I was inspired by this question. It's short and concise. It doesn't include any useless details. It has answers with subtleties that may not be obvious.

My idea is to add simple but answerable questions to the site, as if we were repeating the beta process of demonstrating what makes a good question. My hope is that this would improve some of the problems we have with low quality of new content.

Obviously, we should try to edit every salvageable question into a good one. But that leaves us waiting for bad questions so that we can try to repair them. In the meantime, our site lacks some basic, useful content that would be helpful in the general case. (And never forget that SO doesn't post tutorials.)

So why not create some good content deliberately? There's no rule against asking a question while already knowing the answer, and simple questions can have complex, thorough answers. Getting multiple viewpoints' answers to simple questions (good subjective) would be great. Community wiki or not, these question would raise the average question quality.

A short list of benefits:

• Good example questions for new users (lead by example)
• Good landing points for search engines, to help folks find their solutions (spirit of SO).
• Good duplicate votes when a new user posts a less well-formed version of the question.
• Add how-to content without violating the format of the site.

Here's the kind of content problem that I think this would solve:

1. Q: "How do I learn to do X in Y language with Z constraints?"
2. Q: "I tried to do this; I had this unique implementation problem; fix it please?"
3. Q: "I am having this problem doing X because I lack fundamental understanding of the myriad sub-tasks involved. Now what?"
4. Q: "Can I get a tutorial for X?"

Now we have these responses:

1. C: "Duplicate: how to accomplish core game function X."
2. A: "You have this bug and this bug, but you also need to read this question because you're doing it wrong from the get-go."
3. C: "Too broad. P.S.: read this question and this question and this question."
4. C: "No, no tutorials here. But search the site for your topic and you will find other people asking specific questions about it."

I don't think we need any formal process for these, more of a general tactic. If you find yourself reading a bad question and wishing you had a good one to reference, then make one up. Make it answerable and language agnostic with narrow scope. Then maybe that bad question won't be asked as frequently in the future.

I was inspired by this question. It's short and concise. It doesn't include any useless details. It has answers with subtleties that may not be obvious.

My idea is to add simple but answerable questions to the site, as if we were repeating the beta process of demonstrating what makes a good question. My hope is that this would improve some of the problems we have with low quality of new content.

Obviously, we should try to edit every salvageable question into a good one. But that leaves us waiting for bad questions so that we can try to repair them. In the meantime, our site lacks some basic, useful content that would be helpful in the general case. (And never forget that SO doesn't post tutorials.)

So why not create some good content deliberately? There's no rule against asking a question while already knowing the answer, and simple questions can have complex, thorough answers. Getting multiple viewpoints' answers to simple questions (good subjective) would be great. Community wiki or not, these question would raise the average question quality.

A short list of benefits:

• Good example questions for new users (lead by example)
• Good landing points for search engines, to help folks find their solutions (spirit of SO).
• Good duplicate votes when a new user posts a less well-formed version of the question.
• Add how-to content without violating the format of the site.

Here's the kind of content problem that I think this would solve:

1. Q: "How do I learn to do X in Y language with Z constraints?"
2. Q: "I tried to do this; I had this unique implementation problem; fix it please?"
3. Q: "I am having this problem doing X because I lack fundamental understanding of the myriad sub-tasks involved. Now what?"
4. Q: "Can I get a tutorial for X?"

Now we have these responses:

1. C: "Duplicate: how to accomplish core game function X."
2. A: "You have this bug and this bug, but you also need to read this question because you're doing it wrong from the get-go."
3. C: "Too broad. P.S.: read this question and this question and this question."
4. C: "No, no tutorials here. But search the site for your topic and you will find other people asking specific questions about it."

I don't think we need any formal process for these, more of a general tactic. If you find yourself reading a bad question and wishing you had a good one to reference, then make one up. Make it answerable and language agnostic with narrow scope. Then maybe that bad question won't be asked as frequently in the future.