To the question of "Does Web Apps Require Research?"
I'd say - fine to say it requires research but then how are posts dealt with that don't show research, is the issue.. e.g. suppose an answer was posted, but somebody comes along 5 years later and says no research, so close the question(which then can get deleted)! I don't think that's fair. Or next worst thing is question gets voted to close with no comment as to why. Or gets closed but the comment doesn't say no research, but says "not enough detail".
The person that posted it should get a clear notification.. so they don't have a situation where their question gets closed and it completely blindsides them.. While they get stupid notifications any time somebody gives them +10 points but they get no notification when their post gets closed or voted to close! So it's about how policies are implemented.
imposing research requirements might discourage users from asking
questions.
I think more of an issue is the treatment of posts of users that have much experience on stackexchange generally, including SO, and the closing of their questions, which particularly happens on webapps, even if they have an accepted answer. Closing can precede deletion, cos eventually a mod can sweep through closed questions and delete them. and then content with some good info can get deleted.
If a new user faces comments asking them about their workings. and gets mad, then stackexchange isn't for them. When I was a new user, I was fine with addressing any comments participating in a question I post, and still am.
What level of research needs to be demonstrated for a question to be
acceptable?
Can you show cases where this was an issue? (That will make it much easier to answer that question). It is difficult to come up with a blanket general rule of what constitutes enough research, that covers -any- question.
If there is a dispute over whether a question shows enough research, then the questioner can easily comply with the requirements of the commenter that asks them something.
I've rarely seen a request for some research to be something that'd take a week for the questioner to do!
My issue is, how do you treat a question that is thought to not show research. And old question vs new question.
I've had a question that was voted to close for lack of research, i got no notification of it, there was no comment asking me to add any research. I somehow managed to notice an email somewhere, on whatever email address i've got associated with stackexchange, mentioning that my question had been closed or something like that. No comment, nothing in my notifications.
It really shouldn't be allowed to close or vote to close, without a comment. Some might debate whether a downvote requires a comment, but a vote to close is another level. Especially when it's not simply spam. It's a complete lack of regard to not comment. Infact, really, there should be a comment, and some time for them to reply, before voting to close. The fact users that posts quality questions can have many a number of them closed in such a hidden way is terrible.
can you please state your stance? Should research be required?
(yes/no. If yes, how much research?)
I wouldn't be keen to say yes or no 'cos it's so unclear what it'd mean.
And it's such a general question like asking "How do you begin a social interaction" .I wouldn't want to be too formulaic 'cos it'd be unnecessarily restrictive.
What matters is the quality of the question.. that it shouldn't be low quality in terms of "research".
An example of a low quality question in terms of research, would be a question where the answer to it is in the first few Google results and it's clear that the person hasn't made any effort. In which case, a comment can point them to that and the question could be closed.
Trying to force people to state their research can sometimes be a formula for making a question bloated and potentially not as good.. Look at this question I asked on stackoverflow. It's popular. Nobody wants to close it. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9939760/how-do-i-convert-an-integer-to-binary-in-javascript
Somebody could say "no research" (simply because the question doesn't say anything like "I tried XYZ and it didn't work").
Rather like somebody said on this question of mine where it was voted to close Search YouTube favorites?
But if you look at the stackoverflow question I gave as an interesting case study, many that know javascript could look at that and say "ah that's a good question". Sometimes it can be implicit in the question that somebody has done research. The answer isn't obvious.. The "obvious" thing is to say .toString(2) but that that doesn't actually answer the question since that doesn't cover negative numbers. I could have bloated the question a bit but there's a beauty also in a question not being bloated. My comments on my question, addressing things people say, are not the comments of a lazy clueless guy that hasn't researched anything. And the question is very useful to people.
In contrast, if somebody asked a question that anybody familiar with that knowledge domain knows is an obvious easy question that google would answer straight away, then the questioner clearly hasn't done any research. And the question isn't really useful to people. Somebody should comment on it giving the user some direction and the question should be closed.
I think that's a much better approach, than to say questions should or should not require research 'cos being dogmatic one way or the other is very problematic. Better to understand that some questions don't show signs of a lack of research even if they don't explicitly state much in the way of research, like sometimes a person can ask a good question that possibly a lot of thought went into it and doesn't have an easy obvious answer. And some questions are lazy questions with easily googlable answers. And one shouldn't bundle those two types of question into "no research"! And if it is thought that a question lacks research then it should be dealt with in comment at the time. If the person that asked the question doesn't comply, and the question is just poor quality then sure close it. But don't go retroactively vote to close an old question (and without comment), because it doesn't meet some formula. And that's the danger of a simplistic contentious approach. Things are clearer on a case by case basis. And then we see "ah this is the easily googlable type question where they clearly made no effort". I'd still comment there though both to not be presumptuous(dismissing what might actually be a good question), and to guide the questioner.