What citations are necessary in a question to keep it from being closed? FAQ should be explicit

Question

Should we add to our faq that questions will be closed unless they contain sufficient citations? For example where-in-mi-or-ny-did-frank-phoenix-virginia-duc-woods-marry seems a straight forward enough genealogical question to me (where did two people marry). Yet it was closed as

closed as not a real question by π Luke♦ Dec 19 at 18:01

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

It appears to me based on the comments that the reason it was closed was not because it wasn't a real question but because sufficient info wasn't supplied to be able to answer easily because citations weren't supplied for the information in the question.

Other examples might be g-grandparents-brickwall-kilkenny-charles-and-sweeney-magovern or which-french-male-in-montgomery-county-ny-is-the-father-of-john-s-french-who.

I personally think it is a mistake for this site to turn away 'casual' genealogists by closing their questions instead of helping them improve them (which stack exchange has a different process for and closing them is not the mechanism) or just leaving them open. However if this group feels that it is appropriate to close if sufficient citations are not supplied then we should be explicit and say so in the faq. If we don't feel the citations are needed, then we shouldn't close those questions (and we should vote to reopen the ones that are there). As is, we are sending a very mixed message to the vast majority of people interested in genealogy.

Full disclosure, the questions mentioned above are not mine and I have no interest in them. However I did have one of my questions closed that I then put alot of effort into responding to all the comments and it was not reopened. I gave up on this site for awhile but thought that was petty so I reengaged. Further research showed the deck is stacked against reopening questions on se (they are looking at changing the mechanics but problem is this particular closing reason is stop flamewars so it has to be set fairly biased like it is now). So instead I am trying to solve the generic problem of what exactly are we looking for and what is the right mechanism to get it. I deleted my question so this shouldn't be seen as a roundabout way to get my question reopened. Note the reason I deleted is so my relatives at our reunion (who I'd been promoting the site to) wouldn't see it and get discouraged.

Note the person who asked the first question above doesn't appear to have come back after the first few days of attempting to fix their questions. I believe that supports my contention that we discouraging them from participating by closing their questions. Although it's possible they are just going to the website without logging in.

Answer 1

There's a piece at https://genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/how-to-ask which I think encapsulates why people are asking for more detail about what work an OP has already done. (As far as I know, there's identical guidance for all stackexchange sites).

Do your homework

Have you thoroughly searched for an answer before asking your question? Sharing your research helps everyone. Tell us what you found and why it didn’t meet your needs. This demonstrates that you’ve taken the time to try to help yourself, it saves us from reiterating obvious answers, and most of all it helps you get a more specific and relevant answer!

Given that genealogy/family history is absolutely rooted in the informed use of sources, is it unreasonable to ask what sources an OP has based the information in their question upon, so that we can assess how reliable the information they've provided is and avoid duplicating work they've already done?

That said, I wonder if as a community we've made a rod for our own backs by trying to be "nice" and not down-voting content if it's poor. Would 'casual' genealogists (Duncan's term) be less put off by seeing negative scores for their questions, and/or by just not getting answers? I don't know.

I'll just add that Genealogy/Family History is one area where, with the best will in the world, it isn't always possible to fix a question if you're not the OP. G Grandparents brickwall - Kilkenny/Charles and Sweeney//Magovern is a good example -- only the OP could tell us what countries the persons of interest lived in. Somebody attempted an answer, but with the little information that was provided (both by questioner and answerer) there's no way of telling whether they were talking about the same people or just some individuals who happened to share the same names.