It seems like SO is dedicated to questions, but one thing that would be useful would be for people to share something they learned. E.g. Recently I had an issue where I discovered IIS 7 is locked down so that even URL encoded strings which in turn contain an Ampersand are blocked from access. To fix it required a Registry entry change, something I discovered only was referenced in two obscure places on the internet. While I could have asked the SO community and waited for a bounty, one other option other than answering my own question would be to post the problem and solution. I think there are community questions and wikis, but it may be useful to have a third element called something like Lessons Learned or something.
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5because SOFU isn't a personal tech blog?– quack quixoteCommented Mar 24, 2010 at 21:27
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See: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/24608/… meta.stackexchange.com/questions/18864/… etc.– Shog9Commented Mar 24, 2010 at 21:32
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I don't know who originally coined SOFU, but I love it.– RandolphoCommented Mar 24, 2010 at 21:58
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It's really MSOFU, but the M is silent and mostly ignored by the community.– GnomeCommented Mar 24, 2010 at 22:03
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STFU would be better but its close enough.– LocutusCommented Mar 25, 2010 at 3:01
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You can always ask (and answer) the question yourself. : ) I think the closest you can get outside of that is to daily scout the relevant tags for similar questions.– rlb.usaCommented Mar 26, 2010 at 22:53
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2 Answers
I think the usual (and if I remember correctly, officially encouraged) way is in fact asking the question, and answering it by oneself.
As earlz points out, this is not a very widespread practice. That, however, is no reason not to put valuable content onto SO. I would say if your "monologue" question gets closed because people don't like your answering your own question, take the case here on Meta. If it's a good, valid question, you will most likely get good feedback here, the question reopened, and a meta link preventing future closures.
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The thing is that this isn't done nearly often enough to be considered "appropriate" by most users (and thus, subject to closing and whatnot)– EarlzCommented Mar 24, 2010 at 21:30
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1@earlz then the case would have to be taken to the court (i.e. here.) and if necessary, reopened with a link to the official meta verdict. I came across an excellent example just a few minutes ago: stackoverflow.com/questions/2165022/… funnily enough, I've been thinking about opening a similar jeopardy question about PHP troubleshooting, seeing as many newbies don't know even the very basic steps of debugging. This is a practice that should be encouraged IMO.– PekkaCommented Mar 24, 2010 at 21:38
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2@earlz: I have (successfully!) encouraged two users to do it in the last week. They received no backlash that I noticed. Can you point to example of people pushing against this practice? Commented Mar 24, 2010 at 21:47
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@dmckee: I would be wary of accepting your own answer if there really is another good correct answer (example: stackoverflow.com/questions/2000861/…), and I have seen backlash when the OP essentially repeats another answer and then accepts it (but, of course, don't have the URL handy).– GnomeCommented Mar 24, 2010 at 22:14
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@Gnome Personally I always make my self answer CW (note: not the question). And I can see here answerers would feel cheated if the OP accepts his own answer fully equivalent to one offered by another person. But that's not a problem for Jeopardy questions where I write the question and answer in emacs, paste in the question and then immediately paste in the answer; which is the situation this poster is asking about. Commented Mar 24, 2010 at 22:21
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@dmckee: I see your point for questions you plan to self-answer, but I disagree in the example I gave. And it's not about rep (which I almost completely don't care about on SO being over 10k, but is relevant to most), because CW should imply a stronger sense of "community ownership" and encourage editing by others much more than usual. -- Basically, I agree with you, but wanted to make a distinction for others coming upon this question later.– GnomeCommented Mar 24, 2010 at 22:33
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In fact, here's another example where the answer isn't CW, but could benefit from being CW because it really is a blog post on SO and others could improve/correct/etc. stackoverflow.com/questions/2474018/…– GnomeCommented Mar 25, 2010 at 1:22
It is perfectly fine to document the issue you solved by asking a question and answering your own question. Just keep the time between the question and answer short (e.g. prepare it in advance). You can also leave a comment to your question explaining why you answered your own question and perhaps add a reference to one of the articles below.
See the answers to these questions:
Is it poor etiquette to answer your own question?
Should I answer my own question, or not?
Why could it be considered gaming the system if you answer your own question?
answered Mar 24, 2010 at 21:50
