Simple/homeworkish questions getting closed as 'too broad'?

Question

I've seen a few of these kind of questions asking a very simple thing that would be easily googlable. They are also probably homework motivated. Here is an example.

What should we do about these kinds of questions? I think they should be closed, but could we create a homework type flag/reason for closing similar to the one there is in Physics SE? Or could there be a flag simply stating: 'This is a very simple issue and you haven't been able to google the answer somehow'. Currently my example question is being closed as 'too broad' which it certainly isn't.

Answer 1

As one of those who voted to close the question you refer to, there are a limited number of reasons available to us for closing a question and sometimes the reasons available do not enable us to truly state the reason why we think the question should be closed.

Like you, I would like to see more options available to us.

I think this site should both options that you mention:

• A homework flag/reason
• And flag/ reason stating something like, "Not enough research is evident in the question".

Answer 2

If homework questions are not living up to the standard of the homework question policy, then close them as off-topic, but please leave a comment to give the asker a chance to salvage their question (and link to the policy so they know is expected of their question). If poor homework questions become too common we can look into a custom close reason to better describe them.

Answer 3

Your question will usually be downvoted and.or closed as too broad or off topic because most questions can be just typed up into google to find an answer. Stackexchange is meant to be a site for questions google cannot answer, so people ask them here.

And as @Fred mentioned, a flag for homework-ish questions would be helpful for our site, because it would minimize the number of off-topic questions from new users.