What type of questions are the most welcome in SO community? Which at most contribute to its growth?
Of course the questions should be constructive and clear, so I'd focus only on that ones. So, I've identified 3 main groups:
Basic, learners questions - this are asked, when someone learns to use some technology. This are basic questions like 'how to do x in y', or more general, what is the way of doing something in language/technology/framework z.
Hacky questions - generally the questions about hacks (the ways to simplify life). This are all questions about what library has the functionality X, which code would make Y (samples), how to make Z better.
Expert questions - those are asked by advanced users, who are going above this what is provided by technology/framework. They got errors coming from using undocumented API or using the framework in the way that the developers didn't even imagine, or want to write own expansions.
While the first thought would be that the most valuable are questions from third group, and the less valuable the first, from my experience it looks different. When I was learning something, jQuery for example, I was asking basic questions that were upvoted, or I was playing with answers to existing questions trying to improve them or provide other way of doing something. One of such answers: jQuery: how to add <li> in an existing <ul>? which was only a play brings me more reputation than most of the other old questions and answers.
The second group are the questions which I still find usefull and ask them. In Java world the rule is, that if you want to write something generic, there's high probobility it was already written.
The third group, however, is for me, as yet, a great dissapointment. Many of my questions are for months not answered, even the question about Spring and JSF integration How to use Spring services in JSF-managed beans? gains minimal audience. One of my questions was even closed as unconstructive. Is the asking questions with little chance to be answered unconstructive? I've developed the solution in one day anyway, but nobody seems to be interested.
So, what questions should be asked here? Should we ask expert, hard questions, which gain almost no audience and usually are not answered? Or only simple questions, that quickly gain answers, are rewarded with reputation and attract visitors to the site?
I'm not for reputation, however I'm happy with it. I'm only afraid that too specific questions with no answers (or answers that are not working) would be considered the trash for the community.
