There have been previous suggestions that we could have a place to ask questions that are not on topic anywhere else:

• Is there any disadvantages of getting Quora-like community which might affect Codidact
• Incubator (takes all questions that aren't on-topic anywhere else) community

The discussions there may influence opinions on this post, but bear in mind that most of the discussion there predates the introduction of proposals.codidact.com

And as I already argued in the linked thread, how do we moderate questions when there is no scope, no rules, no posting guidance, no expertise? With no rules it is anarchy.codidact.com.

"Proposal tags can always be added later, it's easy to do even in bulk" Well what if the posts don't match the scope of the site now, because community consensus of what the community should be about has switched? The Q&A will not be a list of good questions to bring to the new site at launch, it will be a list of bad questions to weigh the community down.

"Proposals are easier to compose when you already have a bunch of existing questions that would fall under your proposal." Everyone and their mother are already creating proposals at rapid pace then far from everyone follows up, but just leave the proposals there to freeze to death. Seems to me it needs to be harder to create them, not the other way around.

"Requiring this would not stop people from asking oddball questions" No but is the goal of Codidact to answer any question any human can ask at any time? I think no such ambition exists. There will always be oddballs and oddball questions, but we need not necessarily provide a forum for everything in the whole world. Again, that's the foundation for low quality/Quora 2. If you want that, then why aren't you just using Quora/Reddit then? Endless threads of random topics with little or no concern for quality - it already exists.

how do we moderate questions when there is no scope

If the question is intelligible and it is clear what's being asked, and it seems feasible that someone could give an adequate answer of reasonable length, then I would consider it good enough.

no rules, no posting guidance, no expertise?

These don't follow. Scope is just one small part of what makes a good question.

Honestly, you seem more concerned about reducing activity than encouraging it, and about improving the moderator experience rather than the average user's experience. That's fine - I disagree but we're all entitled to our own opinion. However, if it was plain to me that this site support such an attitude, I would not want to use it, and I suspect quite a few other people wouldn't as well.

matthewsnyder‭ I'm concerned about increasing quality activity - all activity is not necessarily good or constructive. Random people asking random questions about random topics is nothing unique to Codidact nor is it particularly valuable - it is not a selling argument about why someone should post on Codidact specifically. In fact lots of the inactive Codidact communities have severe problems with activity partially caused by some single vocal user who starts to post a lot of low quality, borderline on-topic questions, to the point where it hides everything else away. In case you enter a site and all you see are heavily down-voted, bad questions - then that scares away a lot of the more sensible users.

Rather: Codidact should be about gathering a group of individuals with a common interest about something into a community about that topic. Then gather interesting, helpful, quality content there - at the interest of those part of the community. If that would somehow scare away certain people because of the community building "attitude", then good riddance. The Ornithologist community would do better without some John Doe stopping by to ask "hey I saw this animal with 2 wings what is it".

it is not a selling argument about why someone should post on Codidact specifically

I wonder why you say this. This would be one of my top 3 reasons to use this site. Maybe I'm just a very unusual user.

In case you enter a site and all you see are heavily down-voted, bad questions

This wasn't an issue for me when I started using this site. Other people's bad questions don't affect my ability to ask good questions.

After a while, though, I started noticing many cases when new users ask questions (not always perfectly posed which I consider understandable on a site that has not reached critical mass), and the regulars spend a lot of energy in chiding them for procedural matters, while few are actually trying to answer the question. This I would say is a bigger repellent than the downvoted questions you mention. It makes it seem like the point of the site is to play a game of "see if you can follow all the rules" rather than sharing knowledge.

matthewsnyder‭

Random people asking random questions about random topics... This would be one of my top 3 reasons to use this site.

Okay. It would probably be one of my top 3 reasons to avoid the site. I'm not interested in reading a flood of random questions about anything.

Other people's bad questions don't affect my ability to ask good questions.

It may affect other people's interest in contributing and moderating however.

We basically just have two rules: be nice and be on-topic. If someone posts questions about pony riding below Physics because "ponies follow the laws of physics", then that's a bad, off-topic question. And as such, borderline disrespectful to the Physics community. If someone volunteered to be a moderator on that site, they now have to spend time moderating pony riding questions instead.