I have noticed that many questions get down voted or closed so often it's very intimidating for new users. I understand that Stack Overflow is for high quality questions that are helpful to everyone and not just the OP.
So my question is this:
Is there a list of other sites that are for the basic/trivial questions? Maybe we have other sites within the Stack family of sites that are more useful for this kind of question? Maybe we don't have a site (might be a good idea to have a Stack site for new users who need basic help and understanding?).
And you may say "Learn the basics first" or "Read the documentation". I find that many users have read the documentation or have searched for documentation with no luck. Maybe they found the documentation but just don't understand what is happening or how to apply the information to their code.
Sometimes it takes a veteran of the language to explain what's going on in order for the new user to understand.
Rather than down voting the user out of existence, maybe leave a link to a help site for basic questions and then have the post locked. Down voting because you think the question is not helpful to Stack Overflow is fine; however you end up scaring off people who might become useful contributors to the Stack family in time.
I propose (if we don't have yet) either a link to a list of useful sites for new users who need basic help or a Stack site to fill that need.
I believe this would kill two birds with one stone. Veteran users will be able to maintain the integrity of Stack Overflow as a high level resource for coders and provide new users with the help they need and guide them to being better coders instead of scaring them off from coding to start with.
I think it would be cool if we had a Stack site where "unworthy" questions could be asked and users could be helped by people who want to help with those kind of question.
Edit: rephrasing as this is being taking wrong:
I see many questions being down voted (rightfully) but also seeing rude/negative comments on the OP's question. Sometimes indirectly rude, sometimes more to the point.
EDIT:
After reading and responding to many comments I read a comment that basically sums up why my question is not valid in this context. I do not want to delete my question as I believe others will find it and come to the same conclusion I have with reading this single comment.
Thanks to fbueckert
I have now a clear understanding of what SO is. As I came to StackOverflow believing it was one of the many Q&A sites for programmers turns out I was wrong (more often than I would like to admit).
This sums up what for me is the answer for my question:
SE is not for learning, in the tutorial or teaching sense. It's meant to create a repository of knowledge. If you're trying to learn a topic, this isn't the place to start.