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This question on the main site made me wonder. There have been a number of fairly broad, general questions asked already, but this question in particular consists (in my opinion) of several broad questions:

  • What (if any) is the standard process for producing 2D sprites?
  • What are some tools that are used to produce 2D sprites?
  • Why does Flash's vector art style look good all the time?
  • How do I make Flash-style graphics without Flash's tools?
  • What are some hints for creating good 2D animations?

On top of that, several of the questions are highly subjective or likely better suited to be a community wiki.

What should the process be for handling such multi-part questions? Flagging, simply leaving a comment, or trying to answer anyway?

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I don't mind questions that have a "major" and "minor" question inside them, too much, so long as they are tightly related. That's the limit, though. Anything more than that should be edited or close as Tetrad noted.

When I start to really object is when, as you noted, users ask four totally unrelated questions inside one "question".

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Sometimes a question is best expressed as a series of smaller questions with some dependence on each other. It probably would be less helpful to the questioner (and anyone reading for educational value) if the subquestions are scattered about. That said, unrelated subquestions are bad. \$\endgroup\$ – ChrisE Feb 8 '11 at 23:43
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It's in the askers best interest to have a question be as specific as possible since you get answers that are more directed. People are more likely to vote on answers that explain something specific than a wall of text that touches on every point.

Personally I think the best way to handle it is edit the question so that the ancillary questions are just removed (especially if they're duplicates) but the gist of the question remains. Sometimes that's hard to do.

In that case I'd probably just leave a comment saying why you think it's a poor question and vote it down. When/if it gets edited reevaluate the vote.

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I don't think we should be to anal about it here or on any of the SE sites. I think when someone asks a question with multiple subquestions its a sign that they are trying to solve an issue larger than an individual question, one which likely has interdependencies on the subquestions.

Fake edit: yes yes as other have said, a question with totally unrelated subquestions would be better served as multiple questions.

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