I think part of the frustration articulated here could be avoided if questions (at least first questions by new users, or questions by users with reputation < certain value) would not be immediately published, but would first be on hold until they were "cleared" by a moderator or users with the necessary moderation. A great deal of the problems that generate intervention (closure, edits) could be avoided and less intervention needed even for more established users as you learn from the beginning how to ask.
It you as a user know that your question first has to "pass" a test, you will be more willing to try your best to get your question published. Seeing your first question appear on the site than is a pleasant event. The other way round however, seeing your question closed, can be frustrating. Shouldn't we invest more in pleasant experiences than in frustrating ones?
There is something else: in more than one cases I saw questions by new users that got comments asking for specific details - but these never came. Some users simply abandon their question and you can see from their profile that they never came back to the site after posting the question. So this can be frustrating for people willing to answer as well. At least partially this could be avoided as well by publishing questions only after some kind of basic review (what we do anyway now, but only after the questions already appears on the site).
I often see new users asking questions that need improvement - and looking back to my first experience here, I have to admit that it is not so easy to meet the expectations. I also made several mistakes (like posting improvements of my questions or comments as an answer). I remember well that the site on a first glance looked like confusing and even reading the tour + other guidelines did not make everything clear to me. It also took me a while (and some comments by established users) to understand that a helpful answer should be accepted - even though for sure I read about that before. But: you're new to the site and look for an answer, everything else is less important. So quite understandabe from a human perspective, and this will probably not change.
So compared to the standards that are applied to content posted (in my personal experience from back when I started here on GIS SE), reading the tour and other guidelines available was of course helpful, but only to a certain degree. And to be honest: of course did I try my best to get informed before posting. But if you are new, you want some basic information about the site. If you first have to read two sheet of paper before asking your question, you will probably step back and don't ask any more. Learning by doing is much more effective. And if you start at the very beginning, with a short, but clear set of rules, then using this site becomes more attractive.
What I want to say: it's almost impossible to avoid new users making mistakes. As long as this site continues to intervene in the content posted, I prefer a "rewarding" approach, not a "punishing" one. Regardless how much people here assure that it is not a "punishment", but an "improvement", for many, many users around it, it feels more like "punishment" than "improvement". Maybe that depends also on the personality of each of us. But why not consider this? In any case, we can't change how people feel - we can only try to change our behaviour in a way to give less occasion for bad feelings. I I really felt uncomfortable seeing others intervening in my text, not to speak about questions being closed. Today, from a bit more experience, I know more how and why people edit and close questions, but still it feels strange.
Adding more guidelines is not the solution and frustrating users by closing questions and other interventions either. Much better in my view is a positive approach: you get rewarded when your question is considered worth of being published.
