Do "too broad" questions become less broad after an acceptable answer is given?

Question

I came across this question in the review queue. Sometimes I come across questions of similar form. My thought is to vote to close as "too-broad" because:

• Question is very broad, there are many, many ways to perform that task.
• No code was posted, no specific coding problem was identified.

But, and this is in general, I always get tripped up when I see that these questions have a reasonable accepted answer: I would have voted it too-broad immediately had I seen the question pop up in the new questions stream; but when I see that the answerer seemed to find the question clear enough (and his answer was accepted and deemed satisfactory), I end up going back and thinking "if it was clear enough for the answerer to provide a specific answer, doesn't that mean it wasn't too broad after all?"

How should I handle questions like this?

And, in general, how should I handle questions that, alone, seem too broad, but when answered, seem specific? Should I ignore the answers when considering closing a question, or do they retroactively change the quality of the question?

Answer 1

Questions don't get any less broad when they're answered... But your perception of their breadth might. And that's ok!

"Too broad" means that the question asks for more than we can reasonably provide. A textbook answer, or answers to multiple, discrete questions. I really like jmac's summary of these questions:

If the asker identifies where they want to start, and where they want to end, but there are way too many pieces to fill in, then it is Too Broad:

When you're viewing an unanswered question and suspect it is too broad, you must make this call based on your interpretation of what the asker is looking for and your knowledge of the topic - there's nothing else to go on. If you're reasonably familiar with the topic, you stand a good chance of doing so accurately... Still, it is very easy to be wrong!

But when you're viewing an answered question, you have additional data: is the answer (or answers) complete? Do they satisfy the asker and stand a reasonable chance of being helpful to others facing the same problem? If so, it's a safe bet that the question is not too broad!

Note that you can always edit the question to better reflect what the asker was really looking for, at least in situations where you're able to determine this... And an accepted answer offers an excellent hint at what that was.

Answer 2

If the only possible (quality) answers that you can imagine would be quite lengthy, and are well beyond what could be expected to fit into an SO answer, then the question would be too broad.

If it turns out, at some later point in time, that someone else managed to find a way to effectively answer the question in a reasonably concise manner, then you were simply wrong about the scope of the question. It happens sometimes; you think a problem is harder than it is, or weren't aware of some mechanism that greatly simplifies the problem. This is why we require 5 close votes, and not just one, and why there is a means to reopen a closed question.

This specific example is a bit beyond my area of expertise, but it seems to me like the existing answer is an acceptable answer (the OP thought so, as it's accepted), so I wouldn't say that the question is too broad. While it's entirely reasonable for you to have though so before seeing the answer, it would appear that you were mistaken. It happens.

What you should be on the lookout for is answers to excessively broad questions that are just the tip of the iceberg. People like answering really broad questions; almost as much as people like asking them. Lots of people try to write answers, but when the question really is very broad you just can't give a quality, comprehensive answer. You end up giving people just a small start, and leaving them with 99% of the work to still figure out after reading your answer. People also like to post answers that just link to blog articles, or suggest a book (or a chapter in a book) or some site tutorial that will comprehensively cover the question. Answers like these are exactly why broad questions should be closed; these aren't the type of answers that SE wants to have.

I don't think (although, granted, I'm not familiar enough with the subject material to say conclusively) that your example answer fits what I described above. While it doesn't do everything for the author, it seems to be proving a sufficient solution, rather than "just a start".

Answer 3

If the OP accepted a specific answer, it could be that although the wording of the question was broad, the OP actually had something specific in mind. In some of these cases I have edited the question to change its emphasis. But whether this is worthwhile or possible without radically changing the question is something I do on a case by case basis. Changing the title of the question tends to be safer than changing its body.

In general, however, I do not think the existence of an accepted answer indicates that a question is a good question.

Answer 4

Use "Too Broad" for Big List questions, or questions that would require the better part of a book chapter to answer. The question you cited is neither Big List, nor Book Chapter.

Example of a Big List question:

What are all of the common Javascript libraries?

Example of a Book Chapter question:

What are all of the capabilities of [this javascript library], and how are they used?

I'm guessing you voted "too broad" because the question is icanhazcodez. But that doesn't necessarily make a question too broad.