Dealing with low-quality questions that end up on Hot Network Questions

Question

I've often commented on chat that "HNQs seem to straddle the line between the septic tank and greatness" - well not exactly but various things to that effect.

I came across a situation where a fairly terrible question had great, highly voted answers, and was deleted. In the discussion that followed, there seem to be two equally valid viewpoints:

1. The question should have been closed anyway, and the people who answered it should know better. Should we be closing these off quicker? Should they be deleted anyway?

2. The question should have been improved. I wonder if at the point where we have good answers, we can be more proactive about edits while the question is still fresh - there's kind of a precedent for this. I've reactively edited it, but should we have more eyes on HNQs for this sort of thing?

Answer 1

My position—and I'm adamant about this—is that useful, high-quality answers should never be deleted even if the question is closed.

The question got to the point where a truly great answer was posted to it. Our primary goal here at Stack Exchange is to build a knowledge base for readers as well as to provide a reliable venue for high-quality Q&A. The fact that a question is not appropriate for our site does not mean that we should sacrifice good content for the sake of cleanliness. This is not the first time I've dealt with this issue.

I'm of the opinion that questions that are closed and have remained on the site unchanged long enough to otherwise be candidates for deletion that have a high-quality answer(s) and lots of views should be historically locked instead. This will prevent any activity from occurring on the question and answers but ensure that the content remains accessible for the benefit of people researching on Google.

That said, if a question can be edited to make it more readable, even if it isn't possible to bring the question to the point where it can be reopened, then it can and should be edited. In cases like this, the possibility of editing should be considered before the question is locked.

For more on this, see this Meta Stack Overflow question: "Did we really have to delete this 80-vote community wiki answer after three years?". In a mod's words:

We do not delete good content. We do not delete good content.

Answer 2

People are looking at these issues from very different perspectives. But these actually aren't mutually exclusive; there's another dimension to the problem that hasn't been raised.

Role of question vs. answer

Start with the question, that's what gets the ball rolling. It provides the framework for the answers to be created. Once the answers are there, the answers are what contain the knowledge in our knowledge base.

If an answer isn't self-contained, the question provides context. But a well-written answer doesn't really even need the question. With great answers, the question becomes mainly a tool to help organize and find the answers. But searches can find the answers directly.

So the relative importance of the question vs. the answers changes after the answers come in if the answers are good. And that change in importance means that our strategy for making decisions about the thread should change with it.

Strategy vs. poor questions' changing problem

In the absence of good answers, a bad question doesn't add value to the site. It either can't be usefully answered and is just clutter, or it can attract low quality answers. In this case:

• Clean it up or clean it out.

But, if it attracts good answers despite itself, the problem with a bad question becomes largely esthetic. The question is the means to the end, the answers are the end. High quality answers (that are on-topic), are why the site is here, and those should never be discarded on the basis of the question being poor. So what can we do in that case?

• Improve the question. Questions are often poor because people can't imagine how they can be usefully answered. The answerers have figured that out. The answers frame and focus the question in a constructive way so that other readers can recognize the potential that was hidden. So it can be easier to improve the question after great answers have been posted (and that is completely different from rewriting the question to fit the answer).

• Ask a new question and post the answers there.

• Lock the thread as a last resort if we can't get the question improved or replaced.

Answer 3

We should absolutely be closing unsalvageable HNQs faster. Hot Network Questions are the only thing many people see of our site, and I think we should make sure they show off our best. That's why I take a minute every so often to play "hunt the duplicate" when we get a new HNQ. I know it feels awkward to stop someone from repcapping by closing an HNQ, but we really shouldn't let already-asked or bad questions be presented as our latest and greatest. (Relevant MSE proposal.)

I could have sworn there's an MSE proposal to let moderators remove a given question on their site from HNQ, but I can't find it at the moment.

If the question can be salvaged, I see no reason to not save it. If it's interesting - and especially if it has already attracted a great answer - we have the opportunity to polish it up and show it to the world.

Answer 4

Notice how the question has been extensively edited to resemble a well thought question that can be answered. I presume the editors that did so just read the best answer and retro-fitted the question to fit the answer. They were trying to fix a bad question, in deference to a good answer. And that's good. But this also require insane amounts of effort and knowledge to do, which if nobody is willing to spend I see no point on keeping such question open/undeleted.

I go in more details about this in two of my other answers on SO:

• https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/287143/792066
• https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/317572/792066