Let's grant that requiring registration will have a minuscule effect on the quality of questions. On the +ve side, all the evidence from voretaq7 shog9 and michael-hampton is clear: requiring registration does NOT reduce the number of questions. i.e. all the challenges to effectiveness of this solution are also arguments against potential negative impact on "ease of asking questions". I'd say let's implement a registration requirement. But set our expectations right - we won't be doing it for reducing bad question but for other benefits - community, participation, tracking, bans, etc

Much, much more importantly, 32% of registered questions being bad is a real slam. Perhaps we are too rigid in closing/deleting questions? Or maybe we don't clarify our guidelines prominently enough? (we ARE pretty different from other SE sites)

Another perspective: If only 448 questions (6%) and 379 answers (5%) have come from unregistered users, then why keep the unregistered route at all? It is pretty clear that registration is not a big barrier to entry in this case. Normally, guest posting, guest reviews and guest checkout etc are used so as to not turn away large proportions of participants (often bigger proportions than registered folks) but in case of SF, that's clearly not the case - most people register anyway.

Thanks! Will leave it on then...I suppose closed is better than deleted.

we expect you to be able to help yourself as well Well, yeah, but in cases that I am able to help myself, I don't need to come to ServerFault. e.g. If I am asking about performance or reliability of a particular stack, I don't have the time, resources or skills to do a battery of tests.

All you said was "Oh yeah, it can do XYZ! Let me know how you go". Well, it actually answered a key part of the intended question, which was "can Varnish and W3TC work together?"

never voted either Right, and if I don't get to the "required" reputation level, I won't be able to either. It's a catch 22. You're reducing my reputation by blocking me because I've not voted because my reputation is not high enough to vote? That's really not something that should be held against new users.

This is exactly what solicits debates and opinions. Imagine if you had asked "Which is better - Coke or Pepsi?". See what I mean? I don't see what you mean. There is a world of difference between comparative analysis (feature comparison, or discussion on relative advantages/disadvantages) and open-ended opinion trolling (which is better?).

Yeah, that statement was a little bit of a blanket statement. Stuff differs from country to country. e.g. UK doctors now uses C, but only a few decades ago, used F.

And what's the tragedy if they don't post another answer considering that the solution has been found?