Sometimes a question is trivial to answer with a Google search or two, but the answer is not on a stackexchange site. Are those questions still worth asking on SE or should they be closed?
2 Answers
Meta.stackoverflow.com has a lot of questions discussing this issue.
I can remember an answer posted for someone. It says something like that:
We must try to put the question as the first link on Google.
So, we should answer the question and spread it to lift the answer to first place.
At least this is the ideal scenario.
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1No, I don't think we should. If there already is a good answer that's at the top of Google, then there's no reason to make a StackExchange answer which just repeats what that says the top hit on Google. We should be trying to promote the questions with good content; content that might not be written down anywhere else, or explained as well. We should try and promote our best questions and answers, not the simple ones where you find the answer from the top Google hit, like this which adds almost nothing: boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/885/… Commented Oct 27, 2010 at 22:10
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@Brian: I will think about it and bring some links to back my post.– ManieroCommented Oct 28, 2010 at 0:02
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+1, we should have a goal of being the ultimate repository for boardgaming Q&A. Commented Nov 4, 2010 at 4:43
If someone asks such a question, we should answer them, proving the link and a quote or summary that demonstrates that the link answers the question. These are easy questions to get some easy rep on.
On the other hand, they don't make for very interesting content on this site, so we should try not to have too many of them. In particular, try Googling before you ask a question, and don't try to "seed" the site with lots of questions that can be answered this way.
See the "Links to BoardGameGeek (or other sites)" thread for some discussion on how best to provide these sorts of answers for things which are adequately answered by an existing link already.
