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I noticed that lately there are some questions asked here, not written in English, that really are example for the proposal, or questions that should be asked on the site, when it is created.

Should not be there a filter that blocks low quality questions, similarly to what done in Stack Overflow where questions containing only code are blocked?

If there is already a system to assign a quality value to posts, should not the method to valuate the post consider the following questions as low quality posts?

  • https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3623
    "For older parents in Europe and America and Taiwan, which is more suitable for Chinatown? Friends how to look. Or experienced friend to share. Thank you"
  • 技术移民在现在的形势下是否合适
    "A few years ago comes in to say, the situation is now somewhat reversed? European and American countries economic stagnation, is likely to double dip, high unemployment. In this context, local hostility to foreign immigration is also growing. Although the Chinese economy has problems, but at least still in rapid growth, the demand for IT personnel is also very strong. This time migration, the timing is a little problem? In fact the U.S. occupation of Wall Street campaign, Europe strike, show that local people's discontent is unusually severe."
  • https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3588
    "U.S. computer industry is very advanced, it should be for the farm yard is the most appropriate destination.
    There are many immigrants currently looking line, which are more suitable for agricultural code it? Many immigrants to cross the barrier, language, culture, discrimination, loneliness, etc., not to say that moving out is needed. This should be a deliberate decision."
  • https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3635/h1b
    "Buzz today just to see the news on the United States passed a bill to cancel the visa quota restrictions in the country benefit from the large Indian immigration, if through the cool."

(The translations have been provided from Google Translate.)

If it is not possible to filter those low quality questions, should not be there a reminder for users with low reputation? That is what is already done for beta site, where the new users see a reminder about how to ask a question (and this happens independently from the user being already a 10k user on another SE site); for Area 51, the reminder could be show for low reputation users for the first, e.g., four questions asked, or for a number of questions that is calculated basing on the number of questions asked per day by that user.

Edit: I notice that there is a review tab, on this site, and I see the questions I am referring are marked as very low quality. Maybe such questions should cause the OP to see a dialog asking if they are sure they didn't pick up the wrong site, and reminds what the purpose of this site is.

screenshot

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  • um...how would the filter work? If you can write one, I'd like one that blocks off-topic questions on Stack Overflow, too!
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Dec 4, 2011 at 1:56
  • I think Stack Overflow has already filters that warn the user when the question doesn't fit some requirements. That code doesn't work for Area 51, where users don't write code, for example.
    – apaderno
    Dec 4, 2011 at 2:04
  • It does. But that can be done with keyword matching, grammar parsing, spelling, etc. I can't think of a single metric that could be applied to this problem.
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Dec 4, 2011 at 2:38
  • Stack Overflow has already a low quality filter. I don't know if there is also for Area 51, but the questions I reported would be easily caught.
    – apaderno
    Dec 4, 2011 at 9:13
  • Actually, there should not a single metric, but a sum of metrics that would assign a quality value to the question, which I think it's what happens on Stack Overflow. For example, to catch the questions I listed would be enough to count the number of characters that are not punctuation marks and are not English letters; when those characters are predominant (or are more than X%), the questions should be blocked, and the user should get a warning about the question being low quality.
    – apaderno
    Dec 4, 2011 at 9:35

1 Answer 1

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This site is full of legitimate questions about clarifying the subjects of these proposals. It would not be possible to parse the English language to separate a questions about whether a subject would be on topic and asking a question about the subject itself. Our devs are good but they're not that good. I'm not sure anyone is. It just would not be impractical.

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  • Right, but the questions I listed can be caught; I was not thinking to an AI that is able to say legitimate questions from not legitimate questions. Stack Overflow has a low quality filter that doesn't allow the OP to submit a question when the quality value is too low; the same could be done for Area 51, and questions similar to the one I listed would be easily caught. As alternative, in the same way it happens on a beta site, the OP (with a low reputation) should get a reminder before asking a question.
    – apaderno
    Dec 4, 2011 at 9:23

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