all the questions, ...
LaurelMod
- 56.3k
16
votes
Accepted
Does ELU Have Worse Questions Than Other Sites?
I appreciate everyone's input as to why ELU may be worse than other sites. I was actually looking for proof/disproof as to whether it actually was or not. I believe I have figured out the data ...
- 17.5k
15
votes
Does a question which shows no research, no effort deserve a downvote?
Did you search the help section before asking this question? If you did, can you show us what you found, and what you're having a problem with? No? Hmmm... that means I have to do it for you, even ...
- 54.6k
14
votes
Really really really hard to take ELU serious or even read a question and answer
I certainly wouldn't recommend EL&U to a professor who
thinks that if English is not your native language you must have poor English skills
believes that correct English arises from something ...
- 34.7k
14
votes
Really really really hard to take ELU serious or even read a question and answer
I don't think your expectations are low enough. The hot network questions are not selected for being the highest quality questions with the highest quality answers—they're mainly composed of bicycle-...
- 73.3k
13
votes
Does ELU Have Worse Questions Than Other Sites?
I don't have hard comparative data, but I suspect we do have a problem most other sites don't (or at least not to this extent): a lack of functional consensus on the purpose of this site.
If you've ...
- 5,574
13
votes
Proposal to protect old questions from LQA by low-rep users
With regard to point 1, that may well have been me. Spam has a particular definition (it's advertising) and as it carries a large penalty, spam flags are really serious business. Please do not use ...
Andrew LeachMod
- 94.6k
12
votes
Does a question which shows no research, no effort deserve a downvote?
Einstein once said, if I had 60 minutes to solve a problem I would spend 55 minutes thinking about the right question to ask, and 5 minutes on the solution.
Thinking of the right question to ask ...
- 775
12
votes
Does ELU Have Worse Questions Than Other Sites?
My theory: ELU has it worse because it has been successful.
Unsuccessful sites (like Travel.SE) mainly get users from other Stack Exchange websites (primarily Stack Overflow), who are familiar with ...
- 17.8k
11
votes
Why do some people have negative opinions against questions on Shakespeare's works?
The central problem here is that most of your so-called “questions”:
show no research
present no theories
and expend no effort.
That situation alone merits a downvote according to the tooltip ...
tchristMod
- 127k
11
votes
Becoming more welcoming to new users, how?
While there is the occasional rude individual, perceived but unintended slight, or even an otherwise polite user acting out of frustration, I suspect that the lion's share of the tension comes from a ...
- 37.6k
10
votes
A simple proposal towards improving question quality
A few thoughts:
I realize the suggested language comes straight from the Help Center, but the word "thoroughly" jumps out at me as sounding kind of, well, cranky. As far as I'm concerned, SE ...
- 17.8k
10
votes
Should I double up on an LQP review comment?
Normally, I just up-vote the previous comment and recommend deletion; is this the best course of action? What do you do? My only worry with doing that is if it skews the analytics of which option has ...
NVZMod
- 22.3k
10
votes
Accepted
Becoming more welcoming to new users, how?
(I'm not sure that this'll count as an answer. Or even be useful. It's just my ramblings based on the question.)
Yep, I totally agree that experienced users commenting can come across as ...
- 14.6k
9
votes
Does ELU Have Worse Questions Than Other Sites?
The creation of ELL was supposed to help alleviate this problem, but it seems like ELU gets as many novice/basic/learner questions now as it ever did. Many of these come from new users who appear to ...
- 57.9k
9
votes
Why do some people have negative opinions against questions on Shakespeare's works?
You have a right to be here, and you have a right (it is not off topic) to post questions about Shakespeare's writing. You've gotten upvotes (including mine on occasion) and answers (including mine ...
- 54.6k
9
votes
What defines a low-quality question on EL&U?
I need a word that means such-and-so.
(a) But I'm not going to tell you what I've considered so far.
(b) Or: I'll tell you what I've considered so far, but I won't tell you why that word doesn't do ...
- 20k
9
votes
Advanced users of English should be more welcome here
Everyone is welcome on ELU, not just advanced users of English. Quoting TimLymington,
Stack Exchange, as a network, does not discriminate between users. If you ask thoughtful questions and give ...
NVZMod
- 22.3k
9
votes
What can be done to bring up site quality?
UPDATE
I go through swings (or is it moods?), some days I feel more optimistic about EL&U's future and permanence on the Internet, other days I feel the website is just doomed. The last week or ...
- 85.4k
8
votes
Extraordinary spike in low-quality questions by 1 rep users
TL:DR - The SE system breaks down when there is a lack of comradery throughout the community. Our proactive options are: change the system or try to change people. Systems are a lot easier to program.....
- 8,754
8
votes
“What’s wrong with single word requests?”
I accept that we see a ton of bad SWRs every day that show almost zero research effort. Those bad apples shouldn't make us ban the "requests" concept entirely.
Sometimes even tech-savvy users like me ...
NVZMod
- 22.3k
8
votes
Does ELU Have Worse Questions Than Other Sites?
I think Andrew Leach hit the nail on the head.
If we look in other areas that I visit things seem to be a bit different. For example, on the mathematics forum most of the questions and answers are ...
- 7,074
8
votes
Why do people think this question(Like Niobe, all tears) is proofreading?
The reason given in the closure message can be fairly arbitrary.
It's the majority reason. That doesn't necessarily mean that three out of five voted for it, though. There could be 2+1+1 votes for ...
Andrew LeachMod
- 94.6k
8
votes
Could/Should we create a collection of exemplary questions to encourage high-quality asking?
The idea appeals to me, but in practical terms, I don't think it is really feasible, for various reasons.
Mechanical: as far as I know, there is no existing Stack Exchange system that would be ideal ...
- 73.3k
8
votes
What can be done to bring up site quality?
In my experience, you can't do much to change whether or not the first question someone asks is good quality; you can only change whether the second question they ask is better than the first. I have ...
- 1,331
8
votes
What's missing on the answer flag options?
You can only flag as very low quality on new posts, I think the limit is one week old.
Give this Meta.SE post an upvote if you think older posts should still allow VLQ flags.
- 5,574
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible