How can we clearly say what is or is not a question?

Question

I think we can all agree that just adding a question mark to the end of this (and the post it refers to) does not make it a question:

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/40424/shameless-moderators-deleted-my-question-truth-cannot-be-hidden-forever-you-ha?noredirect=1#comment46465_40424

The tour does not have much in there explicit enough about what is or is not a question: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/tour

It seems like it should be basic enough that no one needs to point it out, but...

What clear definition for what is or is not a question (even before deciding whether it's a good question) applies on the bitcoin.stackexchange.com Q&A site?

Answer 1

Good questions:

• Specify a clear topic that allows other participants to gauge what would constitute an encompassing answer.
• Show that the asker has spent some minimal effort to try to find an answer himself.
• If controversial statements are made, they are presented in form of arguments with supportive evidence.
• Are useful to more than one isolated individual.
• Are asked openly to allow for a range of answers. Especially, loaded questions or statements asking for support do not fulfill this.

You can find more information in our help center in the category Asking. Or have a look at the distilled version at How to Ask.

You might also find this article by one of Stackoverflow's founders on the dynamics between questions and answers interesting: Optimizing For Pearls, Not Sand.

Answer 2

I think we can all agree that just adding a question mark to the end of this (and the post it refers to) does not make it a question:

It's also possible to have a question that has no question marks:

Asked by $someone

I'm having problems with this code:

code

When I run it on linux, it produces this error. It works on windows, and I've tried this and this. I've tried googling this, and I tried this, but that didn't help either.

This never explicitly asks a question, but it has a clear problem, a explanation of what they've tried, and talks about what references they've consulted.

There isn't a hard and fast rule; it's an "I know it when I see it," kind of thing. If we made an explicit rule, there would be so many exceptions and so many loopholes that it would be a huge pain to comply with.

Warning signs:

• (on main site) Uses question to complain about how previous questions have been removed.
• Asks something vague, then answers own question with a blog post that's linked.
• The asker expects a particular answer.