-3

It was reviewed quite extensively on meta. This debate is years old. Can we get a resolution on this?

I came to the site far after the question was initially presented. In fact, it was already exhaustively summarized and five years later I have nothing to add.

In our FAQ, it says

Basic SQL - ask on Stack Overflow

It's time to drop "basic" qualifier and welcome all SQL questions. We need to purge that line:

Think about it like this, if you ask a question here in 2012 you may have had it closed for being too basic. Over the next five years you worked on your skill. You were leaving the cave. You've been contributing to StackOverflow your "basic" questions. And now, years later, we have to tap you on the shoulder to tell you about this awesome expert community we have and what we have to offer, and why you should be welcomed back.

I'm prepared to answer the basic questions, and it's easy to dupe-them over better questions with sufficient answers. The network gives us that functionality. It's a lot of work to actively recruit people back to the site who have been turned away and to convince them that the question is sufficiently not-basic. Please stop making us do that. Let's get more questions, more votes, more activity, and treat all people regardless of skill level equally on the basis of subject matter. This also serves our Be Nice mission statement.


And, other than confusing people that come in now, I don't find this enforced anyway much. It's almost as if it's an antiquated relic that needs some attention. I don't think I've ever seen anyone in the past year close a question, in good form, for being too basic. Myself and many others salivate at a good question, basic or not.

Action

Not sure what we should do here, but I would advise people to vote on this matter on this question

1
  • 2
    -1 because if you think 'It's time to drop "basic" qualifier and welcome all SQL questions' then the place to argue your case is where it has been "reviewed quite extensively on meta", not by asking for a clean slate here. May 29, 2018 at 13:23

1 Answer 1

4

This debate is years old. Can we get a resolution on this?

Ok, then the resolution would be "no", (as given by Jack Douglas).

I don't find this enforced anyway much

Perhaps you are right that we have become too lax in this area.

I'm prepared to answer the basic questions, and it's easy to dupe-them over better questions with sufficient answers.

The right place to do that would be where the questions are on topic.


Related meta Q & A:

3
  • All the close reasons are somewhat subjective and applied imperfectly by humans. I keep an eye on the close statistics and who votes when and how, so I do speak from some experience. "Too basic" is not really any more subjective. If you're asking me for a guideline, I would say questions of the sort someone with only one or two year's experience as a database professional would ask. If you want feedback on a particular case, feel free to post your own meta question.
    – Paul White Mod
    May 30, 2018 at 6:03
  • @PaulWhite: *would ask = should ask (FTFY)
    – Andriy M
    May 30, 2018 at 6:09
  • @AndriyM Well yes, there is an implication there that the person in question is of average ability or something like that. Anyway, I'm not really trying to provide a complete definition here, any more than I would try to do for the other close reasons (in a comment).
    – Paul White Mod
    May 30, 2018 at 6:14

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .