Q:

Improvement to "What kind of questions can I ask here?"

I'm wondering if some sort of change is needed to inform people the sorts of questions they should be asking, either improving the FAQ or placing it somewhere else more in your face.
I don't visit programmers very frequently, but this time I noticed that 40% of the most recent questions that had been asked had been closed... which is a shocking percentage. Is there something that can be done to reduce this percentage and provide a better experience for new/existing users asking questions deemed inappropriate?

A:

Even if this does get closed as duplicate, it is fine to bring up the topic.
We are aware that the home page has a lot of closed questions and if there were something that could be done to help this without sacrificing the vision and principles on which this site is based then we would do it in a heartbeat.

either improving the FAQ or placing it somewhere else more in your face.

The first one can be a good suggestion as the FAQ really is a living document of sorts.  We have a process that involves community input around changes to the FAQ.  The second suggestion I am not sure will help.  How many sites try to shove a Terms of Service agreement in your face?
How many users do you think actually read the TOS before utilizing the site?
In my opinion there are a number of different types of common reasons that we get so many closed questions.
THIS IS NOT A DISCUSSION FORUM
It is a Q&A site to get expert answers from software developers to quality questions regarding software development.

I would like to have a discussion about...
Can anyone recommend a good book for ...
OMG someone PLZ decide my life for me!
Should I learn X technology next and is Y technology a waste of time?
I HATE MY BOSS AND MY COMPANY AND EVERBODY WRITES SPAGHETTI CODE BUT ME!  How do I deal with this?
X is a worthless programming language and I would rather eat horse manure than have to code in it.  Am I right guys?
Can someone please help me with this code?
Can someone please help me with this code?  I posted on StackOverflow but nobody responded to me after 5 minutes!
What is the job market for COBOL programmers in Bangalore like?

All of the above are mostly tongue in cheek and humorous exaggerations about commonly closed questions on Programmers.  It is not that many of them are fundamentally bad questions to ask... many of them are downright interesting and fun to try and answer but they don't lead to the kind of expert questions and answers that we are looking for on this site.
We are about quality over quantity.

A:

As an experiment, surf any SE site in incognito mode.  What you will find is that the instructions for posting questions are already in your face.  You even have to click an "I understand" checkbox.
The problem is threefold:

The charitable explanation: people have become desensitized to these "legal agreements," and don't read them.  The cynical explanation: people ignore them, and ask what they want.  The truth is a little of both.
The FAQ and "How to Ask" outline what you should do, not what you should not do (with the exception of "questions you should not ask here," which can easily turn into a laundry list if not properly managed).  
People are presented with "How to Ask" when they ask a question, not the FAQ.  Many people who ask a question have never seen the FAQ.

A:

The best thing we can do to fix this is to down vote crap when it shows up in addition to closing it. The faster hopelessly off topic questions like maple_shaft's examples get to -8 and drop off the front page the better.

