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Post Reopened by reneMod discussion
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Glorfindel Mod
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Why has nothing been done since the user study showed the page was bad?
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Clement Cherlin
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Why is the "Ask a question" page still so unhelpful in 2018?

Post Closed as "Duplicate" by Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog, reneMod discussion
Corrected mistaken impressions
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Clement Cherlin
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It seems to me that almost all of the drama on SO/SE is the result of "bad questions". Many thousands of programmer-hours, I'm sure, have been poured into moderation tools, voting tools, queues, tags, flags, etc. And yet the "Ask a question" page looks like it was written in 2008 and left alone since then. Every post on the topic of question quality links to one of the many excellent "How to ask questions" pages on the net, but the "Ask a question" page links to none of them, nor does it offer any advice of its own.

It doesn't even have a beyond an itsy-bitsy, essentially invisible link to the help oron the tour outsidefar, far right of the footerpage.

Why doesn't the "Ask a question" page impart any of the hard-won expertise in asking and answering questions that the community has gathered over the years? Why doesn't it suggest anything to the user other than possible duplicates? Why is it that so much effort has been put into every part of the site except the single most relevant page to the goal of attracting quality questions?

Our site's main entry point for questioners looks like a Google search, so why is anyone surprised or upset when people treat it like a Google search? Push button, receive answer, right?

It seems to me that almost all of the drama on SO/SE is the result of "bad questions". Many thousands of programmer-hours, I'm sure, have been poured into moderation tools, voting tools, queues, tags, flags, etc. And yet the "Ask a question" page looks like it was written in 2008 and left alone since then. Every post on the topic of question quality links to one of the many excellent "How to ask questions" pages on the net, but the "Ask a question" page links to none of them, nor does it offer any advice of its own.

It doesn't even have a link to the help or the tour outside the footer.

Why doesn't the "Ask a question" page impart any of the hard-won expertise in asking and answering questions that the community has gathered over the years? Why doesn't it suggest anything to the user other than possible duplicates? Why is it that so much effort has been put into every part of the site except the single most relevant page to the goal of attracting quality questions?

Our site's main entry point for questioners looks like a Google search, so why is anyone surprised or upset when people treat it like a Google search? Push button, receive answer, right?

It seems to me that almost all of the drama on SO/SE is the result of "bad questions". Many thousands of programmer-hours, I'm sure, have been poured into moderation tools, voting tools, queues, tags, flags, etc. And yet the "Ask a question" page looks like it was written in 2008 and left alone since then. Every post on the topic of question quality links to one of the many excellent "How to ask questions" pages on the net, but the "Ask a question" page links to none of them, nor does it offer any advice of its own beyond an itsy-bitsy, essentially invisible link on the far, far right of the page.

Why doesn't the "Ask a question" page impart any of the hard-won expertise in asking and answering questions that the community has gathered over the years? Why doesn't it suggest anything to the user other than possible duplicates? Why is it that so much effort has been put into every part of the site except the single most relevant page to the goal of attracting quality questions?

Our site's main entry point for questioners looks like a Google search, so why is anyone surprised or upset when people treat it like a Google search? Push button, receive answer, right?

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Clement Cherlin
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