Stack Overflow FAQ should specifically reference "Please write me this code..." questions [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Add a “do not ask canihaztehcodez questions” admonition to the FAQ

This is a follow up question to Encouraging users to try something before asking "Write me code that..." questions on Stack Overflow.

The accepted answer for the above question suggests that users will have read enough guidelines by the time they post a question that they should infer a question that directly asks for code is inappropriate.

While I agree that most sane, pleasant users will reach that conclusion, I dislike that any degree of inference is required. I believe the Stack Overflow FAQ should specifically mention this issue in the What kind of questions should I not ask here? section. Some suggested text:

Questions that merely state a problem and request code to solve it are likely to be closed. Stack Overflow users are friendly, helpful people but they are not free contract programmers!

I would very much appreciate having a clear-cut message in the FAQ I can point new users at. This issue arises often on Stack Overflow.

Note: I'm not suggesting the absence of code is a guaranteed feature of such questions. Amongst the worst offenders are questions with piles of source code that request modification by Stack Overflow users.

Answer 1

I don't think the FAQ being any stronger will actively help the problem. If you prompt them to show their code, the response is to dump the entire class/method/procedure/application in question into the question with no additional context. Anything to avoid putting in effort, it would seem.

The people asking questions of this nature on the whole just don't care. If they cared sufficiently to read the FAQ, they would already know their questions are unlikely to be answered. The difference between people that are trying to get specific questions answered and those that just want their problems solved as easily as possible, is as day and night.

In all the cases I have seen questions like this asked where helpful members ask for clarification, suggest ways the question could be modified to make it answerable, I've never seen the question updated by the asker into a useful question.

Because the people asking in this manner don't demonstrate any willingness to read information, I would suggest the answer needs to be stronger than a change to the FAQ, and actually make this a selectable reason to close a question.

I've found the wording of "Not a real question" to be a bit difficult to parse, because it doesn't clarify exactly what the user did wrong:

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

I would like some option to choose from that indicated more precisely the reasons their question was closed, not so much as a "how you can fix this question", but more as a "please don't ask questions like this again, you're wasting everybody's time, including your own".

I propose a "Too general" category of close status:

The question being asked is too general. Questions are expected to be about a specific problem you have encountered, where you can show you have tried to find a solution yourself. Questions asking for a general solution are not suitable for StackOverflow.

Answer 2

We should probably note that the close reason will probably be not a real question; just insert that after the word closed.

Answer 3

I agree. Although most people who want to become real users of the site will probably infer it, people just looking for a quick and dirty answer who barely even read the FAQ or About page should have it much more in their face so that their noticie it. Especially considering that we already go to such lengths to show the differences between SE and a forum, this is just one more we need to make clear.

Answer 4

I... actually don't think closing is the right response to these in any case. I mean, what's the danger here? Closing prevents answers - the biggest problem with these questions is that, at least in the worst cases, no one wants to answer them.

So... why waste time closing something that'll probably just end up ignored and deleted? If it's that lazy, down-vote it - if the asker continues asking lazy, useless questions he'll end up unable to ask new ones.

For what it's worth, the FAQ already states:

We feel the best Stack Overflow questions have a bit of source code in them, but if your question generally covers …

And:

Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.

Which I believe covers the worst offenders. Beyond that, if someone's asking a reasonably-scoped question about a specific problem, then demanding they throw code into it can be counter-productive; if the asker actually has done enough research to know specifically what they need to do, but hasn't been able to figure out how then a code dump of their project with a comment reading /* then a miracle occurs */ smack-dab in the middle of it doesn't really help much.

See also: Why is this "here are requirements, give me something" question allowed to remain open on SO?