Special handling for FAQ questions

Question

This came out of a discussion in the C++ lounge today with @casperOne regarding the long-term viability of keeping the c++-faq meta-tag around. Please help me to flesh it out.

The problems:

• Meta-tags are bad
• The C++ community, possibly uniquely, utilizes this tag for a multitude of reasons:
• To easily identify canonical questions that other questions may be closed as duplicates of.
• Identify collections of "authoritatve answers" as there is a dearth of good, peer-reviewed C++ information.
• There are too many questions and too many people and we should just get drunk
• While possible to move the referenced questions into a tag wiki (it would have to be another one, since this tag theoretically would not exist if removed from all the questions) the tag wiki system is not quite up to the task of acting as a reference repository for [allegedly] oft-asked questions, that we instead post as fake questions and tag them c++-faq so that they do not get closed as Not Constructive.

In order to more constructively create a repository for this sort of information, it was proposed that the tag wiki system be enhanced so that we can use that instead of polluting question-space with long-winded, made up "references". It would need to be searchable, and we would need to be able to close a question by referring the OP to the wiki post somehow, in much the same way that we can presently close as dupe of a c++-faq post (though, frankly, I don't see this happen that often).

In the meantime, @jalf proposed that perhaps all x-faq tags could be treated specially by the SO interface. Any user with a gold x badge would be able to cast a vote to FAQ-ify a question.

I was slightly concerned that high rep certainly doesn't necessarily entail expertise (ultimately, what does?), but concluded that it's difficult to get a gold badge simply through picking off low-hanging fruit and rep-whoring. Then, we have the voting system to protect against the odd high-rep, low-expertise person-who-got-really-lucky-with-Reddit from upsetting the delicate balance.

Answer 1

Any user with a gold x badge would be able to cast a vote to FAQ-ify a question.

Anyone can already cast a vote to FAQ-ify a question: vote to close another question as a duplicate of it. If something's really frequently-asked, then prove it.

Right now, the site-generated C++ FAQ counts all links as a "vote". This actually works pretty well for your purposes - note that 25 of the top 30 questions by links are c++-faq questions. If we only look at duplicate links, then this drops to 19 of 30...

I tend to think giving more weight to duplicate links is the right way to go here: like it or not, these reflect the questions that are actually asked a lot. There are 32 questions in c++-faq that've never had another question closed as a duplicate of them - kinda hard to argue these are really FAQs. Questions like this or this aren't frequently-asked; there's information there that can be useful to reference when answering questions that are frequently-asked, but that's not a good reason to clutter up a FAQ with them - if anything, you should have a separate list (maybe in a tag wiki...) of useful "background info" posts for use by authors.

I was slightly concerned that high rep certainly doesn't necessarily entail expertise (ultimately, what does?), but concluded that it's difficult to get a gold badge simply through picking off low-hanging fruit and rep-whoring.

It's difficult to get a gold badge by identifying questions that've already been answered too. Let's face it: there's already one system in place for "voting" on FAQs, and not enough people use it - adding a second one ain't gonna make that better.

Answer 2

I personally don't have a problem with the c++-faq tag, because:

1. It is a useful categorization of the questions tagged with it, and
2. It is actively maintained by the C++ community.

I'm not so sure that it requires any additional system support, however.

Answer 3

While I might be biased, as in I believe that removing the c++-faq tag can cause more harm than good, I came about an idea when this was being discussed in the Lounge.

We currently have a(n) FAQ tab along with a tag, and the way something is currently designated as a(n) "FAQ" seems to be purely on views. Which in my opinion is an incorrect way of measuring the frequency of something being asked, rather it seems like a way to gauge popularity, if anything. A(n) FAQ should have two components that make it a well executed list, which include searchability and authoritativeness decision upon its usefulness.

So my execution would be to make the FAQ system revamped a bit, based on a previous merit allow users who use the tag to vote upon a question to make it into the FAQ tab. This merit could be anything, just like @jalf suggested which is to have gold x owners vote to FAQ-ify a question (though I suggest this being lowered, maybe silver) or a reputation privilege (though I don't particularly recommend this approach see: review queue).

However this point alone doesn't improve upon the searchability that the c++-faq had, and I'm unsure how many people vote to close on a question, the way I usually do it is through a query similar to this when searching:

[c++-faq] external linkage

Which would lead upon this question pretty easily.

So in order to impose similar searchability, I propose making the FAQ tab itself searchable through a query similar to this one:

[c++:faq] external linkage

In which the semicolon separates which tab is being accessed -- that is [c++:faq] would access the FAQ tab of the C++ tag. I believe this would improve the searchability and address both issues.