There have been a few examples of questions posted by students (e.g., How to perform precipitation data analysis?) that have been closed or put on hold in the past. Do we need a way for those questions to remain open? In a related post (Are we aiming to be an expert site?), there has been a push for questions to be "expert level" at least during private beta. Do we have the ability to maintain that "expert level" while creating space for students and interested people to ask their questions?
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Not a dupe, but I think the question on homework questions is relevant.
I have absolutely no problem with a student asking a clear, well-defined, on-topic question.
I don't know that the example given (the precipitation analysis) is a homework question, but I think a lot of the same issues apply - it was a very broad, poorly defined question (although subsequently edited to clarify) that shows little evidence of prior research.
A poorly defined question is a good reason for closure ("unclear what you're asking"). No prior research effort is a good reason for downvoting (it's actually given in the tooltip on the downvoting button!).
answered May 29, 2014 at 9:00