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I just saw this post being almost closed and I saw the comment of @TalFishman which made me wondering what kind of Q&A site we were looking to create.

I haven't seen people using the RoR either, but is it a good enough reason to say that it is of topic. After all, the book it was taken from has been widely used (I've seen it on several desks) and the question is hence decent.

Are we looking to discard an over-simplistic questions in order to make the site only good for experts or do we want beginners to also be able to take part?

I guess beginners should still be welcome, and people who want to take part only in advanced discussion can filter the tags they're interested in.

EDIT

I know that the FAQ says that you should be a professional or academics to ask a question, but I wonder if, especially at the beginning, we should allow such question, maybe with some strict tagging like "beginner"...

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I know that the FAQ says that you should be a professional or academics to ask a question, but I wonder if, especially at the beginning, we should allow such question, maybe with some strict tagging like "beginner"...

I think exactly the opposite is true. Jeff and Joel have said it countless times. Expert questions will attract other experts. Beginner questions will repel the experts, especially when a site is still gaining critical mass. That is why beginner questions should absolutely be discouraged at this stage. There are plenty of other forums out there for beginners to ask their questions (perhaps even money.SE). Quant.SE is for professionals.

Now as for the question itself, you wrote

I haven't seen people using the RoR either, but is it a good enough reason to say that it is of topic. After all, the book it was taken from has been widely used (I've seen it on several desks) and the question is hence decent.

As I indicated in my comment, I'm not sure myself whether this question is truly off topic, but the fact that it is also a partial duplicate clinches it, in this case.

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    $\begingroup$ hey Tal, first, this remark wasn't meant to be offensive in any way. I'm just tring to help. I get your point and I would like to have more experienced professional on the site. I'm just not sure that "kicking out" users who are not really say, NEWBIES, is gonna be of much help. $\endgroup$
    – SRKX
    Commented Oct 7, 2011 at 15:45
  • $\begingroup$ @SRKX No offense taken, I'm also just trying to help this site succeed and attain the right audience. I also mean no offense to Tom Tucker. I understand that sometimes it can be hard to "get" what a site is about at first, and it seems his second question is getting a much better reception. I try to be very welcoming and gentle in my response and explanation of why the question should be closed, but I still firmly believe it should be closed. $\endgroup$
    – Tal Fishman
    Commented Oct 7, 2011 at 15:59
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    $\begingroup$ I would recommend something on the ask new question form that says what the questions are acceptable. A quick and dirty summary that can filter out blatantly off topic questions. It think this would benefit many SE's $\endgroup$
    – Chad
    Commented Oct 7, 2011 at 20:57
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe we should add something in the FAQ of the site. Could it be possible to add a "reminder" when the user creates a new question? $\endgroup$
    – SRKX
    Commented Oct 18, 2011 at 21:59
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    $\begingroup$ @SRKX the FAQ itself could definitely use some work, although when it was first addressed early on, it was apparently hard to reach agreement on precisely what it should say. CrossValidated, for example, has a bulleted list of common questions that belong on other SEs. We could add a similar list to deal with personal finance (money.SE) or statistics (stats.SE) questions. $\endgroup$
    – Tal Fishman
    Commented Oct 18, 2011 at 22:05

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