Isolating the problem

Question

Most interpersonal situations are different and have little details that could change everything about the answers.

I'm not sure whether questions should add paragraphs of detail to help the user, or, to be more open in attempt to help future users.

For example, on the site in which I have the most rep, Blender SE, users are told to isolate the problem/feat they are trying to solve/accomplish. The problem with carrying this mentality to Interpersonal Skills is that you can't isolate the thing you are trying to do.

In Blender SE instead of asking How to develop romance in a casual, interrupted relationship? I would have asked, "How do I make a relationship more romantic," (which is, by the way, what I had titled it before it was edited to be more specific) gloss over all the details, and make the solutions to my problem more relevant to potential googlers/SEers/anybody who has a somewhat similar problem.

Edited for more examples of things marked "too broad" that could potentially serve a wider variety of users

• How can I make non-demanding requests for feedback on my creative endeavours?
• How to say "no"? (feel free to comment with more examples if needed)

Are we trying to be like Blender and help lots of people with questions, or help with very very narrow and specific questions likely to only help the asker?

Answer 1

We want a balance, but questions should be specific.

Questions should be specific enough that the general user can find a question with answers that apply to their problem. If a question is too general, it might get a wide array of answers, all of which are decent, with no clear winners that stand out as the "best" answers.

"How to make a relationship more romantic" is an incredibly broad question. It's like asking the Blender SE "How can I make the light-bouncing in a scene more realistic?" There are a ton of answers, each of which might work.

"How to increase romance in an interrupted relationship" is broad enough to be a thing that lots of people will encounter, but specific enough that there are answers that apply specifically to that situation. It also leaves room for "How do I restore romance to a long-term relationship that's lost its spark?" or "How do I make a purely-physical relationship more romantic?" or "How do I make room for romance in a relationship where we're both really busy?" All of those questions and their specific answers would have gotten subsumed into the more general question.

For what it's worth, I think the current question text of your question, with the new title, is specific enough. I think "How can I make non-demanding requests for feedback on my creative endeavours?" is specific enough. I think "How to say no" is so broad it should be a tag.