The return of the homework question

Question

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?

Answer 1

I agree with all you say: these questions are crap and the askers (often) lazy; if anyone thinks some independent effort is too much to ask, I suggest they read this. However, our homework policy mandates us to endure and deal with them, mostly because we can not reliably tell lazy homework-dumper from inexperienced self-learner.

There is a simple solution:

1. Downvote,
2. post one of the standard comments and
3. don't answer directly.

The last item is vital -- too many of our users post quick answers (often as uninspired as the questions), thus reinforcing the unwanted behaviour. If the question presents an interesting puzzle that deserves an answer (good exercises to that!), hold back your answer a week or two. It's immediacy the asker desires most. If you think you can give a helpful hint, do that instead of posting a complete answer (but include the full solution later, maybe behind a spoiler tag).

Of course, if there is a (very) similar post and/or reference question, vote to close mercilessly as long as there is no own thought. See also here.

Answer 2

Stick to the homework policy, close duplicate questions, and move along; nothing to see here.

Realistically, students at US universities represent one of this site's largest potential user bases. That doesn't mean we should tolerate bad behavior, but it might mean we should err on the side of letting the community (most of whom won't read this question) moderate itself when it comes to these kinds of questions.

Answer 3

We do want people to ask questions (even simple ones), but we don't want duplicates of the same question (or with multiple copies of close variants).

A possible way to handle it is the following:

For any subject that we recognize having multiple small-variant questions (like: "Is this $L$ regular"; or "What is the solution of this recursion using the Master Theorem"), we

1. create a thread with exemplary question.
   (this will be the "reference question" @juho suggested in his comment).
   • the question should be formatted in a way that will be very easy to search ("How to prove the following L is regular"), very simple and straight forward.
   • however the question will not contain any specific details
     (i.e., "L" will not be defined within the question)
2. we post several CW answers. Each answer will be one specific detailed instance for the "reference" questions. E.g., each answer-post will contain one $L$ and the solution for that specific $L$.
3. new posts with questions that have a "reference questions" will be handled in the following way:
   1. Immediately closed.
   2. a comment will refer to the relevant "reference question"
   3. If the specific "L" doesn't already appear in the reference question, a new CW answer will be added to the reference question, with that specific L
   4. any answers on the original post will be deleted and their content will be moved to the answer-post in the reference question.
   5. Eventually, the closed question should be deleted (Why not just let it be? because such questions are not searchable anyways, and there's no point in keeping them).
4. In meta, there will be one post that aggregates the "reference questions" in one place, so we will be able to find them fast and refer to them (thanks @Juho for this clever idea!)

This way, there is a single well-organized place that gives extensive information on the question (with all its variants). New users will be encouraged to search before they ask, and the community will be encourage to refer to exemplary quesiton/answer rather than repeating the same answer in multiple places.

Answer 4

I personally don't really mind homework questions. What I do mind are people who register a new account, ask a poorly worded and badly formatted question with that account, yet seem to expect an answer instantly (perhaps because it is an exam question).

A homework question asked by a professional or a self-learner can often spark interesting answers, expanding on the standard textbook answer. The difference is that the OP in such cases is around to address comments and to accept a good answer, instead of leaving the answers orphaned.

It might therefore be worth asking SE for a stronger filter when new users post a question.

The current filter is geared to SO and doesn't seem effective at all to discourage the kinds of poor questions seen here. For instance, very short questions by new users could be blocked until approved through the review process for First Posts. Right now review seems to be a means of closing the barn door once the horse has bolted and a bunch of other new users have started asking similar poor questions in imitation of the first. The process of posting a question could also be made to require more attention. Right now some people are clearly ignoring the helpful suggestions of similar or identical questions that the system presents, which I think is quite rude. It might be worth having an explicit disclaimer that says something like "This question appears to be a duplicate or very similar to these other questions already asked: (...) Your question may be interpreted as rude by the regular users, and may be put on hold. Do you still want to submit it to a moderator?" Then any First Posts reviewer can allow it.