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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
by 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 agoNo, 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 agoI 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 agoIn 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.