Timeline for Why is this question on hold?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
22 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 12, 2014 at 19:49 | comment | added | PurpleVermont | Ok, but if it's not ACTUALLY unclear what they're asking, choosing that reason because it's convenient is silly. And leads to threads like this one. | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 4:46 | comment | added | Ken White | @PurpleVermont: And I stand by my prior comment that we do not need 500 different close reasons. There are standardized close reasons for a purpose. Wide, vague questions about homework are unclear, because there is no specific question being asked other than "Can you do my work for me?". It's simply unreasonable to expect a specialized close reason be created for every different reason possible, and it's unreasonable to expect people to type in a custom close reason for every question. The "real reason" might be rude: "Closed. You need to do your own **** work so you'll learn something". | |
| Jan 12, 2014 at 4:30 | comment | added | PurpleVermont | @KenWhite in that case I stand by my prior comment that people shouldn't use the "unclear what you're asking" reason if that's NOT the real reason. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 6:02 | comment | added | Ken White | @PurpleVermont: And you can. It's called a "custom close reason", and it's available at the bottom of every close dialog - see "Close->Off topic->Other". There's no confusion - if you don't like the pre-defined reasons. you have the ability to specify a different one. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 5:59 | comment | added | PurpleVermont | @KenWhite it would make mores sense to be able to type in a reason than to choose one that doesn't apply. When the closers choose a reason that doesn't really apply, it confuses people like me. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 4:50 | comment | added | Ken White | @LoïcFaure-Lacroix: I'm not sure what your link to a post with zero upvotes and an accepted answer with a score of -3 is supposed to prove. Is it that bad answers can get accepted? The revision history I see has one minor edit. Is it that similar poor questions can be asked? We know that already. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 3:32 | comment | added | Loïc Faure-Lacroix | check this out stackoverflow.com/questions/8412196/… ... looking at the edit history seems like most of the interesting stuff got deleted but the question is quite similar. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 3:29 | comment | added | Ken White | @LoïcFaure-Lacroix: Yes, but they often post a good sized sample of (nonsense) code and ask "Please tell me what I need to enter and where?" or "Can you fix this for me?" as well. The difference is in the time they take describing the problem, what's not working, and their efforts to solve it, instead of "I have a bad teacher. They won't help. Do it for me so I know how.". | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 3:22 | comment | added | Loïc Faure-Lacroix | @KenWhite Usually people that fall into the second group aren't even showing any piece of code and clearly retype the tasks given by the teacher. I'd rather see this question marked as duplicate since there is surely already a question about loops. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 3:08 | comment | added | Ken White | @LoïcFaure-Lacroix: Great. Some teachers suck, and they should be complained about to the institutions that employ them. Their students should never have gotten through their studies and been able to have been hired, and if we facilitate that then we're simply increasing the problem. For what must be at least the third time: There is a difference between asking for help and asking us to do the work. The first is an attempt to learn; the second is an attempt to avoid doing so, and we should NOT encourage the latter. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 3:05 | comment | added | Loïc Faure-Lacroix | @KenWhite I disagree, from my experience I know that some teachers really suck at teaching. I worked in a place where I know for a fact that the person before me had no knowledge of loops and it was hell to refactor (block of code copied over 34 times). By telling this guy that loop exists we're barely doing the work of the teacher and not the homework. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 3:01 | comment | added | Ken White | @PurpleVermont: No, you're absolutely right. We need 500 different close reasons, at least. In fact, we should allow unlimited close reasons. Oh, wait! Wouldn't it be simpler if we made a few that wrapped up the majority of those into a few wrapper reasons instead (kind of like writing functions to reduce duplication of code)? | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 3:00 | comment | added | user213963 | If I may pimp an elsemeta question - Open letter to students with homework problems (full disclosure, I wrote it) | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 2:58 | comment | added | Ken White | @LoïcFaure-Lacroix: You just made my point. If we do the work for them, they don't learn. So let's not do the work for them. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 2:58 | comment | added | PurpleVermont | So is the answer "we don't like this kind of question, but there's no close reason that describes why, so close-voters will just pick another reason even if it doesn't really fit"? | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 2:54 | comment | added | Loïc Faure-Lacroix | @KenWhite if students don't learn who'll clean the mess they will write later? | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 2:46 | comment | added | Ken White | @PurpleVermont: Once again, there's a difference between paid professionals asking for help and paid professionals asking us to do their work. The latter should be closed just as quickly as the ones from students asking us to do their homework. If we do the homework, the student doesn't learn (and the "paid professionals* get stuck cleaning up the messes they make of the code they write later). | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 2:42 | history | edited | Rosinante | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 170 characters in body
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| Jan 11, 2014 at 2:42 | comment | added | PurpleVermont | If that's the issue, that should be its own close reason, no? I did wonder, before answering, what the community standard was on helping with homework. In this case, the person made an effort and it was clear what they needed help with. It's a bit ironic if paid professionals can ask for help doing their work, but students can't. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 2:40 | comment | added | Ken White | @PurpleVermont: Questions asking for help with homework are fine. Questions asking us to do the homework are not, and that includes the questions that say "My code doesn't work. My instructor is too busy to help. Please tell me what I need to enter and where?" (which is directly from the post being discussed here - the last sentence verbatim except for the "Please" I added). | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 2:35 | comment | added | PurpleVermont | If asking for help with homework is unacceptable, there should be a specific rule about that, IMO. A question shouldn't, IMO, be put on hold for "unclear what you're asking" if the real issues is "do your own homework. | |
| Jan 11, 2014 at 2:33 | history | answered | Rosinante | CC BY-SA 3.0 |