It has become a ritual: three times a semester (around 2nd week, midterms and finals) there is a flow of simple, homework-like questions (mostly in the field of automata theory; US education system is to blame).

The ceremony goes like this:

1. some new user asks "Are the following languages are regular for: (1) $L={a}$; (2) $L={b}$; (3) $L={a and b}$. Sometime they will also mention "This is not homework!" (oh, so you're posting your take-home midterm question in SE. just great).
2. Then someone will add a comment like "what did you try" ; "where are you stuck" ; "what exactly can't you understand" ; "yes" ; "please use Latex"
3. In the meantime, either someone posts a short answer with partial hints, or some 2-lines formal proof.
4. WAIT 10; GOTO 1;

To me it seems this was not what this site is for, and all of these questions are duplicates of each other. I am a big supporter of answering (also) simple question, but some of those are ridiculously simple. Moreover, it looks like many users don't even try to search the site for similar question, that solves theirs as well (maybe because searching latex doesn't work well; or maybe there are small differences that render the search useless). Not searching for existing question, and posting too many similar trivial questions is my main concern.

We have a homework policy, but it feels we need some policy to deal with this non-constructive flow of questions.

What do you think we should do with this flow of homework questions?

It has become a ritual: three times a semester (around 2nd week, midterms and finals) there is a flow of simple, homework-like questions (mostly in the field of automata theory; US education system is to blame).

The ceremony goes like this:

1. some new user asks "Are the following languages are regular for: (1) $L={a}$; (2) $L={b}$; (3) $L={a and b}$. Sometime they will also mention "This is not homework!" (oh, so you're posting your take-home midterm question in SE. just great).
2. Then someone will add a comment like "what did you try" ; "where are you stuck" ; "what exactly can't you understand" ; "yes" ; "please use Latex"
3. In the meantime, either someone posts a short answer with partial hints, or some 2-lines formal proof.
4. WAIT 10; GOTO 1;

To me it seems this was not what this site is for, and all of these questions are duplicates of each other. I am a big supporter of answering (also) simple question, but some of those are ridiculously simple. Moreover, it looks like many users don't even try to search the site for similar question, that solves theirs as well (maybe because searching latex doesn't work well; or maybe there are small differences that render the search useless). Not searching for existing question, and posting too many similar trivial questions is my main concern.

We have a homework policy, but it feels we need some policy to deal with this non-constructive flow of questions.

What do you think we should do with this flow of homework questions?

It has become a ritual: three times a semester (around 2nd week, midterms and finals) there is a flow of simple, homework-like questions (mostly in the field of automata theory; US education system is to blame).

The ceremony goes like this:

1. some new user asks "Are the following languages are regular for: (1) $L={a}$; (2) $L={b}$; (3) $L={a and b}$. Sometime they will also mention "This is not homework!" (oh, so you're posting your take-home midterm question in SE. just great).
2. Then someone will add a comment like "what did you try" ; "where are you stuck" ; "what exactly can't you understand" ; "yes" ; "please use Latex"
3. In the meantime, either someone posts a short answer with partial hints, or some 2-lines formal proof.
4. WAIT 10; GOTO 1;

To me, it seems this was not what this cite is for, and all of these questions are duplicates of each other. I am big supporter of answering (also) simple question, but some of those are ridiculously simple. Moreover, it looks like many users don't even try to search the site for similar question, that solves theirs as well (maybe because searching latex doesn't work well; or maybe there are small changes render the search useless). Not searching for existing question, and posting too many similar trivial questions is my main concern.

We have a homework policy, but it feels we need some policy to deal with this non-constructive flow of questions.

What do you think we should do with this flow of homework questions?

It has become a ritual: three times a semester (around 2nd week, midterms and finals) there is a flow of simple, homework-like questions (mostly in the field of automata theory; US education system is to blame).

The ceremony goes like this:

1. some new user asks "Are the following languages are regular for: (1) $L={a}$; (2) $L={b}$; (3) $L={a and b}$. Sometime they will also mention "This is not homework!" (oh, so you're posting your take-home midterm question in SE. just great).
2. Then someone will add a comment like "what did you try" ; "where are you stuck" ; "what exactly can't you understand" ; "yes" ; "please use Latex"
3. In the meantime, either someone posts a short answer with partial hints, or some 2-lines formal proof.
4. WAIT 10; GOTO 1;

To me it seems this was not what this site is for, and all of these questions are duplicates of each other. I am a big supporter of answering (also) simple question, but some of those are ridiculously simple. Moreover, it looks like many users don't even try to search the site for similar question, that solves theirs as well (maybe because searching latex doesn't work well; or maybe there are small differences that render the search useless). Not searching for existing question, and posting too many similar trivial questions is my main concern.

We have a homework policy, but it feels we need some policy to deal with this non-constructive flow of questions.

What do you think we should do with this flow of homework questions?