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I can see on most other sites how Jeopardy style questions fit very well and provide an opportunity to share knowledge with the community, but I'm not sure how well they would go down here.

From what I can see most of the questions on the site are very specific problems that people are facing.

So how welcome are Jeopardy style questions on this site and what characteristics would you like to see in those questions? What sorts of Jeopardy questions would provide top value to readers of this site?

I can think of plenty of good quality content to provide travelers with detailed information about Australia and parts of China.

EDIT:

Here is an example type question I was thinking of:

I will spending 2/3 days in SuZhou China what are some good places I can visit in this time without a tour guide?

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  • Can you give us an example Jeopardy question for travel.SE?
    – hippietrail
    Aug 17, 2011 at 7:55
  • Definitely, go ahead! :)
    – Ankur Banerjee
    Aug 17, 2011 at 19:09
  • @hippietrail - I provided an example type question
    – going
    Aug 17, 2011 at 22:31
  • @xiaohouzi79: Thanks for the example question but note that since it is both subjective and open (it won't have one "right" answer) it's not the type of question that Stack Exchange encourages.
    – hippietrail
    Aug 18, 2011 at 7:14

2 Answers 2

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In general, yes, on this site like on any other Stack Exchange site, it's fine to ask and answer your own question.

However, it is not so easy to ask a good question when you know the answer. When you know you're going to answer your own question, it's especially important that the question be based on actual problems that you face(d). That is, I had this problem, and I solved it, and others may have the same problem, so I'm going to post my problem as a question and my solution as an answer.

You should be very wary of falling into the trap of contributing general knowledge rather than answers. The example you give feels dodgy to me:

I will spending 2/3 days in SuZhou China what are some good places I can visit in this time without a tour guide?

“What are some good places” are particularly difficult questions (I recommend reading this thread). The way you formulate it makes me think it the answer belongs in a guidebook, not here. There are many things an asker could add: can you read or speak Chinese? What mode of transportation do you have? What is your budget?

It's great that you can contribute local knowledge, but local knowledge is precisely one case where you should not ask and answer your own question, because you don't have any question. It would be best to wait for a genuine question.

(Of course, if someone asked you offsite, it's fine to post their question here and give the same answer you gave them.)

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  • @Giles - Thanks for your answer. I'm glad I got an opinion, because I think this site has a different feel than other sites and only certain type jeopardy question will work here. It would be good to get a few more opinions to try and work out what will work. I think jeopardy questions are worthwhile if well written to contribute to the traffic to the site, even if they are general knowledge.
    – going
    Aug 18, 2011 at 0:44
  • +1. IMO, travel is a site where jeopardy style questions need to stick to being very technical - like for example, if you found timetable or other information that is near impossible to find for a foreigner.
    – Pekka
    Sep 2, 2011 at 6:40
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You link directly to Joel and Jeff and the bosses of Stack Exchange explicitly answering YES and encouraging it so you don't need to ask us here for permission too.

Though some of us here might've been ignorant if you hadn't shown us that link so just ask away and if anybody gives you grief we will point them to the same link and say "Jeff and Joel told us to do it."

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