Discourage questions of the form "Is X the superlative?"

Question

A recent question was of the form "Is X the superlative?"

I want to suggest we change such questions to ask "What is the superlative?" as a matter of policy.

The question attracted a lot of answers, but since it was phrased as a yes/no question, every answer amounted to "no".

Then, OP accepted the answer that described the superlative from among the answers posted up until then, indicating they were really asking "What is the superlative?" in the first place. So I changed the title.

Asking "What is the superlative?" is a common tactic of asking a potential list question so that it can have a single answer. SE's purpose is met, and we learn things and have fun along the way.

It's OK if OP suggests a candidate the way it happened in this instance, and does indicate some initial research effort. But it's an XY problem to ask, as a yes/no question, whether the candidate is the superlative. The mere act of asking means OP isn't sure.

So, should we discourage questions that ask for a superlative that way, and prefer that people just ask for the superlative?

(I had originally thought of the stronger proposition of discouraging all yes/no questions on main, but decided to narrow it)

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@Valorum asked for some more examples. Searching SFF:SE for questions with "First" yielded:

• Is Treebeard the first Ent? If not, who was the first Ent?
• How do we know that the First Doctor was indeed the first?
• Was the 'first' wizarding war with Voldemort really the first ever wizarding war?
• Is P.O.E.M. India's first superhero team?

Answer 1

The old wording was fine

You understood that it wasn't really a yes/no question. Everyone who answered the question understood. I understood. The commenters understood. Even on other, similarly phrased questions across the network, most people just seem to understand. It's very rare to see an answer that just says yes or no with no explanation.

It's perfectly natural to ask questions indirectly, with the intention of getting answers that address the "speech act meaning, not the literal meaning" of the question. The old title is not even the most indirect phrasing:

• Do you know if…?
• Can you tell me if…?
• Tell me if…
• I really want to know if…
• I'll (metaphorically) die if nobody tells me if…

Half of those aren't even questions! Now, with the examples I gave, I do edit since it's needlessly wordy and casual, but it's definitely not unclear.

The original wording of the question was neither excessively wordy nor casual, so I don't think your edit was necessary (but I don't care enough to roll it back). Mentioning JEJ was a fun fact that may have piqued the interest of Star Wars fans, in addition to giving a baseline for potential answerers before they even look at the question. (Several people have commented on another part of the title, so "the longest time" could afford to be reworded if someone can find a better wording for "not necessary consecutively but across the largest range of years".)

Looking at the four other example questions you listed, I don't think any of them would be improved by editing in the way you suggest. (At least two of them have edit histories or comments that suggest the titles could be improved in other ways.)

This should fall under existing policy

That is, avoid making edits that replace perfectly good wording with different perfectly good wording.

(I think this applies to all yes/no questions, not just the ones you asked about.)