Will many piece identification questions end up diluting or hurting the site?

Question

I have been going through some new Lego I have acquired, and because of that have been posting a lot of identification questions. I noticed that there had only been a couple before, and I have added a few(and might add more soon ;) ).

But now I wonder whether a lot of these question are good for the site. They help me very much, but I can't really see hem helping anyone else, as it is a very niche situation. I can also see them cluttering the site if many people start asking them.

I also know of another type of identification question on another SE site: Identify-this-game on Gaming.SE.

The questions can sometimes get very vague and some people on Gaming.SE have disputed it's usefulness.

I don't know if we will have the same problems with Lego identification questions, but I think there could be potential for problems.

Could there be problems with identification questions, and if so, how will we alleviate them?

Answer 1

A good question encourages research effort, asking a question on SE should be used when every other method has been exhausted: Looking through instructions, online databases, checking brick number and so on. We already have a few general identification questions that can help:

• Is there a convention for part and/or set numbers?
• Is there a database of original Minifigure configurations, including their personal gear?
• How are LEGO bricks categorized?

To avoid repetition, questions should be unique, detailing the set/piece as clearly as possible.

Will these questions clutter the site? No. identification questions make up only a small portion of possible questions. If we can perfect general reference questions we can help reduce new questions.