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A few days ago I posted a feature request asking to block questions where the title is equal to the body.

Someone argued that there are SE sites that "do not require research". I think that he means there are sites where it's OK to ask a question that might be written in the title without providing any additional content, so doing anything that helps to trick the automatic checks is fine, like including the title in the body and nothing else.

I'm wondering if nowadays there are sites that have adopted this (questions without "details and any research" are allowed) as an official policy.

I.e., the Welcome modal for new askers instead of saying...

Welcome Modal from Community Building

Asking a good question You’re ready to ask your first question and the community is here to help! To get you the best answers, we’ve provided some guidance:

Before you post, search the site to make sure your question hasn’t been answered.

  1. Summarize the problem
  2. Provide details and any research
  3. When appropriate, describe what you’ve tried

You’ll find more tips in the sidebar.

... says something different. I know that the Welcome modal for new askers could be customized, but I think that this is allowed to make it more specific, not to make it more similar to other "forums" (i.e. Quora, Google Products Help Forums, etc.)

By the way, is it possible to get all the Welcome Modal for new askers content from SEDE?

Related

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    Most automatic checks are notoriously easy to circumvent. Question body too short? Just duplicate what you already had or post nonsense. Code required? Upload anything that's formatted as text. They are there to filter out some of the garbage, they are not a quality measurement at all.
    – Mast
    Commented Dec 7, 2020 at 20:12
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    Do you mean that, on any SE site, questions that doesn't provide "details and any research" are low quality ? Does this imply that they should be closed?
    – Rubén
    Commented Dec 7, 2020 at 20:31
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    Whoever said this must have been wrong. Commented Dec 7, 2020 at 20:48
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    This modal is quite new; it’s been introduced 9 months ago. Questions that repeat the title in the body, on the other hand, often correlate with being quite old, i.e. they were posted at a time before the first sites on the network had the quality standards of today. Alternatively, they just went under the radar and weren’t curated as they should’ve been. I found the comment you’re referring to, and I disagree with it, as do many others, I imagine; the comment has no upvotes. Commented Dec 8, 2020 at 0:01
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    @Rubén I’m currently writing one, but I need to comprehend the full context of the comment first. Commented Dec 8, 2020 at 0:11
  • Concerning your feature request in the spoiler at the end - I have previously posted feature request which would allow to get the text of that modal at least of one site: A link where the content of the ask-page modal dialog can be seen.
    – Martin
    Commented Dec 8, 2020 at 11:50
  • Can you link to "Google Products Help Forums" (it is very search engine unfriendly)? E.g., is it https://support.google.com/? Those go by the name Google <product name> Help, e.g. Google Nest Help (without a (literal) "Forum" (capital "F") in the name) (but it may be something else entirely). Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 13:36
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    How that would make this question better?
    – Rubén
    Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 13:40
  • @P.Mort.-forgotClayShirky_q Anyway, here is the link to the current help center of the Google Products Help Forums -> support.google.com/communities?hl=en
    – Rubén
    Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 14:12

3 Answers 3

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Virtually all Stack Exchange sites require you to do enough research to:

  1. Ensure that you're not asking a duplicate question that's already been answered.
  2. Clearly describe your question in a way that makes it answerable without back-and-forth.

For some people and some questions, their existing expertise may be enough to do this without having to do any research beyond the duplicate check.

Beyond that, some Stack Exchange sites forbid certain specific classes of "no-research" questions. For example, English Language & Usage and English Language Learners both ban questions that can be answered with a straightforward dictionary lookup (requiring you to explain why your define-this-word question cannot be answered that way).

Other than that, the focus is on the quality and answerability of the question, not the evidence of the asker's research.

To the extent that "effort" and "research" are fairly similar in the context of asking questions, Shog9 describes the types of effort required to ask a good question here, with more thoughts here.

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What are the sites that allow questions without details and research?

Yes, most of SE sites. In the answer below, I explain why most of SE sites allow questions without research, which implies that most of SE sites allow questions without details and research.

Someone argued that there are SE sites that "do not require research", I think that he means there are sites where it's OK to ask a question that might be written in the title without providing any additional content, so doing anything that helps to trick the automatic checks is fine, like including the title in the body and nothing else.

This is me. When I said there are SE sites that "do not require [showing] research", by research I mean actual research, which is defined by https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/research as:

careful or diligent search

Most SE don't require the OPs to show research in the body of the question. (i.e., questions that don't show research aren't systematically closed because no research is shown).

If showing research was required, most questions on e.g. webapps or many other SE would be closed. Very few SE enforce showing research as a requirement: medicalsciences is one of the exceptions, and you'll see that most questions get closed there because of that.

Note that:

  1. The Welcome modal for new askers says "Provide any research", and not "Provide research".
  2. The Welcome modal for new askers says "Asking a good question". It doesn't say that the bullet points are required not to have one's questions closed.
  3. The body of the question most always contain details on the question that has nothing to do about research, e.g., a minimal working example, computer configuration, or error message.

Examples of questions with no research being shown, which are perfectly fine and have been well received:

The OP commented to ask for more recent questions, so here are some posted over the past 3 months:


To conclude, keep in mind that the above answer pertains to showing research. The fact that showing research is not required doesn't mean that the OP shouldn't try to search for the answer. See What level of initial research is expected on questions? and this nice flowchart by Borror0:

enter image description here

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  • Thanks for the clarification about you meant. Please bear in mind that this question is about details and (any) research, not only about research. Regarding the examples provided all of them are 4 years old or older, also the "nice flowchart" is old and looks obsolete. In the specific case of web applications many people think that any Internet service is a web application but only the the web front-end of those services are on-topic on Web Applications
    – Rubén
    Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 18:49
  • @Rubén In the answer, I explain why most of SE sites allow questions without research, which implies that most of SE sites allow questions without details and research. I've added more recent questions, but you allege that the policy has changed, then you should indicate in your post where you have read the policy has changed. Because as far as I know, it hasn't. Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 21:14
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    @Rubén I understand your comment regarding webapps but don't see why it's relevant here. Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 21:21
  • Webapps was mentioned in this answer. The mention in my previous commet is related to the importance to include details to clarfiy that the question is about the web ui and not about other stuff (other front-ends, API, policies, technologies, etc)
    – Rubén
    Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 21:47
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    @Rubén I see. Sounds like it should be obvious whether a webapps question is about the web UI (I've answered almost 200 answers there and don't recall having this issue). And if it isn't, then there is a comment section to help the OP clarify the question if needs be. Also, indicating whether the question is about the web UI has nothing to do with research. Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 21:50
  • It has to do with details. Usually other details make innecesary to explicity mention that the question is about the web app and not about e.g the API.
    – Rubén
    Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 22:01
  • @Rubén ok, before we continue discussing the non-research details, do you agree that showing research is not a requirement? Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 22:12
  • If by "research" you mean "details and any research", I don't agree.
    – Rubén
    Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 22:35
  • @Rubén by research I mean actual research, which is defined by merriam-webster.com/dictionary/research as: careful or diligent search. I don't include other non-research details (e.g., a minimal working example, computer configuration, or error message). Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 22:39
  • This question is about "details and any research". Let focus on that.
    – Rubén
    Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 23:41
  • @Rubén Yes "details and any research" contains 2 part: 1) non-research details and 2) research. Consequently to make progress in the discussion it'd be great to focus on each part individually, otherwise the discussion is fuzzy and makes no progress. So are you refusing to answer my previous question ("do you agree that showing research is not a requirement?")? Commented Dec 11, 2020 at 23:51
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    This is flat out wrong. Just because you can find examples of bad questions that haven't been closed doesn't mean there isn't a network-wide requirement to show effort/research. It's even the first thing shown when you hover over the downvote button on questions!
    – terdon
    Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 12:17
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    @terdon downvoting isn't closing. "network-wide requirement to show effort/research." Where did you read this requirement? Also, effort isn't the same as research. Lastly, note that my answer provides more than just a just of examples. Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 18:47
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    I told you where I read it: hover over the downvote button and you will see the primary reason for downvoting is lack of effort/research. It is also documented in every site's help center in the [how to ask](meta.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask](https://… page). Such questions might be tolerated on some sites, but they aren't welcome and don't follow the SE rules. I'm sorry but apart from a few examples, all I see is semantic quibbling in your answer.
    – terdon
    Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 18:57
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    general reference is dead
    – starball
    Commented Jul 21, 2023 at 9:10
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After some days that I posted this question I think that using "allow" in the question was misfortunate. I will not edit it because there are already two answers but I want to share that now I think that questions without any detail and any research are allowed but might be downvoted, closed or kept open, those that aren't allowed are blocked by the automatic quality filter or deleted by humans.

Anyway I think that it is interesting how the communities are working to build a shared understating of the appropriate use of the SE privileges (upvote, downvote, vote to close, etc.).


Using an alternate account I have reviewed some SE sites, so far from 3 (3D Printing) to C. All of them have the Asking a good question pop-up, so far, I think that it's fair to say that there isn't any site that allow questions without any details and any research.

Also I looked at some per-site Metas, sometimes by following a link, other times by googling and other by going directly o a per-site Meta. Here are some of what I think are interesting findings related to this question:

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