Should we delete too questions which have too extensive answers, but it's difficult to know that beforehands?

Question

Sometimes we get questions which can be deemed too broad. Broad not precisely because the question is too general and thus would have many specific partial answers, or be subjective, but too broad because the answer is not simple - a book could be written about the topic. However, these could get asked frequently. Should we delete such questions, or keep them in order to at least explain in the answers specifically why the question is non-trivial?

This question is inspired by the discussion we had here.

Answer 1

While Robert Cartaino understand the SX network, I don't know if he understands this particular question. In fact, I am surprised the question was even closed, and am surprised that we are discussing deleting it. In the interest of disclosure, I did provide an "answer", despite not having that expertise to really answer the question (I attempted to skirt the issues and point the OP in a direction.)

The question in fact contains two questions:

1. What can a department do to make studying computer science more appealing to women?
2. Are there any studies on the ways of improving the working conditions for women in academia?

The second is concrete, focused, and definitely answerable in a few words. I don't see how it is anything but a good fit for our AC.SX. The first is broader, possibly subjective, and maybe requires a long answer, and therefore may not be a great fit. That said, my guess is that someone who understands gender issues in the workplace could provide an excellent, evidenced base, concise objective answer. We just don't happen to have that someone here yet.

I would hate to see questions like this deleted and I am even surprised that this question has been closed. In fact, I am voting to reopen now ...

Answer 2

We should definitely not delete these questions. If this is truly the case, indicate as such in an answer. Remember, sometimes the only answer to a question is "there's no easy answer to this". Considering that most questions of the nature you're discussing are deep, complicated, and likely very good questions, closing them would discourage good questions, which we definitely don't want.

Answer 3

Closed questions should either be improved (if possible) or deleted. The exception is duplicates, because they can help future users better find existing questions.

When I say should, I refer to the general Stack Exchange policy. Here is a [quote from Grace Note][1], a community manager in the SE team:

With the exception of duplicates (which we keep around for searchability), closing is intended to be a temporary state for a question. There are only two states in the future of a closed question - getting deleted or getting reopened. The primary purpose of closing is to serve as a sentence to eventual deletion.

and

unless a question has some chance to be considered for reopening, it should be deleted

So, the SE policy is not to ask “which closed questions should be deleted?” but “which closed questions should be kept?” (as done, e.g., on the computer science meta).

---

I don't see how this overly broad question is different. It's not a good fit for the site, it should go away (or edited into a much more specific answerable question).