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I find it obnoxious to waste time on an OS from 2013, but asking-to-answer is accepted behavior on stackoverflow: https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/07/01/its-ok-t

I find it obnoxious to waste time on an OS from 2013, but asking-to-answer is accepted behavior on stackoverflow: https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/07/01/its-ok-to-ask-and-answer-your-own-questions/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/07/01/its-ok-to-ask-and-answ...

mjevans 6y ago
I find it morally OK if you ask, eventually learn without someone else having answered the question, and return to provide a valid answer / conclusion to 'the story'.
- garmaine 6y ago
  Sure, in general. But stack overflow's UI and culture explicitly allow for ask-and-answer all at once. It makes sense since it is not just a transitory question answering service, but a permanent record of questions-asked-and-answered. If you had a difficult problem, didn't find a solution on stack overflow, but did figure it out before you had a chance to write up a question, put it up (with the answer) anyway. It might be useful to someone else.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    > It makes sense since it is not just a transitory question answering service, but a permanent record of questions-asked-and-answered. This is the key thing that newcomers to Stack Overflow don't realize. Not understanding this distinction between a Q&A forum vs a Q&A archive is why people get so pissed at SO being quick to close off-topic and duplicate questions.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      Also that SO is really bad about making sure questions are actually duplicates, and not just vaguely similar.
    - foobar33333 6y ago
      The thing that conflicts with this goal is that they require that you show proof of previous failed attempts. Why is this at all useful for creating an archive of answers? There have been times where I can perfectly write up a problem and the expected inputs/outputs but it gets closed because I didn't paste in some non functional code with it.
      - wtallis 6y ago
        > they require that you show proof of previous failed attempts. That's not exactly accurate with regards to the current options for voting to close a question. But the general reasoning here is that it's an anti-spam measure. It filters out low-effort questions (eg. homework questions) and forces you to be specific and concrete enough with your question for the question to be suitable for SO. Simply describing the task and providing sample inputs and outputs tends to be too open-ended and often strays into the territory of asking for someone else to write all the code for you, rather than help you solve a specific problem with your code.
      - junon 6y ago
        No, we want to see that you're actually working on it yourself and not just asking others to do work for you. There's a huge difference.
        foobar33333 6y ago
        I know this is why, but it goes against the whole point of SO. SO is meant to be an archive of questions and answers for future viewers. Who cares how much effort the question poster put in as long as their question is useful, on topic and can be answered objectively.
        junon 6y ago
        In theory, you're right. However there was such a bad problem of low-effort Homework questions a while back that the community decided to be a bit more strict about things. Ideally, yes you're right.

mjevans 6y ago

I find it morally OK if you ask, eventually learn without someone else having answered the question, and return to provide a valid answer / conclusion to 'the story'.

garmaine 6y ago
Sure, in general. But stack overflow's UI and culture explicitly allow for ask-and-answer all at once. It makes sense since it is not just a transitory question answering service, but a permanent record of questions-asked-and-answered. If you had a difficult problem, didn't find a solution on stack overflow, but did figure it out before you had a chance to write up a question, put it up (with the answer) anyway. It might be useful to someone else.
- wtallis 6y ago
  > It makes sense since it is not just a transitory question answering service, but a permanent record of questions-asked-and-answered. This is the key thing that newcomers to Stack Overflow don't realize. Not understanding this distinction between a Q&A forum vs a Q&A archive is why people get so pissed at SO being quick to close off-topic and duplicate questions.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    Also that SO is really bad about making sure questions are actually duplicates, and not just vaguely similar.
  - foobar33333 6y ago
    The thing that conflicts with this goal is that they require that you show proof of previous failed attempts. Why is this at all useful for creating an archive of answers? There have been times where I can perfectly write up a problem and the expected inputs/outputs but it gets closed because I didn't paste in some non functional code with it.
    - wtallis 6y ago
      > they require that you show proof of previous failed attempts. That's not exactly accurate with regards to the current options for voting to close a question. But the general reasoning here is that it's an anti-spam measure. It filters out low-effort questions (eg. homework questions) and forces you to be specific and concrete enough with your question for the question to be suitable for SO. Simply describing the task and providing sample inputs and outputs tends to be too open-ended and often strays into the territory of asking for someone else to write all the code for you, rather than help you solve a specific problem with your code.
    - junon 6y ago
      No, we want to see that you're actually working on it yourself and not just asking others to do work for you. There's a huge difference.
      - foobar33333 6y ago
        I know this is why, but it goes against the whole point of SO. SO is meant to be an archive of questions and answers for future viewers. Who cares how much effort the question poster put in as long as their question is useful, on topic and can be answered objectively.
        junon 6y ago
        In theory, you're right. However there was such a bad problem of low-effort Homework questions a while back that the community decided to be a bit more strict about things. Ideally, yes you're right.