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A question can still have more than 10 requirements and too many or easy to find answers.

In the same time, a question with only 2 requirements might don’t have any existing device at all or at least very unlikely to exist (for example this one).

So for me it’s obvious it’s the number of possible answers and how they are easy to find that should define wheather a question is too broad or not.
However it makes https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/review far more difficult :‑). Because it require to try to answer the question first and possibly write comments and wait for an answer instead of overlook it and click on the close button (or not doing so for questions which are really too broad). :‑)

If there’s a correlation between the number of requirements and the number of products available matching the specification, should we require a minimum number of requirements (please note it tends de‑facto applied like robots do) ?

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I don't think it can be that clear cut. It has to be a combination of both. The number of requirements has a correlation to the number of products available matching the specification - it's not a causal relationship, but more general.

  • Few requirements are often the signal of a broad question. These need closer review - if the requirements narrow it down to just a few products, that's fine.
  • Lots of requirements don't generally need as much of a close eye, since they have a much stronger correlation with few matching products.

I don't think we should be requiring a minimum number of requirements, though, precisely because of this - there are valid questions with only one or two requirements, that still have very few products available matching the definition. Fortunately, we're humans, not robots - we can apply common sense rather than just metrics when reviewing posts.

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  • I recognize I asked this question because of this one (3 close votes). Many questions on the original area51 show no correlations between number of requirements and the number of possible answers.
    – user2284570
    Commented Feb 28, 2016 at 0:15
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    @user2284570 Our scope has changed since the Area 51 proposal; these aren't good examples to use. That said, I do think your question is on topic, and I've dropped a comment correcting the user you were interacting with in the comments; he seems to have had a misinterpretation of our scope.
    – ArtOfCode Mod
    Commented Feb 28, 2016 at 0:17
  • So if a few products fit the criteria that's good enough? Someone told me that requirements must be so specific that only 1 product should fit.
    – user4951
    Commented Mar 18, 2017 at 17:49
  • @JimThio If you can have enough requirements to narrow it down to one product, that's awesome. If not, it's okay if there are a few products that match, as long as it's a few.
    – ArtOfCode Mod
    Commented Mar 18, 2017 at 20:00

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