We have plenty of "what is *X* for?" questions.

- http://askubuntu.com/questions/10031/what-is-ubuntu-unity-for-the-desktop
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/33078/what-is-a-virtual-terminal-for
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/14866/what-are-shells
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/138407/what-is-a-segmentation-fault
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/159628/what-is-ubuntu-soyuz
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/57226/what-is-edge-launchpad-net-and-how-does-it-work
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/962/what-is-ubuntu-one
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/239422/what-is-steam-and-how-does-it-work
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/180990/what-is-zeitgeist-used-for
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/247625/what-is-the-loopback-device-and-how-do-i-use-it
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/235317/what-is-ubuntu-for-phones-and-how-can-i-get-it

So you're right that construing questions like http://askubuntu.com/questions/272411/what-is-apt-and-what-are-its-uses and http://askubuntu.com/questions/236381/what-is-apparmor as *automatically* too broad is *a radical approach*.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/272411/what-is-apt-and-what-are-its-uses is misleadingly named. It's actually asking "What are the uses for all the `apt-` commands?" That's not all that broad. I don't think this is one of the most valuable questions on the site, but it's not too broad.

To respond to the idea that this question is *lazy*: We have plenty of questions that are lazy in the sense that they ask for information that is extensively provided elsewhere, such that no answer is likely to describe anything that was not previously presented elsewhere on the Internet or in documentation. Like http://askubuntu.com/questions/24006/how-do-i-reset-a-lost-administrative-password and http://askubuntu.com/questions/88384/how-can-i-repair-grub-how-to-get-ubuntu-back-after-installing-windows.

To respond to the idea that this is somehow like a list question: A list question is bad because it can have an unlimited number of answers, with no way to objectively evaluate one compared to another. In contrast, this is asking for *the discrete list of utilities that comprise APT and what they do.* This question is also not requesting "one utility per answer," and it wouldn't make sense if it did, since a good answer will synthesize information about the different utilities, explaining how they relate to one another.

While poorly named, http://askubuntu.com/questions/272411/what-is-apt-and-what-are-its-uses is valuable because a good answer would teach novices about all the utilities that comprise APT, dispel the myth that APT consists only of `apt-get`, and explain how the utilities perform different functions, showing how they can be used separately or together.

As for http://askubuntu.com/questions/236381/what-is-apparmor: I believe most users of Ubuntu are poorly familiar with AppArmor. [A question][1] with [an excellent answer][2] that summarizes its purpose accessibly is a very good thing. Besides that we have many other questions asking what particular parts of Ubuntu are, we know this question has answers that *aren't* "a whole book" or anything close. So this is not too broad under the FAQ either. *That this question and answer are highly upvoted should be considered evidence that they are, in fact, valuable to Ubuntu users and the Ask Ubuntu sub-community more specifically.*

Some of the answers that are mostly verbatim quotations from other documentation don't speak well for themselves *or* the questions they're answering. So [Jorge Castro is right][3] that http://askubuntu.com/questions/272411/what-is-apt-and-what-are-its-uses looks bad *right now*. But that question *can* be answered well, by giving *shorter* descriptions of each `apt-` command than are present in their manual pages (while still *more accessible* descriptions than `whatis` would give).

http://askubuntu.com/questions/272411/what-is-apt-and-what-are-its-uses was posted just a week ago. If a long while passes and nobody posts a good answer (as I've defined it), then it might be reasonable to close it as too broad... though it would be better to simply leave it alone (it has an upvoted answer, after all, and it's not really off-topic). But I doubt that; *I* would strongly consider posting what I consider a good answer there, *if it weren't for my concern that the question is just going to be closed* (and then possibly deleted).


  [1]: http://askubuntu.com/questions/236381/what-is-apparmor
  [2]: http://askubuntu.com/a/236397/22949
  [3]: http://meta.askubuntu.com/a/6432/22949