Skip to main content
Android Enthusiasts

Return to Question

replaced http://android.stackexchange.com/ with https://android.stackexchange.com/
Source Link
Community Bot
Community Bot
  • 1

Lately I feel as though there's been something of an upswing in questions which I've personally come to call "Help me find a website for X" questions. Some recent examples I can think of include:

Generally these get closed, but there are also some older questions which (to me) fit the same formula. One example is How can I find the comparison of specs and features of Android devices?How can I find the comparison of specs and features of Android devices? which is a CW with about 24 upvotes at this point.

I think we should come up with some kind of official stance on questions such as these. My personal opinion is that they should be closed either as "Off-topic" or "Not constructive" because they're simply not good questions, and here's why I think they're bad:

  1. Search engines exist specifically for finding websites. I'd wager 9 times out of 10 the answerers are just going to punch the question into Google and post the first few links.
  2. They're completely vulnerable to linkrot, since most of the time a link is really the only "valid" answer.
  3. They generally have nothing to do with using Android or how Android works, just reading about topics that are related to Android.
  4. If the content from a decent website were copy/pasted here to avoid linkrot it would become very out-of-date very fast in many cases (it could even feasibly cause copyright infringement concerns).

So my personal opinion is that "Where can I find a website/resource/list for X" questions should be nuked from orbit. Do others agree? Disagree? Have no opinion whatsoever? It feels like we're going to continue getting questions like this for the forseeable future, so as I said, I think some kind of community stance on this would be highly beneficial. If we deem them inappropriate questions then it gives us something "official" to point people to as well. If not then I'll start leaving them alone.

Lately I feel as though there's been something of an upswing in questions which I've personally come to call "Help me find a website for X" questions. Some recent examples I can think of include:

Generally these get closed, but there are also some older questions which (to me) fit the same formula. One example is How can I find the comparison of specs and features of Android devices? which is a CW with about 24 upvotes at this point.

I think we should come up with some kind of official stance on questions such as these. My personal opinion is that they should be closed either as "Off-topic" or "Not constructive" because they're simply not good questions, and here's why I think they're bad:

  1. Search engines exist specifically for finding websites. I'd wager 9 times out of 10 the answerers are just going to punch the question into Google and post the first few links.
  2. They're completely vulnerable to linkrot, since most of the time a link is really the only "valid" answer.
  3. They generally have nothing to do with using Android or how Android works, just reading about topics that are related to Android.
  4. If the content from a decent website were copy/pasted here to avoid linkrot it would become very out-of-date very fast in many cases (it could even feasibly cause copyright infringement concerns).

So my personal opinion is that "Where can I find a website/resource/list for X" questions should be nuked from orbit. Do others agree? Disagree? Have no opinion whatsoever? It feels like we're going to continue getting questions like this for the forseeable future, so as I said, I think some kind of community stance on this would be highly beneficial. If we deem them inappropriate questions then it gives us something "official" to point people to as well. If not then I'll start leaving them alone.

Lately I feel as though there's been something of an upswing in questions which I've personally come to call "Help me find a website for X" questions. Some recent examples I can think of include:

Generally these get closed, but there are also some older questions which (to me) fit the same formula. One example is How can I find the comparison of specs and features of Android devices? which is a CW with about 24 upvotes at this point.

I think we should come up with some kind of official stance on questions such as these. My personal opinion is that they should be closed either as "Off-topic" or "Not constructive" because they're simply not good questions, and here's why I think they're bad:

  1. Search engines exist specifically for finding websites. I'd wager 9 times out of 10 the answerers are just going to punch the question into Google and post the first few links.
  2. They're completely vulnerable to linkrot, since most of the time a link is really the only "valid" answer.
  3. They generally have nothing to do with using Android or how Android works, just reading about topics that are related to Android.
  4. If the content from a decent website were copy/pasted here to avoid linkrot it would become very out-of-date very fast in many cases (it could even feasibly cause copyright infringement concerns).

So my personal opinion is that "Where can I find a website/resource/list for X" questions should be nuked from orbit. Do others agree? Disagree? Have no opinion whatsoever? It feels like we're going to continue getting questions like this for the forseeable future, so as I said, I think some kind of community stance on this would be highly beneficial. If we deem them inappropriate questions then it gives us something "official" to point people to as well. If not then I'll start leaving them alone.

Source Link
eldarerathis
eldarerathis
  • 36.8k
  • 1
  • 26
  • 41

"Where can I find a list/website/resource for X" questions

Lately I feel as though there's been something of an upswing in questions which I've personally come to call "Help me find a website for X" questions. Some recent examples I can think of include:

Generally these get closed, but there are also some older questions which (to me) fit the same formula. One example is How can I find the comparison of specs and features of Android devices? which is a CW with about 24 upvotes at this point.

I think we should come up with some kind of official stance on questions such as these. My personal opinion is that they should be closed either as "Off-topic" or "Not constructive" because they're simply not good questions, and here's why I think they're bad:

  1. Search engines exist specifically for finding websites. I'd wager 9 times out of 10 the answerers are just going to punch the question into Google and post the first few links.
  2. They're completely vulnerable to linkrot, since most of the time a link is really the only "valid" answer.
  3. They generally have nothing to do with using Android or how Android works, just reading about topics that are related to Android.
  4. If the content from a decent website were copy/pasted here to avoid linkrot it would become very out-of-date very fast in many cases (it could even feasibly cause copyright infringement concerns).

So my personal opinion is that "Where can I find a website/resource/list for X" questions should be nuked from orbit. Do others agree? Disagree? Have no opinion whatsoever? It feels like we're going to continue getting questions like this for the forseeable future, so as I said, I think some kind of community stance on this would be highly beneficial. If we deem them inappropriate questions then it gives us something "official" to point people to as well. If not then I'll start leaving them alone.