<p>Yesterday, I was reading 3dprinting.meta and read a suggestion that (which I rephrase as) we should ask questions for the purpose of bringing answers inside our tent.</p>

<p>I spent some time thinking about questions I have been asked by friends who purchased FDM machines and were starting to undertake their own designs.  In particular, among the engineers I hang with there is a desire for the generally-accepted-as-valid design principles -- the design rules that, when followed, will usually work.  I haven't come across a reference that lays out such rules for FDM printing, and so I launched a question which someone who knew of such a rule set could answer, or which I could later attempt to answer if a better answer didn't appear.</p>

<p>I asked <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6726/primer-on-3d-printing-design-rules">this question</a>.</p>

<p>The question drew a "have you googled that?" response, coupled with a helpful link.  Other comments ensued, along with two down-votes on the question.</p>

<p>My question here is in two parts:
Is this an appropriate activity -- to ask a question hoping to receive a better answer that I would write myself, and
If the motivation for the question is appropriate, how should the question have been better formed?</p>

<p>I realize that two downvotes isn't all that important, but it is important to me to understand and act in concert with the community culture. </p>

[{'answer_id': 325, 'author': 'Greenonline', 'author_id': 4762, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4762', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>The "Have you googled this" comment was a little like the comments that we used to see, and which, of late, we fortunately haven\'t seen much of (please see <a href="https://3dprinting.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/134/post-closing-issues/263#263">my answer</a> to <a href="https://3dprinting.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/134/post-closing-issues">Post Closing Issues</a>).</p>\n\n<p>However, it <em>was</em> backed up with an extremely useful link and a query for clarification so it may not have been meant as a straight forward "Have you googled this"-esque comment.</p>\n\n<p>I reworded that comment slightly, to soften it.</p>\n\n<p>I think that the negative votes probably reflected the accompanying [too broad] close votes.</p>\n\n<p>However, as I mentioned in <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6726/primer-on-3d-printing-design-rules?noredirect=1#comment10424_6726">my comment</a>, your question didn\'t seem that broad to me, or rather, while it might have been <em>seen</em> as being a <em>little</em> broad, it seemed no broader than your linked to question or other examples that I\'ve seen. <em>Note that this is my personal opinion, and doesn\'t mean that the question shouldn\'t be closed, or, conversely, should be left open. It is for the community to decide</em>.</p>\n\n<p>The on-topic page <em>is</em> in a state or flux, and has been for a while now. I attempted to propose a definitive version with <a href="https://3dprinting.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/276/game-plan-what-is-on-topic">Game plan - What is on-topic?</a>, but I haven\'t got around to following it up as I wasn\'t sure if the community approved -  the feedback wasn\'t particularly conclusive. The mod team should get together to discuss, I guess. Or if anyone feels like chipping in, please left a comment or answer on the Meta post - or mention it in one of the <a href="https://3dprinting.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/307/do-we-have-a-chatroom">chatrooms</a>.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 327, 'author': 'Sean Houlihane', 'author_id': 4927, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.meta.stackexchange.com/users/4927', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><strong>TL;DR</strong> The <em>answer</em> that this question was looking for can be covered in 4 or 5 basic points, without much ambiguity. The question is therefore not fundamentally <em>too broad</em>, but could maybe be made a bit more specific.</p>\n\n<p>Too broad seems a bit of a mis-assessment, but I think it\'s maybe a mistake to ask where to find this information, since that does read a little bit like "find me a link". I think a better question would be to ask what are the basic design rules - and then worry if that is too broad.</p>\n\n<p>We need to focus as a community on taking questions which don\'t quite fit, and improving them, otherwise we will not get people coming back with more questions and later helping others. There is still a focus amongst some members on only answering specific \'problem\' questions, rather than generating a comprehensive resource covering the whole subject. SE intends to be the top search result (and presumably the answer and un-informed student was looking for).</p>\n\n<p>Maybe \'design rules" seems to broad, when you presumably care about the factors that are unique to FDM. (i.e. exclude all the general engineering principles which would be common to subtractive machining, injection moulding, etc. even though they are obviously still relevant). I feel this was kind of implicit in the question, but some may have been mislead by the terminology.</p>\n\n<p>Should tolerances be included? With an electronics background rather than engineering, <code>Design Rules</code> implies a final sign-off stage check of low level trivial detail rather than the entry point to the design flow.</p>\n\n<p>I think the question also suffers slightly from a <em>I have an answer in mind, so it seems that I\'m asking the question in a way that leads to that answer</em>, kind of an X-Y of getting the answer posted (in this case, the answer is the true goal, not the question).</p>\n'}]
['https://3dprinting.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/324', 'https://3dprinting.meta.stackexchange.com', 'https://3dprinting.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2082/']