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Sometimes I come across a question on SO that is actually a number of questions all in one. If these "sub-questions" are closely related, it's not a problem. But if they are only weakly related (or not at all) it gets ugly.

I'm now (ironically or hypocritically) going to ask a few questions of my own for the community to respond to:

• Do you consider a question made up of a number of weakly-related sub-questions "inappropriate"? Why or why not?
• How many is too many sub-questions?
• What do you think is the best way to deal with such questions?

As an example, here's one such question I had some discussion about with another user. I will add a more complete version of my response in an answer below, but in short I felt that this question should be closed and many of the questions asked separately.

Sometimes I come across a question on SO that is actually a number of questions all in one. If these "sub-questions" are closely related, it's not a problem. But if they are only weakly related (or not at all) it gets ugly.

I'm now (ironically or hypocritically) going to ask a few questions of my own for the community to respond to:

• Do you consider a question made up of a number of weakly-related sub-questions "inappropriate"? Why or why not?
• How many is too many sub-questions?
• What do you think is the best way to deal with such questions?

As an example, here's one such now-deleted question I had some discussion about with another user. I will add a more complete version of my response in an answer below, but in short I felt that this question should be closed and many of the questions asked separately.

Sometimes I come across a question on SO that is actually a number of questions all in one. If these "sub-questions" are closely related, it's not a problem. But if they are only weakly related (or not at all) it gets ugly.

I'm now (ironically or hypocritically) going to ask a few questions of my own for the community to respond to:

• Do you consider a question made up of a number of weakly-related sub-questions "inappropriate"? Why or why not?
• How many is too many sub-questions?
• What do you think is the best way to deal with such questions?

As an example, here's one such question I had some discussion about with another user. I will add a more complete version of my response in an answer below, but in short I felt that this question should be closed and many of the questions asked separately.

Sometimes I come across a question on SO that is actually a number of questions all in one. If these "sub-questions" are closely related, it's not a problem. But if they are only weakly related (or not at all) it gets ugly.

I'm now (ironically or hypocritically) going to ask a few questions of my own for the community to respond to:

• Do you consider a question made up of a number of weakly-related sub-questions "inappropriate"? Why or why not?
• How many is too many sub-questions?
• What do you think is the best way to deal with such questions?

As an example, here's one such question I had some discussion about with another user. I will add a more complete version of my response in an answer below, but in short I felt that this question should be closed and many of the questions asked separately.