Timeline for Can a new programmer with limited technical expertise ask a quality question about fundamentals on SO?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
33 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 27, 2014 at 23:00 | history | edited | user102937 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 1 characters in body
|
| Jan 14, 2014 at 16:42 | comment | added | user102937 | @JohnDibling: Not if the question can be answered in a way that the asker can understand it without you having to write a book. | |
| Jan 14, 2014 at 16:39 | comment | added | John Dibling | So is that to say that all beginner questions are off-topic? Do I misunderstand you? | |
| Jan 14, 2014 at 16:20 | comment | added | user102937 | @JohnDibling: "I am a beginner," or the user has "shown their work." | |
| Jan 14, 2014 at 16:19 | comment | added | John Dibling | And how do we judge if they have the requisite "minimal understanding?" | |
| Jan 14, 2014 at 16:17 | comment | added | user102937 | @JohnDibling: The metric in the (now removed) close reason was that askers had to demonstrate a "minimal understanding" of the subject matter. That is still relevant. | |
| Jan 14, 2014 at 16:11 | comment | added | John Dibling | Re-reading this answer, which I upvoted, it seems to me that it doesn't actually answer the question directly. If we can somehow deduce that the asker will understand the answer without a great deal of elaboration, but the question is elementary, is the question off-topic? | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 0:26 | comment | added | Ken White | @RobertHarvey: Prior effort to me includes doing enough preliminary research to be able to write a clear, intelligible question. If the poster hasn't done enough research to even ascertain what language they're using (as quite frequently occurs with new programmers in the "Visual Studio" language, for instance) and wants code, that's an indication of no effort. It's impossible to have put effort into solving a problem when you don't even have the most basic information about it. | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 0:16 | comment | added | Ken White | @JohnDibling: You're taking separate comments totally out of their context. My last comment referred to your question to me about whether Programming 101 questions belonged on SO. I said nothing about the reasons those questions should be closed, and never said they should be automatically closed because they can be Googled. Please read the actual words I'm writing, and keep them in the context in which they were written, instead of putting words in my mouth. :-) | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 0:15 | comment | added | John Dibling | @KenWhite: It also happens that a question like "Teach me X" will never be on-topic here because it cannot be restructured to meet the general quality requirements of being clear, specific and answerable. | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 0:11 | comment | added | John Dibling | @KenWhite: I agree with that almost 100%. The only issue I take is that those questions shouldn't be closed because they are google-able, but because the question is non-specific and doesn't meet the general quality requirements. | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 0:10 | comment | added | user102937 | @KenWhite: Do note that "prior effort" was never something that SE required of a question. They do require that you formulate a question that can be answered by the community without having to guess at the OP's level of expertise or provide extended tutoring, and while that often equates to showing effort on the OP's part, it's not quite the same thing. | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 0:07 | comment | added | Ken White | @JohnDibling: No, if it's a question that adheres to the same quality standards (includes a valid description of the problem, some indication that the poster has made an effort to find a solution themselves, and if it's asking about a code problem contains the code they're asking about), it's fine. If it's a "Please show me how to do basic math in c++? I can't figure it out." question, I don't feel it belongs on SO because it has no future value; it can be easily answered by a Google or Bing search for "c plus plus math tutorial". | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 0:06 | comment | added | user102937 | @JohnDibling: It all comes down to what is "Too Broad." If a question that a user asks requires you to go over the fundamentals in detail in order for them to understand the answer you give them, it is too broad. | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 0:03 | comment | added | John Dibling | @KenWhite: But you also said, "My understanding of SO has always been that it was never intended to be a "Programming 101" tutorial site." From that I took that you feel that Programming 101-level questions should not be asked here at all. Is that not what you're saying? | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 23:59 | comment | added | Ken White | @JohnDibling: Please read the actual content I posted to this thread. My objection was to the "go ahead and answer then" in Robert's commment. as I've stated previously in my first and fifth comments). The question should be closed instead if it's a duplicate. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 23:32 | comment | added | John Dibling | +1: Agree in principle that if the questioner cannot understand the answers, then that's on them. However, these same people are unlikely to be able to form a decent question in the first place as required by SO, and I would close those questions for simply being unclear. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 23:26 | comment | added | John Dibling | @KenWhite: If a user can construct an otherwise good question, with source code and clarity, and they can understand the answer, then why should "Programming 101" questions not be permitted? The (link you provided)[stackoverflow.com/questions/21053673/hello-c-u-help-me] is obviously not an example of such a question. I would have closed that question myself. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 5:56 | comment | added | Ken White | @MichaelT: My point exactly, and the very reason I objected to Robert's comment. The effort should be to close it, and not to "go ahead and answer them if you can". | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 5:52 | comment | added | user213963 | @KenWhite part of the problem in that (I do agree though) is the system. It takes 5 people to close it... in the review queue (queue appropriate links). It takes 1 person to answer it, and they may get 15 rep for it. This disparity of difficulty and rewards (finding the dup vs answering the question) makes it difficult. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 23:09 | comment | added | Ken White | Right, so encourage that instead. The time spent answering it anyway could better be spent finding the dup to use to close it, and it doesn't encourage more similar questions. :-) | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 23:08 | comment | added | user102937 | @KenWhite: Absolutely; closing as duplicate is always the first line of defense. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 23:06 | comment | added | Ken White | Yeah, I own the movie. :-) My objection is to "go ahead and answer them", exactly as I said. They should just be closed as dups, not answered. I've been dealing for the last two days with searching for duplicates to help close these types of questions because of the flood of them that are showing up. I've seen that exact sort of question more than once recently; it's not a straw man. (I don't have a link handy, I'm afraid. I looked for one briefly, but didn't see one. They may have been deleted already.) I'm also seeing tons of questions like this one | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:59 | comment | added | user102937 | @Ken: The whole "I'm trying to add 2 and not 1" thing is a bit of a straw man. Small variations on the same theme can be closed as a duplicate of the same original question. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:56 | comment | added | user102937 | @Ken: Then let me go ahead and sort of disagree with you there and say that it is my understanding that anyone was welcome with their questions, so long as they demonstrated enough basic understanding of the subject matter to grok the answers that you give them. In my experience, vague, underspecified, chatty questions with poor spelling and grammar have always been the greater problem. There is, of course, nothing wrong with politely suggesting that a user pick up a good book. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:52 | comment | added | Ken White | Where does it say what? I'm not sure what you're questioning - is it the part of your comment I disagree with, or the not a programming 101 site? We've always expected people to at least have a minimal understanding; if they didn't, we'd flood the site with "How do I add 1 to this variable? int a = 1; ??", and then a new question about "How do I add 2 to this variable? No, that's not the same - it asks about adding 1, and my question is about adding 2" type posts. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:48 | comment | added | user102937 | @KenWhite: Well, where does it say that, exactly? | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:46 | comment | added | Ken White | While I agree with your answer, I highly disagree with "if they are answerable in short form, go ahead and answer them" in your last comment. Like answering off-topic questions, it encourages other questions of the same nature. My understanding of SO has always been that it was never intended to be a "Programming 101" tutorial site; there are plenty of those available elsewhere. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:43 | history | edited | user102937 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 2 characters in body
|
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:36 | comment | added | user102937 | In most cases, these are going to be "Too Broad." Certainly, if they are answerable in short form, go ahead and answer them. Many of these basic questions are duplicates. | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:35 | history | edited | user102937 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 36 characters in body
|
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:35 | comment | added | hichris123 | I agree, however, with the new close reasons what would these be closed as? Or should they just not be closed and downvoted? | |
| Jan 10, 2014 at 22:29 | history | answered | user102937 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
