A couple of questions have recently been closed (or got some votes to close) for being "resource-hunting questions". I was hoping we could build some criteria to help future posters to phrase their questions in more helpful ways that straight resource hunting.
For example, I argued in one of the above questions that, compared to software, many times in engineering we're not looking for a resource based on which one is most popular and most featured right now, but rather based on what is fundamentally better. To use a different example from the other linked question, you could make a good argument that OP shouldn't be looking for pressure transducer but rather a ultrasonic sensor because we can measure frequency/time delay much more accurately than we can measure physical displacement.
I want to really hammer down on why this is different from the Programmers SE referred to in why we don't want resource hunting questions. In programming, referrals to libraries, etc, are fundamentally opinion-based and subject to change with time. If the primary contributor to a library gets hit by a bus, its often likely that a different library will quickly become better for many users. But in engineering, one resource is really just fundamentally better than another for reasons determined by physics. It doesn't matter if GE gets hit by a bus- combined cycle gas turbines are more efficient than coal-fired Rankine cycles because Carnot says so.
Can we put together some guidelines for how to ask a question about what type of equipment or process is best, to ensure that they are on-topic "engineering" questions and not "resource-hunting" questions?