What are some guidelines for the use of the catch-all questions?

Catch-All Questions Help Center

1. Choose the closest matching catch all questions pertaining to the subject matter of your "bad question." The closer the match, the more the user will understand the answer of the catch all as it relates to the bad question they asked to help them ask a better question. It also keeps things organized for us.
   
   
2. The list of catch-all questions in the trash/catch-all pop-up are the most used ones. You do not need to refer to the Catch-All Questions category to locate the catch-all question you need for your bad question. The ones listed in the pop-up should be sufficient (and besides, saves you from having to search for one!)
   
   
3. Check the alternates of any question before trashing it. Sometimes the primary questions will be a bad question, but it will contain many alternates. If you trash the primary, you're also trashing the alternates into the catch all category, and most of the alternates probably wouldn't belong. You can use Set As Primary on one of the good alternates and then move the offending (previously) primary question into a catch all category on its own.
   
   
4. Celebrity contact information, private and personal, do not belong in Catch All Categories. Yet, we do not want these types of questions to be available floating freely across the site, so what do we do with these? Take a look into the Related Question below and you will see that every celebrity needs its own "official fan contact" question for each mode of contact (email, phone, fan mail, myspace, etc). In fact, most of the popular celebrities already have one of each, answered appropriately, and protected. This is where you want to merge them, not the catch all questions. If one does not exist for a particular celebrity, you can either create one yourself (following the format of existing ones), or you can recategorize it into Catch All Questions so that one can be made - but please, do not trash it into any other catch all categories. We do have a Celebrity Fan Contact Information category for these.
   
   
5. When in doubt, Trash Completely. If you have any doubts whatsoever about a particular "bad question" - whether you are not sure in which catch all to merge it or if it should even be catched at all - simply use Trash Completely from the catch-all/trash pop-up on the question and someone else will take care of it. This is easier on you and easier on us. You won't have to spend your time searching/deciding on the right catch all question and we won't have to dig it out of a catch all with 15k+ alternates to dig it out if it was a bad merge. Note: it is also okay to Recategorize the bad question into Catch-All Questions. We just thought Trash Completely might be easier for everyone.
   
   
6. Don't merge into the catch-all archives. Catch-all archives are those questions you see containing a number at the end of the question wording. Merging into these may cause the Q&A to become slow in loading or unable to load at all, and that will be a huge problem. Please see the Related Question below for a more in-depth explanation of our catch-all archives and its process. Please note that this is no longer relevant as catch-all archives no longer exist since the questions with loads of alternates do not explode any more. This is only still here for history reference.
   
   
7. Attempt to rephrase the question. Many of our sexual questions (for example) can be rephrased into proper terminology to make them acceptable for the site. This is the first thing you should attempt on a question before rendering it helpless. We have a Sex and Sex Ed category, so sexual questions are allowable when it contains decent terminology. The poor words will (and should) remain as alternates to the proper one.
   
   
8. Should it be trashed or should it be recategorized to a catch-all? If the question is sufficiently unusual that it will not be asked again in the future, it should be trashed, rather than recategorized into a catch-all. There is no need for us to keep questions in catch all questions that appear as though someone's face hit the keyboard. Again, if you are unsure, you can Trash Completely or recategorize to another category rather than put in a catch-all.
   
   
9. Trash any question containing private individuals' full names or questions containing identifiable information. Just trash it. Questions containing non-celebrity full names aren't likely to be asked again. There are so many combinations of first and last names in the world, it would be impossible to get them all. Also, any question containing email addresses, account information, phone numbers, individual street addresses, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, etc., should all be removed from the database completely. Merging them into the catch all question means someone can look at the alternates page and strip this information from there (could be a liability).
   
   
10. Efforts are underway to minimize the number of catch-all questions in order to simplify the system. Please discuss the creation of new catch-all questions and personal shortcut questions (i.e. "add no value") by first e-mailing: catch.all.questions @ wikianswers.com (no spaces). The catch-all questions that are listed in the catch-all/trash pop-up are basically the only questions that are used now. If a catch-all does not appear on this pop-up, people are less likely to use it (not that we would need to anyway!)
    
    
11. Unanswered bad questions are better. If you have opted to recategorize an inappropriate question into the Catch-All Questions category rather than trashing it into a catch-all, please remove the answer in the inappropriate Q&A. You can do this either by editing the answer and removing it, or by reverting the answer to the first revision (a.k.a. "revert to blank").
    
    
12. Catch-all questions cannot be edited. If you believe the wording of the answer of an original catch-all question needs to be edited, please contact a catch-all supervisor or catch.all.questions @ wikianswers.com