I would like to request relaxing of moderation rules,to some extent,at least for new users,so that it will help new users like me in getting answers for their questions. It will also enable us to learn more about the forums and understand the rules,on our own.
How would relaxing the rules help anyone to learn? If the rules don't apply to you, you cannot learn them.
Moreover, this would have a detrimental effect on the community at large. We have rules and standards for a reason. If there was no reason for them, we wouldn't have them. Granting people a free pass to break the rules—for whatever reason—would serve no positive purpose.
We provide plenty of places for you to learn the rules, including the site help/FAQ page, the about page, and here on Meta. You can also ask questions on Meta about things you're unclear on. Then, of course, there's the "trial-by-fire" method where you do whatever you want and get your hand spanked if you broke the rules. Apparently this is the method you've been using. I can't say I recommend it, but it does "work"—you're learning what is and what is not acceptable, which is the whole point.
The only thing that might make sense is to be forgiving of new users who make mistakes when learning the rules. But of course, we do that! We don't allow them to continue making mistakes, but we don't hold it against them forever.
Other forums,which I've seen,allow opinion and discussion.
Correct. This is what makes Stack Exchange sites different from other websites. We do Q&A; we are not a forum, and we do not allow those things.
If you're seeking that, you already know where to go find it: somewhere other than here.
On the other hand, if you want good answers to technical questions without all the noise, you use us.
There can be a separate Stack Exchange site which can integrate all topics(it can be a site for many kind of 'off topic' questions) and it can also have moderators from various fields to keep an eye on it,based on the tags. It is difficult for everyone to find the best place to ask their questions,on their own.
This has been suggested before, many times. I will never understand why it appeals to people. There are at least three problems:
- Other websites like that already exist. Why should we duplicate them? Moreover, if they were so great, you'd be there, not here.
- This type of site would just turn into an utter wasteland. Who would want to visit it? You certainly wouldn't have experts. You'd just have a bunch of clowns who didn't want to follow rules, didn't care about the community, and talked about nonsense. How would we know when that was a success? And who would clean up the garbage?
- The whole Stack Exchange model simply doesn't work well for that type of site. That's why we have the rules that we do. Believe me, we've tried allowing "discussions" and relaxing the rules on what types of questions are permissible. The result was not pretty. Our rules and standards have evolved organically over the years. They're not there to frustrate you, they're there because that's the only way the site will work.
If the question is from a new user,that's it! Its 'on hold' with the reason as 'off topic' or 'too broad' or something else.I don't think those with good reputation ever end up with a question being put on hold!
This is certainly incorrect. Questions are not put on hold based on the reputation or "new-ness" of the asker. Every question is evaluated independently, on its own merit. High reputation users have their questions closed sometimes, too. And new users with low reputation sometimes ask great questions that never get closed.
This observation simply conflates correlation with causality. New users tend to be the ones who ask questions that do not comply with our standards because they haven't taken the time to read them and haven't had enough experience to learn them other ways. Experienced users tend to know the rules better because they've been around longer and seen which types of questions get closed.
Besides, even if this were true, and all new users' questions were immediately put "on hold", I still can't see a big problem. The whole point of putting a question "on hold" is so that the asker can fix the problems that the community has identified with it and improve it to meet our standards. Once that happens, the question can and often is re-opened.
It should not be a condition that the user should know at least something about what he wishes to ask.Questions are asked in forums basically to simplify the work to be done. If a person can search using search engines,all day long,to find an answer,then there would be no need for forums at all!!
There is a big difference between knowing something about what you want to ask, and knowing the answer. This is an extremely minimal bar that we're enforcing. You have to know something about the topic in order to ask a question about it. "I want to do x. Please write the code for me." is not a question. "I have written the following code, but it is not doing y. How can I fix it?" is a question. See the difference?
If you're looking for a place where you can get people to do work for you, you might be interested in http://www.freelancer.com/.
- Questions and answers can have golden badge for most number of votes and most number of moderator votes and all golden badge questions can be grouped together.
Questions and answers already receive badges for votes. You can already sort questions by votes.
Aside from that, I fail to see how this would be a big improvement. You'd just create an "experts' corner" of Stack Overflow, which would just end up robbing yourself of expert advice—the whole reason you come here.
And even if that would be okay with you, it wouldn't be okay with me. Because although I am an expert in certain fields, I'm a complete novice in others. And that's not something weird about me, that pretty much describes everyone. This is why we don't have complexity or difficulty requirements for questions. No question is too basic, so long as it complies with our other standards. And like I've said several times, the standards are quality-related, not difficulty-related.
- The moderators can also regularly keep posting updates and information related to their field which should be easily accessible to everyone.
First of all, moderators are not necessarily experts and they don't know everything. They certainly aren't experts in all topics. They're just regular community members who volunteer to help us to keep the site clean and in good working order.
There are lots of extremely smart people who contribute on the site that are not moderators. Those experts should be able to share their knowledge, too.
And, of course, they can! We just don't have a separate place on the site for it. That's what questions and tag wikis are for. If you have information to share, you are encouraged to ask and answer your own question. If you have general information about a specific topic that you think everyone should know, you can add it to the wiki for that topic's tag.
