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I am curious about the "meeting people" question. In general, I would understand that a question is too broad if it is asked in a way that cannot be reasonably answered.

However, if the person asking is on purpose limiting the scope of the answer to a higher level so that there is no need to go into further (country-by-country) details but rather asks for general pointers to then solve specific problem with common sense, based on the directions given in the answer, isn't that OK then?

Example:

  • I will travel around the world next year, wow can I meet people in every country? (too broad)
  • What are generally good methods to meet people? I would like to develop my own techniques based on the answer given for individual countries. (OK?)

I would assume that other questions that alter depending on which country they apply to such as "How do I insure my cash" should be too broad too, IMO. In the end, this heavily depends where someone is coming from & where they travel to. I guess there is a certain fine line between good and bad questions, but would there be a suggested edit to the "meet people" question that would make the principle I am addressing here here work for it?

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Indeed. If this question was country / region limited - like Where can I socialize with young Japanese people? - it wouldn't be too broad. With the money question, there's still strategies that can be adopted that are broad across countries, i.e., use traveller's cheques, electronic money et al because the financial industry is a far more regulated and standardised. The specific companies offering the services might be different, but you can still point someone to such broad strategies.

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    I was actually suggesting that the way I answered the socializing question shows that you can also use common approaches to this one and therefore it is not too broad in it's current state.
    – uncovery
    Commented Sep 2, 2013 at 14:02
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    It's also limited by the OP's personality, age, preferences, customs, etc. For a teetotaller who doesn't like loud music or for some religious people for instance, or say meeting people in Kuwait or Brunei, some of the most obvious answers might not apply. But I don't think it hurts to keep one canonical broad question and answer pair that we can keep in shape and refer to in the future.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 4:02

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