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Referring to this Q as an example, I'd like to clarify some edit/flag/comment/vote behaviour.

Does that Q qualify as being flagged as being too narrow?

My rationale here is that the Q does not want to clarify a common point, or a specific sort method, or anything that's particularly useful to others.

Does it qualify as duplicate?

It's not that useful because it's partly a duplicate. There are other questions that target sorting arrays in C. Some actually provide partial answers. Search, Q1, Q2, Q3

Of course, none of those questions exactly match the aforementioned homework question.

While I don't generally despise homework questions, I feel I'm biased against this particular one because no research effort at all has been done, and feel this Q is not adding value to the site.

What's the correct behaviour? Comments are in place, and so are downvotes. Anything else, or should I just relax?

Final aside: Does the community on meta appreciate such questions or is this considered to be too much overhead? I still feel rather new to meta and anything related to reviews/flags and meta's link to the data site(s).

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  • 2
    "too narrow"? You mean "too localized"? And don't worry, your question is fine here. (Preemptively: should you receive downvotes, then keep this in mind meta.stackoverflow.com/faq#vote-differences)
    – Bart
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 13:35
  • 2
    It's just someone posting their exam/homework question and a "plz gimme codez". NARQ all the way, in this particular case. No research, no effort, no etiquette.
    – J. Steen
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 13:38
  • @J. Steen: Well, I did try to answer pointing out the search (could have done a better job, though) and the user answered politely. There's an obvious display of etiquette there. He's obviously unfamiliar with the site, but since he's a new user I'm wondering how we should behave to educate him, and not appall him by immediately closing the question. (Maybe I'm too soft ;-)) But I fear we may be sometimes too harsh on new users.
    – cfi
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 13:43
  • NARQ was a good hint to me. So proper behavior for me would have been to flag as narq, then?
    – cfi
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 13:44
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    Alright, I admit my comment about etiquette was uncalled for - I only read the question - and for a new user the going etiquette will be unknown. Yes. But if we're too soft, we'll soon be overrun by qualified low-quality questions. Maintaining a careful balance of helpful and strict is, well, something teachers are more used to doing. As a community we're doing alright I think.
    – J. Steen
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 13:44
  • But yes, asking here is the right thing to do. =)
    – J. Steen
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 13:46
  • I would definitely have flagged as NARQ because of the lack of research, the lack of any shown effort - but that's my opinion. I'm part of the community, and everyone has a vote. So to speak. =)
    – J. Steen
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 13:50
  • In this particular case, I feel an earlier answer of mine applies as well and illustrates that it can be safely closed as NARQ.
    – Bart
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 13:54

1 Answer 1

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That question is just a dump of a homework assignment. Here it is for context:

Write a main function using three functions and Declare an integer array named Arr with maximum size 50, and the first function that reads 10 integers into array Arr (name function readtarr) then Output the array ( name function outputarr). then Sort the array using function name selectionsort then Output the array after sorting( name function outputarr).

can any one help me to solve this!!

All the author has provided is a single sentence that basically asks for someone to either do their work for them, or write a small book to tutor them through the process. Either scenario is a bit out of scope for a Q&A website.

It's not too localized, answers to that question could conceivably help someone in the future, even though the same information could be obtained from a plethora of other sources.

It is in fact not really a question at this point, because it's simply asking for others to do their work or write a book. If an attempt were shown, then it would be a reasonable question for the site. As the close reason describes:

This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form.

Overly broad, incomplete and 'cannot be reasonably answered' apply unless the author is able to show some kind of an attempt. One could further argue that since it does not meet even the minimum topic criteria (other than being about programming homework), the question is also fundamentally off topic.

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  • Thanks, Tim, for clarifying and putting this into perspective for me!
    – cfi
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 13:53
  • I like Too Localized for these as well. Suppose you even could answer their question...you're only helping that one person for that one instant and their question likely will never help anybody else.
    – user7116
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 16:38
  • @sixlettervariables I'm not so sure it wouldn't help anyone in the future (note, I did say it's not too localized). If I'm learning, lets say .. Python, and I'm working through a simple exercise that helps me learn Python (not unlike students need to do) and I arrive at a question that's just a dump of a homework assignment matching my exercise but with good answers, then I found some help. I'm not saying those questions should not be closed, but 'too localized' isn't the most applicable reason. At least in most cases (totally unrealistic homework from mars notwithstanding).
    – user50049
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 16:45
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    @TimPost: perhaps the homework help questions I've seen just aren't that well described. You typically get 1/10th the actual assignment plus a wall of code. Unless you're in the same class, it probably will never help. But, otherwise I agree with you.
    – user7116
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 16:53
  • @sixlettervariables Yes, in those cases it can apply more. There's so many varying degrees of less than optimal homework questions that it's hard to put them all in buckets. I've seen it used more as "I don't want to help you" under the guise of "This will never help anyone" quite often though - and that's what I hope we can avoid.
    – user50049
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 18:56

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