There is a certain amount of questions that are absolutely trivial in nature: How to format a date, how to concatenate a string, et cetera. Questions that could be solved by taking a look into the manual.

Random examples from the tags I frequent:


* http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5880301/variable-string
* http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5779604/php-make-all-caps
* http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5604859/background-image-of-a-div-element
* http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5749319/is-it-possible-to-get-unix-time-from-such-date-2011-02-27-020446
* http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5880899/php-timestamp-to-unix-epoch
* http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5781610/how-to-create-a-php-page-which-can-accept-file

**What those OPs need is a link to the right manual, which we should give them.** But the *question* serves no purpose. They don't even have a use by being searchable,  because any sane search query would lead to the actual *manual* as the first hit.


Jeff discusses the possibility of introducing a new close reason for this over at [Scifi.stackexchange.com.][2] According to Robert's suggestion there, it could go like this:

> **general reference**: this question is too basic; the answer is indexed in any number of general internet reference sources designed specifically to find that type of information.

Please implement this.

Add a field (like the "enter duplicate ID here" popup) for users to suggest the correct manual link:

   ![][3]

The suggested links would then be shown in a block in the top section of the question, like duplicate links. 

Also, the amount of reputation earnable from these trivial questions is appalling. I'm sure a great portion of most high-rep users' points (including mine) is from answering "what was that function for replacing a string again?" type questions. This dilutes the value of reputation as a measure of true expertise a great deal.

I would suggest that answers to questions that get closed as "general reference" are made community wiki retroactively, taking away any reputation earned.

  [2]: http://meta.scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/197/should-trivially-easy-to-find-be-a-benchmark-for-moderating-the-site/220#220
  [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/7cUza.png