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I have heard a few highly reputed users expressing sentiments that again and again answering the same newbie questions becomes very tedious. ("What should be the result of i == ++i + i++?" anyone?) Those who say this frequently are highly reputed, very knowledgeable users, whose decreased contribution or even departure would be a great loss to the community.

So I started thinking that we should have an FAQ. The (more or less official) C++ FAQ is frequently linked to, but IMO it lacks. It doesn't necessarily foremost address the questions which are asked on Stack Overflow most frequently, it's not editable for us, and we cannot close questions with a pointer to the FAQ, or even merge questions into it. But a set of well-worded and constantly improved answers to frequently asked questions, so that repeatedly arising questions could be closed as duplicates or merged into their FAQ counterpart, seems highly desirable.
At first, the new tag pages with their tag wiki and a list of frequently linked-to questions (unfortunately named "faq") seemed a step into the right direction to me, but I soon realized that this didn't get far enough. Then, GMan and I had an initial discussion about this the other day, that was later continued in the chat.

I feel the need to discuss this at Meta Stack Overflow, because

1. Others might explain why I am/we are wrong about this and why this isn't needed at all and a great waste of time and resources.
2. More people would bring more ideas to the table.
3. Regulars in other tags might have similar ideas that we don't know about.
4. If we do this, this would need support from as many people as possible
5. As everyone who followed the link to the chat saw, chat transcripts aren't exactly a great way of documenting a threaded discussion.
6. We might feel that some new feature would greatly enhance our ability to pull this off, which would require a discussion on meta.

Here's an initial list of questions that, IMO, should be answered in such a discussion:

• Do we need yet another C++ FAQ anyway? If so, how do we pull this off?
• Would questions with a special tag (I've gone and added my initial idea, c++-faq to this post) be sufficient? Would the voting system be sufficient to ensure that the best answers bubble up (as opposed to the funniest, most controversial, etc.)?
• Would it be desirable to restrict the right to edit FAQ answers? If so, how do we do this?
• Could the tag wiki (currently requires 1,500 rep) be a good place to use for that?

If you answer to this, please, be polite, critical, and constructive, try to stay focused, and refrain from repeating the umpteenth time what has been said before you.
Also again: Please feel free to edit this question if you think it lacks in any regard. This is by no mean my project, I'm merely the one who, about 10 hours ago, said he would be able post such a question today at the time we more or less agreed upon.

I have heard a few highly reputed users expressing sentiments that again and again answering the same newbie questions becomes very tedious. ("What should be the result of i == ++i + i++?" anyone?) Those who say this frequently are highly reputed, very knowledgeable users, whose decreased contribution or even departure would be a great loss to the community.

So I started thinking that we should have an FAQ. The (more or less official) C++ FAQ is frequently linked to, but IMO it lacks. It doesn't necessarily foremost address the questions which are asked on Stack Overflow most frequently, it's not editable for us, and we cannot close questions with a pointer to the FAQ, or even merge questions into it. But a set of well-worded and constantly improved answers to frequently asked questions, so that repeatedly arising questions could be closed as duplicates or merged into their FAQ counterpart, seems highly desirable.
At first, the new tag pages with their tag wiki and a list of frequently linked-to questions (unfortunately named "faq") seemed a step into the right direction to me, but I soon realized that this didn't get far enough. Then, GMan and I had an initial discussion about this the other day, that was later continued in the chat.

I feel the need to discuss this at Meta Stack Overflow, because

1. Others might explain why I am/we are wrong about this and why this isn't needed at all and a great waste of time and resources.
2. More people would bring more ideas to the table.
3. Regulars in other tags might have similar ideas that we don't know about.
4. If we do this, this would need support from as many people as possible
5. As everyone who followed the link to the chat saw, chat transcripts aren't exactly a great way of documenting a threaded discussion.
6. We might feel that some new feature would greatly enhance our ability to pull this off, which would require a discussion on meta.

Here's an initial list of questions that, IMO, should be answered in such a discussion:

• Do we need yet another C++ FAQ anyway? If so, how do we pull this off?
• Would questions with a special tag (I've gone and added my initial idea, c++-faq to this post) be sufficient? Would the voting system be sufficient to ensure that the best answers bubble up (as opposed to the funniest, most controversial, etc.)?
• Would it be desirable to restrict the right to edit FAQ answers? If so, how do we do this?
• Could the tag wiki (currently requires 1,500 rep) be a good place to use for that?

If you answer to this, please, be polite, critical, and constructive, try to stay focused, and refrain from repeating the umpteenth time what has been said before you.
Also again: Please feel free to edit this question if you think it lacks in any regard. This is by no mean my project, I'm merely the one who, about 10 hours ago, said he would be able post such a question today at the time we more or less agreed upon.

A while ago Neil Butterworth, one of the most highly reputed people in the C++ tag (he has given so many good answers, that in the two months since he left, his defunct account has amassed >2000 rep from old answers), left here, obviously in frustration about Stack Overflow. I have since heard a few other highly reputed users expressing sentiments very similar to his, namely that again and again answering the same newbie questions becomes very tedious. ("What should be the result of i == ++i + i++?" anyone?) Those who say this frequently are highly reputed, very knowledgeable users, whose decreased contribution or even departure would be a great loss to the community.

I have heard a few highly reputed users expressing sentiments that again and again answering the same newbie questions becomes very tedious. ("What should be the result of i == ++i + i++?" anyone?) Those who say this frequently are highly reputed, very knowledgeable users, whose decreased contribution or even departure would be a great loss to the community.

My opinion:

1. I believe that Stack Overflow is a great place to setup an FAQ as a highly dynamic, collaborative, wiki-style community effort.
2. I believe such a project to be worthwhile and the result could be a great knowledge resource, and be a step into the direction of Stack Overflow's goal to make the web a better place.
3. We should start with what we have (I currently see tags or the tag wiki as possible way to go, but you might have more/better ideas) and see where this takes us. In time, we could see what works and what doesn't, and whether an additional feature here or there would be an improvement.