From what I understand, if you want to ask a question you know the answer to, you should at least give other people a chance to try and answer. This might bring solutions you hadn't thought about, but also it seems very stupid to ask a question and less than a minute later post your own answer.
Is there a reason why people should post questions and immediately post the answer to it?
I've just asked a stack of questions to which I knew the answer --- in fact, I asked them by going through my preambles looking for anything strange!
They're being answered as we speak, which is great. I plan to come back tomorrow to fill in any answers that weren't given.
It's best to let other people answer your questions, even earlier on, but it's better to answer your own question than to leave it unanswered or not ask it at all.
I disagree with people that say you shouldn't ask questions you know the answer to; for content-building purposes it's very useful, but even on the established sites people ask questions they know the answers to if the question hasn't been posed before and they think other people might run into the problem in the future. I don't like when people ask and immediately answer the question, as it discourages other people from answering, but certainly post your answer after a certain amount of time if nobody else gets there first
Posting FAQ-style questions with answers was actively encouraged in the early phase of Stack Overflow. After all, the purpose of the site was to create a knowledge base. It has become less common since, but it’s still acceptable.
I don’t see why we should deviate from this: Answers are good, no matter who posts them.
If people use this to spam the board with useless content, the voting system will take care of them.
I don't think you should ever accept your own answer immediately.
As for whether it's ok to post an answer immediately, I think it depends on how open the question is. If you're asking a question in the form of a discussion (say, asking about best practices), there isn't going to be one single correct answer, and so posting your own answer immediately is fine, I think. It doesn't mean others are prevented from contributing.
But if there is obviously going to be one "best" answer, others might be discouraged from answering at all if they see you answered your own question. They might feel there's not much they can add, or that you prefer your own answer and won't accept theirs.
There are two reasons, IMHO, that people should answer their own question - either they found out the answer meanwhile, or that they think the answer is very useful for other people, and want to share the knowledge. I have no problem with either, though I think you should give time for someone to perhaps provide a better solution/explanation that yourself.
I find sometimes that while I'm asking a question, I'll realize the answer. If something like this does happen that the question can still be worthwhile, because it's possible there's a better answer, or an improvement to your own solution. Many of my own questions on sites like stack overflow are I did X like this, could I do this better?
I think this is considered perfectly OK on StackOverflow. Some relevant meta questions from there:
Why give other people a chance to answer before you post the answer if you already know it? The point of the site is not to create busy work for others.
I'll have to agree that people shouldn't answer their own questions immediately (or perhaps even at all). That sort of defeats the point of asking in the first place, even they already know the answer and it's for content building.
