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This is an extreme example, but frequently I get lucky with an ITG where the asker remembered a specific detail that I also remembered. The other details in the question are that it's a space game, with a spaceship, you moved with arrow keys, and it was focused on puzzle solving. But there's this one scene with a octopus alien thing. I was about to downvote and VTC before I read that part, but that's the one, not terribly useful to the majority of people, detail that made it answerable.

Here's and again here are other recent instances where there was enough specific, helpful detail for the question to be answerable, but there was significant disagreement about whether or not the question was valid.

This is an extreme example, but frequently I get lucky with an ITG where the asker remembered a specific detail that I also remembered. The other details in the question are that it's a space game, with a spaceship, you moved with arrow keys, and it was focused on puzzle solving. But there's this one scene with a octopus alien thing. I was about to downvote and VTC before I read that part, but that's the one, not terribly useful to the majority of people, detail that made it answerable.

Here's and again here are other recent instances where there was enough specific, helpful detail for the question to be answerable, but there was significant disagreement about whether or not the question was valid.

Well, what makes a bad ITG? Clearly "too vague" ITGs are bad, asking "what's this game that has elves in it" is not going to be constructive. I'd also argue that some specific details are just useless to us - for example, the specific shade of blue that the sky was in the second level. Additionally, specific details are at the mercy of the asker's memory, and may be incorrect.

The problem is that we can't tell the difference between helpful and unhelpful detail. Classifying "helpful detail" is subjective. We can't objectively gauge when a question contains enough helpful detail to be answerable.

Well, what makes a bad ITG? Clearly "too vague" ITGs are bad, asking "what's this game that has elves in it" is not going to be constructive. However, all ITGs are vague and incomplete to a degree - if they weren't vague, they wouldn't be ITGs. These questions are specifically asking "here is part of a puzzle, what's the missing piece?"

I'd also argue that some specific details are just useless to us - for example, the specific shade of blue that the sky was in the second level. Additionally, specific details are at the mercy of the asker's memory, and may be incorrect.

The problem is that we can't tell the difference between helpful and unhelpful detail. Classifying "helpful detail" is subjective. We can't objectively gauge when a question contains enough helpful detail to be answerable and avoid being too vague.

Some might be tempted to vote to close or downvote this question, even though it's not vague or unaswerable at all! In 10 minutes (or 10 hours, 10 days, 10 years), the sprite color wizard will arrive to solve it.

This is an extreme example, but frequently I get lucky with an ITG where the asker remembered a specific detail that I also remembered.

At what point do we stop waiting for a member of the "answer wizard" clan? Maybe half the internet knows the answer, and it's just not the half that's seen the question yet. Should we just leave questions open indefinitely, even though it has become clear that the detail provided is insufficient? Do we close them after a year, even though it's still as likely that on the 366th day the answer will arrive as it was on the 365th?

How can we sort the details provided by the asker into categories of "helpful" and "unhelpful/misremembered" and make a determination about whether or not we have enough in the "helpful" category to continue?

Some might be tempted to vote to close or downvote this question, even though it's not vague or unaswerable at all! It's very specific, well written, and has a ton of detail that is only useful to a very particular audience. In 10 minutes (or 10 hours, 10 days, 10 years), the sprite color wizard will arrive to solve it.

This is an extreme example, but frequently I get lucky with an ITG where the asker remembered a specific detail that I also remembered. The other details in the question are that it's a space game, with a spaceship, you moved with arrow keys, and it was focused on puzzle solving. But there's this one scene with a octopus alien thing. I was about to downvote and VTC before I read that part, but that's the one, not terribly useful to the majority of people, detail that made it answerable.

At what point do we stop waiting for a member of the "answer wizard" clan? Maybe half the internet knows the answer, and it's just not the half that's seen the question yet. Should we just leave questions open indefinitely, even though it has become clear that the detail provided is insufficient? Do we close them after a year, even though it's still as likely that on the 366th day the answer will arrive as it was on the 365th? How are each of us able to independently judge (a prerequisite for closing or voting) if the detail is sufficiently low that there is no one (or "too few people") capable of answering it?

How can we sort the details provided by the asker into categories of "helpful" and "unhelpful/misremembered" and make a determination about whether or not we have enough in the "helpful" category to continue? How are we to judge if the details provided are substantial enough?