How is a question defined as “Too Localised”?

Question

This question covers an earlier deleted meta question regarding configurations in a more general way.

The official reason for closing a question as "Too Localised" is:

This question is unlikely to ever help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet.

However, this is hard to apply in some cases. Is there an example on how to interpret this?

Answer 1

Ask yourself about the question.

Can somebody tell me if my computer is fast enough to run Windows 7?

PROC: Intel E6600 Core2Duo 2.40GHz RAM: 4GB (4x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) MOBO: Gigabyte 965P-DS3P GFX: MSI R6870 Hawk (ATI Radeon HD 6870) 1GB HD: 2x 400 Gb Seagate ST3400620AS Barracuda 7200.10 (RAID 1)

Is this going to help any future visitors determine if Windows 7 can be run on their system in such a way that it generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet? I highly doubt it.

Compare that to a more general question.

On the other hand

What are the system requirements to run Windows 7?

I'm trying to tell if my computer is fast enough, but don't know about the requirements.

will surely help future visitors and is generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet.

Here are the system requirements to run Windows 7:

We're optimizing for pearls, not sand.

See how the above generalized Q&A would be a pearl?

_{(source: stackoverflow.com)}

Now compare that to the first question, which would yield a yes/no answer. That's sand...

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Watch out, some questions are just too simple...

Some questions are just too basic; the answer is indexed in any number of general internet reference sources designed specifically to find that type of information.

_{(source: stackoverflow.com)}

The time you would waste in a Q&A could be spend in a quick search that gives you a direct answer.

That's why the question "What are the system requirements to run Windows 7?" shouldn't exist either.

This all goes back to the How to Ask page.

The page specifically mentions the following regarding our example:

Do your homework

Have you thoroughly searched for an answer before asking your question? Sharing your research helps everyone. Tell us what you found and why it didn’t meet your needs. This demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to try to help yourself, it saves us from reiterating obvious answers, and most of all it helps you get a more specific and relevant answer!

Make it relevant to others

We like to help as many people at a time as we can. Make it clear how your question is relevant to more people than just you, and more of us will be interested in your question and willing to look into it.

Ignoring what we put in your hands results in question closes like "Too Localized"...