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The WP community as a whole is fairly quick to abandon or close down questions it views as too-basic to address. Our site has been criticized as being somewhat hostile to "noobs" asking incredibly trivial questions.

So what are some examples of questions that fall into the "only relevant to beginners but still on-topic for this site" category?

What are some examples of questions that fall into the "this is too trivial a question and is off-topic here" category?

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4 Answers

up vote 8 down vote

What are some examples of questions that fall into the "this is too trivial a question and is off-topic here" category?

There is no such case as question off-topic because of triviality.

There are:

  1. Trivial questions that are on (more often on) or off topic.
  2. Trivial questions that are good or bad (more often bad).

But triviality cannot bring question in or out the scope of the site.

Triviality is not an excuse for off topic question, just as on topic is not excuse for bad trivial one.

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I would counter that, at some point, triviality renders a question too localized, and therefore still off-topic, even if in-scope. – Chip Bennett Jan 8 at 17:32
@Chip "too localized" and "off topic" are distinct different categories. :) Question can be bad (in different ways), without being off topic. – Rarst♦ Jan 8 at 17:35
I was specifically addressing your assertion that "there is no such case as question off-topic because of triviality". You're right; I agree with you: triviality does not render a question inherently off-topic. But I counter that assertion by saying that even on-topic questions can be so trivial that they are useful only to a too narrow audience, which is the definition of too localized. – Chip Bennett Jan 8 at 17:39
up vote 7 down vote

Too trivial is a question that can be resolved within two minutes of research effort.

Example 1: In WP Codex Action reference, why are some hooks blue and others red?

Sure, developers using the Codex should know that. But clicking a red link and clicking a blue link explains the difference already. And Google leads to the matching MediaWiki help page fast.

Example 2: Simple Jquery Script Not Working in Wordpress
A syntax error. While it is not always easy to solve these, especially due to PHP’s rather poor error messages, it is possible and off topic too.

Also, question about using WordPress for regular blogging (writing a post, opening help) are too trivial. We are a site for developers and administrators, and we should focus on that.

Beginner level are questions with a very simple solution, but still relevant to understand WordPress’ internal logic, for example the load order of PHP files.

Example: Fatal error: Call to undefined function wp_create_nonce()
Looking at the source file for the function’s declaration should explain the issue, but it is useful to explain it together with a solution on our site.

What about the edge cases?

Example: Enable page templates. How?
We should search for duplicates and be slightly less liberal than usual, but leave these questions on our site and open if there are no dupes.

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I think your syntax error question is an example of a question that is too localized, even if the underlying implementation is otherwise in-scope. – Chip Bennett Jan 8 at 17:33
up vote 7 down vote

I'm one of those noobs who finds this site to be "somewhat" hostile. Essentially I think you're all pretty knowledgeable engineers and I'm a college student trying to get WP to do a few things. So, fair enough, I don't really belong here.

My problem is, the only other source I know of for help is the WP.org Forums. While I do sometimes see good answers there it really doesn't seem to be an overly helpful place to understand how to get some bit of code to do something I need.

I do appreciate that you're all pros and I'm nowhere near your league, but just as an economy with an enormous gap between rich and poor suggests a state with problems, is ours a time with an enormous gap between engineers and users? I'll never be a real code person, I'm a content person. But I'd love to find a place where I can learn how to do the small tinkering that can help make a site work.

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+1000 This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. – EAMann♦ Jan 9 at 19:58
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I think that a well-written, interesting question will get treated fairly and sincerely here, regardless of its level of expertise. The problem we deal with mostly is "garbage in, garbage out": poorly written, often repetitive, "drive-by" questions. If you focus on making your question stand out by being well-written, and by posing an interesting problem, then I think you'll get a good reception here. (And feel free to mention in your question that you welcome help with improving your question, too, if you think you need such help.) – Chip Bennett Jan 10 at 0:28
up vote 4 down vote

Too trivial questions include those that are answered only and entirely by linking to a Codex function reference entry.

Note 1: questions that include, but expound upon a Codex entry are valuable.

Note 2: this is another opportunity to pitch a Canonical Answer idea, for certain "classes" of questions that are generally answered with links to the Codex, such as script enqueueing, functions that return vs. echo their output, conditional tags, etc.

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