What should the lower level of Drupal questions be?

Question

I've noticed that since we've been getting more traffic on the site, which is good, we are also starting to see some very inexperienced Drupal users asking questions that I would call low level questions.

My latest example is this: How do I use the Hierarchical Select module?

The OP basic explains that he has installed a module but don't know how to use it. A quick look in the module's README file explains this in good detail.

I wonder if we should have a lower level of what is accepted of question asked on this site. The Drupal user base is quite big and I worry if we'll see a flood of such low lever questions, which could drive the expert user base group from the site, that we depend upon.

Answer 1

I don't agree with a "lower level of what is accepted of question" at all. I feel this is a perfect forum for basic questions, and having answers to them is very important to Drupal's adoption. We sometimes forget how difficult the "easy" questions once were for us, which is why I hated Drupal with a passion for a good 4 months.

Most of the Q&A out there assumes you are driving 100mph down the highway, and there is nothing that tells you how to put the key in the ignition and start the car. Sure Drupal.org has this information, but it is incredibly hard to find for people new to Drupal. If simple questions are answered properly on this forum, hopefully they will only be asked once.

As someone experienced in Drupal I don't mind answering the basic questions because integrating new people into the community is how it became so successful in the first place. Inexperienced users won't drive me away by any means.

Answer 2

I was thinking of creating some generic questions. Which could be referenced and the questions closed.

Something like.

• How to enable a module
• How to implement a hook in a module
• How to add a block

I think there are questions which are frequently asked in a number of ways. If we have a good reference to point people to they still get advice so they have a good experience, and the question can be closed so the site as a whole is good.

Answer 3

In the specific example, the answer to the question was reported in the README file, and the question could have been closed as general reference, if we had those closing reason. (The request to add it as one of the closing reasons is Add "general reference" as reason to close a question.)

Similar questions that ask where is the settings page of a module, and which doesn't show any effort to find it where the settings page is, are (IMO) not welcome on Drupal Answers. If the OP would have reported that he read the README file, and didn't find where the settings page is because what reported in the file doesn't corresponds to what effectively implemented from the module, then that would be a bug in the documentation that comes with the module; it could also be a bug in the module that, for example, it is not implementing hook_menu() correctly.

If the OP read two different documentation pages, and those pages say something that contradict each other, then it would be different, as there are many contradictory documentation pages, and a user could be confused on which page is correct. It would not be the case of the question reported as example, because if two different pages report a different URL for the module setting page, I could try first one, and then the other one to understand which is the correct URL. Still, questions about something that should be documented are not always low level questions.