<p>I think the fact that poor questions often end up on the Hot Network Questions list may be taken as a given. Indeed, I've had more than a few fairly ordinary answers become popular because they were on questions that hit the list, while (clearly) much better answers on other questions sometimes struggle to get any upvotes at all. </p>

<p>So what to do about the fact that many of them close?</p>

<p>Here's some thoughts </p>

<ul>
<li><p>a question that should close should still close, so we shouldn't hesitate because it's HNQ. Similarly, less than stellar answers should get the usual actions -- comments, edits, and where necessary downvotes and so forth.</p></li>
<li><p>however, a closed question can often be improved (and may sometimes reopen as a result), so where we can salvage or improve a question we should do so.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>We could perhaps keep an eye out for the questions that may be more likely to hit HNQ (topical, superficially easy to answer, inviting opinion etc) and take action on them as quickly as possible; some may be forestalled but at least the ones that get there anyway have a better chance of being less terrible.</p>
