In the GIS world ESRI has the largest user base by far across all categories, including clueless and cluefull, lazy and industrious. Consequently as GIS.se grows and attracts new users we'll see more "bad" questions, and the larger proportion of them will be about ESRI products. In all human endeavour the ignorant outnumber the wise, this isn't a product-specific problem.

I think we just need to be vigilant and defend our turf, firmly but gently. I'll follow Jeff's suggestion about adding an item to the FAQ about general reference / trivially answered questions. Then people can vote to close questions and leave a comment pointing to the FAQ item as to why.

In the GIS world Esri has the largest user base by far across all categories, including clueless and cluefull, lazy and industrious. Consequently as GIS.SE grows and attracts new users we'll see more "bad" questions, and the larger proportion of them will be about Esri products. In all human endeavour the ignorant outnumber the wise, this isn't a product-specific problem.

I think we just need to be vigilant and defend our turf, firmly but gently. I'll follow Jeff's suggestion about adding an item to the FAQ about general reference / trivially answered questions. Then people can vote to close questions and leave a comment pointing to the FAQ item as to why.