Here is the longer version of the title: > **Which is more appropriate: to "risk" asking your question directly on > MO, or to check the appropriateness of your question on meta in > advance?** From time to time, there is a meta-question evaluating the appropriateness of a particular question **before** asking the question on MO. Personally, I don't think it is a good thing to do. However, reading some previous post on meta, it seems that there are different opinions on this issue. Is there any general policy? PS. Depend on the answer(s), I'll decide about my recent question on MSE :) PPS. Upon Carnahan's suggestion (below), I am going to elaborate on my opinion. First of all, here is what meta is for (according to [help center][1]) > asking questions about how the websites work,asking questions of the > community,posting bugs,suggesting improvements,proposing new features To be honest, I cannot realize which one of these supports pre-meta-checking of a question. The help center aside, my personal opinion is: it is better to **avoid having a mini-Mo inside meta**. For example, Just imagine the questions with no answers (or "bad" answers) on MSE were to be migrated to meta for pre-appropriateness checking for MO, what would happen to meta? [1]: http://mathoverflow.net/help/whats-meta