I find myself typing this phrase multiple times a day. A shortcut that led directly to the FAQ explanation would be really helpful.
3 Answers
Yes, but no.
Let's stop fixing symptoms.
It's great if you haven't given up on user education. But the priority should be on prevention, not cleaning up. SO could easily avoid most of these cases with minor effort. It's not rocket science:
Same thing for the hyperlink editor button, of course.
The FAQ shortcut by itself won't do us any good.
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13Normally people drop in with "But they'll just ignore the warning sign" on this type of suggestion, so to anyone thinking that, I say that's not a problem here. If we know every person who posts an image as code has done so ignoring a big honking warning, then there's no reason to hope that a comment will change their mind and curators can feel more confident about straight up voting to close.– Davy MCommented Nov 4, 2020 at 19:01
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4Legit that is the best solution. Why hasn't SE implemented this?– 10 RepCommented Nov 4, 2020 at 19:18
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2@10Rep I'll give you a clue: it begins with "unw" and ends with "elcoming" (also known by its alias, "BS").– Ian KempCommented Nov 6, 2020 at 17:24
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@IanKemp Ahhh, I see. SE took 10 years to fix triage, and by fix, I mean change the text on a few buttons (something anyone could do in a few minutes).– 10 RepCommented Nov 6, 2020 at 17:55
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While this looks easy to be implemented, it will add more fragmented features for the SE devs to add this image only on SO (and possibly other code-related SE sites). Though, I have to admit SO is already specialized with additional features (e.g. Triage review)... Commented Nov 8, 2020 at 6:14
What's more expedient:
- Closing the question as "Needs debugging details", or
- Posting a link to an FAQ?
If the end goal is to close the question so that the OP has a snowball's chance of updating the post, then just do the former. If you want to chat with the OP, then just do the latter.
I would actually recommend only doing the former anyway, since the message about putting code in the question would be best broadcast there anyway.
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6my goal is to get the poster to fix a flaw in what is often an otherwise decent question by pointing them to specific guidance about what they're doing wrong. What's the point of having any shortcuts like
[ask]
available if we should just close flawed questions?– JasonCommented Nov 2, 2020 at 23:48 -
2Also, a question with a link to an image of code can become decent if only the code was posted properly. Simply pointing out the OP to this problem and make them fix it will avoid the whole cycle of close-reopen in the first place... Commented Nov 3, 2020 at 0:42
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3What's the point of having any shortcuts like How to Ask available if we should just close flawed questions? @Jason You can't vote to close until you reach 3K and there are daily limits on both close votes and flags.– BSMPCommented Nov 3, 2020 at 3:54
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1@Jason: I'm of the impression that those were added as a band-aid to fix the overarching problem: people need to be pushed more towards taking the immediate action of curating and fixing the problem question rather than trying to talk to the OP and hope that they'll be swayed by our words... (when the words about needing to include more information in their question were just ignored anyway)– MakotoCommented Nov 4, 2020 at 21:19
I believe we should try very hard to use alternatives to closing questions.
Closing a question is similar to slapping a person. It's appropriate sometimes but very very infrequently. When was the last time you slapped someone in real life?
I think Jason's shortcut suggestion is an excellent idea. I haven't yet found anyone who is deliberately asking a poor question.
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15We don't need hyperbole on Meta SO. Stick to political ads. Closing a question is nothing like physical violence and equating the two increases the rhetorical cost of discussing closing votes and decreases the moral cost of physical violence. Commented Nov 3, 2020 at 12:32
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3I never cv a post which has potential to improve, since that is going against SO's mission to provide a repository of knowledge.– 10 RepCommented Nov 4, 2020 at 19:19
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5@10Rep Voting to close a post does not go against SO's mission to provide a high quality repository of knowledge. Commented Nov 4, 2020 at 20:46
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3@HereticMonkey Ususlly I follow a post that has potential. If it isn't edited within a set period, then I flag for closure. Sometimes it is indeed edited.– 10 RepCommented Nov 4, 2020 at 22:09
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1@10Rep And that's your prerogative, although I would argue that leaving it open simply allows for answerers to wildly guess and post low-quality answers as a result. In any case not waiting to close does not go against SO's mission. As the majority of votes show in the answers to How long should we wait for a poster to clarify a question before closing? Commented Nov 4, 2020 at 22:24
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1@HereticMonkey Is it hyperbole though? Your comment basically disagrees with the comparison because you value closing lower than physical violence in the pain scale. In contrast, OP's values are probably different from yours as they seem to be the same on a scale. Commented Nov 5, 2020 at 15:02
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@TheMaster You're right. I had assumed that the human race had progressed to the point where preventing someone from asking or answering a question about computer programming was less important than subjecting them to physical assault. And that suggesting equivalence between the two would be considered outlandish. Recent political news should have warned me that this was not the case. Commented Nov 5, 2020 at 15:14
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Also I agree Jason's suggestion, but... I believe most of the errors-as-screenshot posts are crap, and what their OPs lack, is not the knowledge, but the motivation. Killing their posts gives them the motivation; while the site does not lose too much.– peterhCommented Nov 10, 2020 at 13:31
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1@10Rep FYI SO's mission is to provide a repository of useful knowledge. You can CV a lot of posts safely in the knowledge they aren't ever going to be useful :-)– TylerHCommented Nov 18, 2020 at 16:15
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@TylerH IMO, That's a very lax attitude. Someone Somewhere might have a rare question and you could've closed that question. "Repository of useful" doesn't mean "famous/popular questions only". It's the rarest of rare resources, that is rarely going to be searched by another human being is what makes useful. Commented Nov 18, 2020 at 17:21
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1@TheMaster I agree, "useful" doesn't mean "famous/popular". Luckily, that's also not what I said :-).– TylerHCommented Nov 18, 2020 at 19:48
[ask]
as a shortcut. I renders like this: How to Askplease don't post links/images of code. All code should go as formatted text inside the question
... If you really want to put the effort, you can use the auto comments suggested by Scratte and write there scrolls to be copied as a comment in a sec