Is this Homework or this is homework or this sounds like homework [closed]

Question

I m tired of people harassing me with "Is this Homework or this is homework or this sounds like homework" I m a phd student and I want to ask questions that i m really curious about. I do have finals tomorrow. and upon asking a question after two minutes i get ten comments as "is this homework ? this sounds like homework."

The question was describe an efficient algorithm to sort a bitonic array. what s the time complexity.

The question is self explanatory.

People with brains would know that schools are almost over and there are no more homeworks. and if it was a homework question, i d write it as homework question. why wouldn't i write it.

then everyone talks about this pointing etc. feels like it s all about points.

I m tired of this.

Answer 1

Check out the Guidelines for Handling Homework Questions.

The short version is that commenting to ask a user if a suspicious question is homework is encouraged, but not because we don't answer those questions or look down on them. Rather, it's that students looking to learn more about a concept often have different kinds of artificial constraints on the situation, as well as different wants and expectations for their answers than professionals looking to solve an immediate problem. So this helps us give you better answers.

For the described question, an answer to an acknowledged homework question takes of the form of how fast the specific algorithm is, and why. An answer geared towards a professional looking to solve a problem would also seek to understand more about the circumstances and possibly suggest alternative algorithms or other ways to solve the problem faster.

Students also often have very specific rules about the kind of help they are allowed to accept, and so it helps us keep you out of trouble. But the main thing is that we want to make sure we have enough information to give you a good answer.

Answer 2

People with brains would know that schools are almost over

I think a large part of the problem is that, based on your questions here on Meta, your unwillingness to link to the supposed offending questions on StackOverflow, and your comments to answers, your problem is quite clear: you're violating Wheaton's Law.

My questions on StackOverflow are usually pretty elementary, especially since I'm fairly new to programming. In fact, I even once asked a theoretical question about maximum identity values in a SQLite database with no problems. Notice, though, in the question, I didn't just say "what's the max?" - I actually took the time to write out what I was thinking and why I was curious about the question, and was treated very politely by people who know way more than I do.

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Edit to the change in the original question:

Like this? http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/4553/everythinggraph.png

Answer 3

So you say you're a PHD student. Which implies knowing something about structuring your words. Knowing how to form a question even. Maybe even a sentence.

If you find yourself putting words like "The question is self-explanatory" or "Title says it all", that's an easy flag to spot that no time has been put into the actual question.

Those kinds of post are more often homework questions, which is why you have people leaving such comments trying to clarify intent.

Questions with zero effort on the asker's behalf, like in your example, are the kinds of vague, no detail, questions one might find in class.

Answer 4

If you know that a question can be misinterpreted, why not clarify your purpose in the question? To get a proper answer, sometimes the context in which the question is being asked is important.

People want to know if it is a homework questions because, if it is, they would prefer to provide guidance to help learning rather than provide an outright answer. If there is a "legitimate" need to know the answer, people are more than willing to help.

Answer 5

You have three choices:

1. Ignore them; hopefully a good answer will result
2. Preface every question you're asking with "This is not homework; I'm just curious"
3. Never ask another question again

We can't control everyone on the site and expecting them to take a somewhat theoretical question as a serious question is, apparently, too much for some.