What does a good Skeptics.SE question look like? What are the qualities that a perfect Skeptics.SE question would have?
Ground rules for answering this meta-question:
Related Question: What are the attributes of a good answer?
This is not the key point of a good question, but after fulfilling the main requirements, a question should be international.
Citing US television series, discussing laws of the USA, US-centric politics or naming locally-known celebrities is not very inviting for everybody else. At least, introduce them, explain in short words what it is about (Snopes) - and maybe link to online sources.
I don't know how well known the metric system is in the US. In the 70s, I heard it was internationally accepted standard, but it seems, it isn't.
Questions should have references to show that they are notable.
References also help clarify the theory that is being investigated.
Answer inspired by:
Ensure your question is open to answers from both sides - even if you think you know what the right answer should be.
Leading words and other forms of bias should be removed.
Answer inspired by:
Questions must be answerable.
There are various kinds of question which are not unanswerable: they cannot create the high quality answers which we require on this site.
Kinds of questions which are NOT answerable include:
What individuals believe or are motivated by
For example, we cannot know whether Hitler was really a Christian. We can quote passages where he claimed to be a Christian, but we can never know what he truly believed.
Imprecise questions
For example, "Is public transport better than private vehicles?" It may be that one is better than the other in some ways but not in others. To be complete an answer would need to analyse all the different ways. Questions must be precise, so that answers too can be precise.
Questions which call for personal experiences
For example, "What are your favourite sceptical questions?" and "Do you find that being sceptical helps you?"
Questions about science
For example "How do magnets work?" This forum is not for asking question about "how" and "why". Instead, Sceptics is for questioning whether claims are even true. Other questions about science belong on other StackExchange forums, for example the Physics and the Fitness and Nutrition forums.
Questions about scepticism
For example, "What is scepticism?" and "What's the best way to teach my child to be sceptical about advertising?"
Political questions, about values
For example, "Should marijuana be legalised? (or euthanasia)", or "Should taxes be lowered?" These questions are not precise (there are too many different arguments, for and against) and subjective (the answer depends on what value you personally attach to each argument).
You can however question a specific claim which has political significance (for example, "Would legalising drugs reduce crime?").
Any unclear terms and assumptions are explained.
If you don't know how to define a term, ask the answerer to provide the definition they are using.
Answer inspired by:
The question should be phrased using respectful language.
While there are no taboo topics here, all claims (and especially potentially offensive claims such as claims about race or porn) must be asked about in respectful manners. It is hard to know what people find offensive, but it's a lot easier for a reader to understand if the language of the question is respectful.
Profanities in answers and questions will be removed. They are not allowed here.
Some current examples:
Questions should not be about what individuals believed or were motivated by.
Simply put, such questions cannot be meaningfully answered.
For example, we cannot know whether Hitler was really a Christian. We can quote passages where he claimed to be a Christian, but we can never know what he truly believed.