My suggestion is to edit those that offer something of lasting value into actual questions. In this particular instance, the post would become:
Where can I find sounds from the LHC?
You could go on by additionally asking if anyone knows what kinds of sounds a giant, high energy particle smasher tends to produce.
Then, move what was shared in the question into the answer itself. By doing this you've:
- Salvaged potentially useful information that would probably be deleted if closed
- Expanded the question so that even more answers might one day appear
- Taken ownership of the content
The third point is somewhat interesting, as you're basically moving someone else's question into an answer you are writing. This is what I'd recommend:
- Leave a comment and ask the user to make the question into a question, and move the information shared into an actual answer
- If no response, go ahead and do it, but provide special attribution at the top of your answer:
Note: This information was originally put in the question. We've moved it to an answer in order to fit our Q&A format.
You can link to the first revision of the post in that text if you like. That brings us to the question of earning a modicum of rep for the trouble - and you should. Remember, rep is what makes the system give you more privileges, and if you're doing this kind of content maintenance, you should have access to more tools.
It's just a suggestion to get the discussion going. We definitely want to watch out for broken windows, and no - this wasn't a big problem for Social Sound Design. However, it's a question of .. do we want to improve the content we're in charge of curating, and that answer should generally be yes. You're just helping the author share something, Q&A style.
By the same token, we are a Q&A site, so questions should be questions. When it comes to the more 'pure fun' versions of these .. well, we'll see as they come up.
On another note - these are precisely the types of discussions I hoped would start, and good on you for starting it.
