This post is in response to Should we allow shopping or product species recommendation questions?, which was literally just closed as a duplicate of this one, right before I was about to hit post.
Here is the post in its current form, for reference purposes:
Cats have some surprisingly subtle nuances in the ways that they express themselves. From the way they hold their tail, to how they make eye contact, or even how loudly they meow, there are a wide variety of means of communication.
Is there a research-based book anyone could recommend that explains cat social interactions and communication in depth?
The bottom line is that Stack Exchange sites are expert sites. That means that the people coming to this site need an expert answer. If a user asks a question where the answer is to link to some other expert resource, then we've failed in our mission to make the Internet a better place.
When pet owners have a specific problem and they want to search for it on Google, they want to find the answer. This question won't do that. It instead just regurgitates some information that most people can already find out by buying the book on Amazon and spending days reading through it hoping that it might answer the question. That's not what Stack Exchange is here for.
Pets Stack Exchange is here to make sure that person gets an answer for the reason their cat growls at them when they pet him while he's eating, but only when eating Meow Mix.
Overly broad questions do our site a great disservice because there's so much more content that can be generated here based on that one idea of cat behaviors. What specific behavior are you most curious about? Instead, edit the question and focus on that. Give our community a chance to become the experts and also allow for more questions about cat behavior to appear. There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of more specific questions and answers that can be compiled right here that will help those Googlers find answers and cement pets.stackexchange.com in their minds as the final place to go to get at those answers.
Lastly, we're in the private beta, which is the most critical, most defining period of a Stack Exchange site. When this goes public, we want veterinarians, animal behaviorists, animal caretakers, and other experts to look at this site as a serious place where their expertise can provide value. If it looks like a place for just the mildly curious, we may find ourselves without people who can answer the really tough questions, forcing Googlers to simply go elsewhere to find expert answers to their Pet questions. Hope this helps!