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I'm starting to see more and more questions on this site with little to no research effort. Is there anything else I can do besides downvote and make a polite comment about it?

Questions on SE are expected to have a certain amount of research effort, but I am not seeing that in many newer questions. I am looking for "After googling XX, looking on various wiki sites, and scanning the books/videos, I could not find anything to answer this question." I'd like to see more questions where I can see that the asker spent at least 5 minutes trying to find an answer. Is there anything we can to to promote this on SciFi.SE?

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At the most basic level, you can discourage poorly-researched questions and encourage well-researched ones. Downvoting and voting to close (if the answer is trivially found on Google/Wikipedia) the poorly-researched questions, along with comments that indicate why you're downvoting and voting to close, will encourage question-askers to improve. For well-researched questions do the opposite, upvote and comment that you approve of their preparation.

In addition, you can be the example of what you want to see. Ask questions that show research in the introductory sentences. People look at the existing questions here and contribute along the lines of the existing content.

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    I'd emphasize adding the comments to explain a VTC or downvote. And personally, I think we're better off if such questions are closed. When I find that, I don't bother with a downvote but do VTC. (I feel VTC is more powerful.)
    – Tango
    Jun 1, 2012 at 2:58
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    Unfortunately we've demonized downvoting to the point where some feel that there is no reason to ever downvote. This, of course encourages some users to post as many questions as they possible can, rather than ones that have actual value in having an answer to.
    – Gorchestopher H
    Oct 10, 2012 at 14:44
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    @GorchestopherH Downvotes, like all votes, are anonymous. Don't let people pressure you into not downvoting bad questions/answers.
    – user1027
    Oct 10, 2012 at 15:00

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