I disagree, I see it as saying "you don't know what you really want, but I can read your mind". It's disrespectful and not giving the benefit of the doubt.
>It's disrespectful and not giving the benefit of the doubt.
Unfortunately, a good number of users who post questions on StackOverflow have not earned the benefit of the doubt. Browsing the site, you will occasionally come across questions which are the tech equivalent of asking "Which screwdriver is the right size to stick in this electrical socket?"
Frame challenges are a necessary part of learning, so they belong on a Q&A site. If a user doesn't want their problem to be challenged, the onus is on them to clarify in the question why their particular approach is the necessary one. It's only possible to respond with alternative solutions when the problem is not specified enough.
> Which screwdriver is the right size to stick in this electrical socket?
Note that this is a legitimate technique in UK sockets.
The live and neutral pins have a little gate over them that is retracted when you insert the earth pin, so you need to first stick a screwdriver into the earth pin in order to get your fingers into the live pin.
I can't parse if this is humour or a mistake. Putting your fingers on the live pin is not a great idea, trying this to get an euro 15 plug into an UK socket, also not great but in a different category.
Well, there's also a mains tester screwdriver which is a legit tool that you stick into a socket and also participate in the electrict current loop for the light on it to light up.
I'm not so sure benefit of the doubt must be earned. More like, any participant in a discussion forum must show it when answering, and do proper research before asking anything. If all questions are good questions, there's no problem. But, as you say, they really aren't. I think poor question should be down voted with a brief explanation instead of trying to answer the "real" question. Or moved to a Frame challenge forum.
Are we trying to answer the question or to solve the problem?
Asking on SO is itself research. It is good to review the existing literature before taking contributors time, of course, but if the problem is not solved in the existing literature, then perhaps the framing issue isn't addressed by the existing literature either. In that case how could the learner know the best way to frame the problem in advance?
> I think poor question should be down voted with a brief explanation instead of trying to answer the "real" question. Or moved to a Frame challenge forum.
This precludes the possibility that some contributors might want to address the framing problem, whereas others might want to address the specific question as asked. They may have different opinions about whether it is framed wrong at all. It also means the OP is losing karma or getting penalized for no fault of their own.
The problem is, the answers are useful to more than just the original questioner. Sure, the questioner may be doing things vastly wrong - but the people who land on that question's page via search may have legitimate reasons for doing things a certain way.
The silent majority of viewers will benefit from an answer that does both of (1) explaining why the answer is probably not what is wanted, and (2) answering the initial question _as written_ anyway, for future viewers.
Then those other viewers will either benefit in the same way from the frame challenge as a learning experience, or they will have a sufficiently-specific problem that they can ask their own questions with more justification for taking a specific approach.
Answering the question as written has the risk that any solution will be blindly applied without appreciating why the approach itself should be avoided. This is especially true for those users who see SO as a "write my code" site, and copy-paste anything in backticks.
Strongly disagree. The point of SO is for experts to answer questions. They've learned things the hard way and would like to help others do better. They're not being paid. As such, telling the questioner that their whole approach is wrong is appropriate and even preferable.
From what I've heard Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky had different views on this and Spolsky's more tolerant, "no such thing as a stupid question" approach won out within the company, but is less popular among the people who write answers.
I don't think it is disrespectful to suggest someone is falling victim to the XY problem.
Actually I think it is a common and expected outcome that when investigating a new problem, we often get stuck in "XY problem" traps while researching the solution.
I very much value any feedback that suggests I should rethink the entire problem with a simpler model, because without experience it's hard to know what the simplest models are.
Absolutely agree. In my experience this is one of the more valuable features of asking someone to discuss a problem I'm mired in. Because they haven't been looking under every rock and studying the bark of every tree like I have, they're very likely to quickly see when I've wandered into entirely the wrong part of the forest.
unfortunately sometimes people who ask questions are really junior, and need to be told they are going to have an unpleasant surprise if they go down the path they are planning on going.
sometimes people who ask questions know the pitfalls but don't clarify that they know adequately because they are pressed for time. in this case those people unfortunately run the risk of being talked down to and they should accept that.
on the other hand if they have clarified adequately that they know what they're doing and they still want to do something that might seem weird then I agree it is disrespectful. Which is a thing you see often enough on StackOverflow to be notable.
Maybe so, but what about the non-junior person who needs to do something weird for an actual valid reason and stumbles on the refusal to answer the question years later? StackOverflow answers aren’t just for the original asker.
I think in that case - the new person should probably post a new question.
The point is that the original question - as framed - was better served by saying "if you go back a step and reexamine your assumptions, you'll find there is a better path to your intended goal".
The new person has a different goal or a different set of constraints.
Because asking new questions and getting them closed as duplicate because they sound vaguely similar to an existing question is sooo helpful an experience...
Yeah - but I'm just playing with hypothetical ideal cases here. "Annoying flawed habits of Stack Overflow moderators" isn't something that's on my list of things I'm thinking about. ;-)
EDIT - which got me thinking. Maybe the "correct" thing to do is answer the original question as asked but gently point out to the person asking it that there is probably a better solution for them if only they had asked a different question.
The original question still stands and has an answer useful for other people. The original questioner has the opportunity to learn and ask the question they should have asked in the first place.
It's going to be annoying for someone - so it should at least be the person that kicked things off in the first place.
How do you respectful tell someone you think they are mistaken? I'd rather not be pussyfooted around by someone if I'm in the role of "person who has asked a question based on a faulty assumption". Don't be rude but don't avoid trying to answer truthfully to the best of your ability.
Unfortunately, a good number of users who post questions on StackOverflow have not earned the benefit of the doubt. Browsing the site, you will occasionally come across questions which are the tech equivalent of asking "Which screwdriver is the right size to stick in this electrical socket?"
Frame challenges are a necessary part of learning, so they belong on a Q&A site. If a user doesn't want their problem to be challenged, the onus is on them to clarify in the question why their particular approach is the necessary one. It's only possible to respond with alternative solutions when the problem is not specified enough.