I don't always answer myself, but when I do, I fail to ask a good question

Question

Sometimes I'll encounter problems while coding, or sometimes out of simple interest for a question, I'll google for an answer, and most of the time I find that answer is here on stackoverflow.com.

If I can't find an answer, or if it's not enough to satisfy my curiosity, sometimes I expend my own effort to solve those questions. And after I've solved it, I'm happy to make my contribution to the community, and I post them as the Q&A style posts. For example:

How to find the minimum covariant type for best fit between two types?

It seems relatively easier to ask a question if I didn't already have a solution, and I can put what I have so far in the question body, such as:

Just when is a stackoverflow fair and sensible?

The problem to me is, if I have my own solution to my own question, then most of what I have so far becomes part of the solution. It's likely I have failed in making my contribution by asking a question to which I have an answer, for example:

How to calculate the digit products of the consecutive numbers efficiently?

So I'm wondering if there are some guidelines or good practices for Q&A style posts?

How do I do it better?

Answer 1

OK, I'll admit: I suffer from a mild self-answer angst.

Is it worthy to post this at the Stack?
                                    Or shall I write a blog post?

 ^{National Lampoon, Oct 1973 - Banana Issue, Von Gogh's Ear}

After reading past discussions, I think the great risk is to write a Gimme teh codez Question. And the closing reason for it summarizes what we have to do to make it as good as the Answer:

Questions asking for code must demonstrate a minimal understanding of the problem being solved. Include attempted solutions, why they didn't work, and the expected results.

###Collection of advices in related posts to boost you self-Q&A ability

• From Is Stack Overflow a central store for tutorials?

"there's no way a self-answer should make it immune to the regular standards we have for all incoming questions".

• From Posting and answering questions you have already found the answer to:

Absolutely, that is one of the design goals for the site: to be a frictionless technical mini-blog where you get reputation for your hard work.
Since May 2012, you can even write your answer before posting the question: see What is this "answer your own question" jazz? here on Meta, and Encyclopedia Stack Exchange on the blog.

• From What can be done to improve moderation of self-answered questions?

That's why the self-answered question needs to be very clear in explaining that "hey, I looked everywhere, here is my research, I couldn't find anything". The point of the system is to help others, and yourself, but you must put helping others before helping yourself. It's not complicated: search first. Share your research.

• From How to correctly post a Q&A style question (i.e.self answer) without it failing minimal understanding: Don't "make up some imaginary problem" to give the Answer, because "there was a problem that needed solving to begin with - there shouldn't be a need to fabricate anything."

• If you wonder How come my question got so many downvotes after answering it myself?, make sure you're putting lots of effort into both [...] The community rewards effort in your posts.

• From Can I answer my own questions, even if I knew the answer before asking?

This is a thin line. On one side, Jeff is quite clear: If it's helpful to at least one other developer, it should be here. It also creates good Content, and Content is the #1 priority for a site.
On the other hand, "spamming" the site and turning it into just another Code Snippet site is what some users (including me) do not seem to want.

• A case where a self-answer with a poor Question is closed, and with some meta discussion ends up re-worked and reopened in great shape: Direct answer of own question lead to immediate close

• "Benefit future searchers with your new found knowledge." - It can happen that we start to type a Question, and while researching for it, we find a solution. Go ahead and post both.

Answer 2

Euler projects are like homework. Using somebody else's answer completely defeats the point of spending time on it. They are not meant to solve practical problems, they exercise your skill as a programmer. That only works when you do it yourself.

So asking a question about it already is against basic SO guidelines. Which require that a question is asked to solve a practical problem. There is just no way that multiplying the digits of a number is ever a problem that you have to solve for a real world problem.

Posting an answer to such a question is troublesome too. Whomever reads it is not going to be helped by it. That is pretty likely to stop him from solving the problem himself, the point of the Euler project.

Realistically, this question needs to be deleted. You can't do it yourself anymore, flag a mod.

Answer 3

If it wasn't or it's not enough to feed my curious, sometimes I pay my effort to solve those questions. And after I solved it, I'm happy to make my contribution of the community, I post them as the Q&A style posts.

If you have a question you want to solve on your own but you intend to post on SO as a Q/A, why not write the question down (in your favorite text editor) before you find the answer? It will help to ensure that the question is fully fleshed out and doesn't lean too heavily toward the solution you eventually discover.

Otherwise, do your best to put yourself back in the mindset of not having a solution. Make sure the question is answerable by others. Maybe someone has an even better solution than you have, so don't ask in such a way that the only answer happens to be the one you've got.