Should we "educate" (new) users by not answering until...?

Question

I catch myself answering questions that are not well asked (without MWE, question not clear to everybody,...), sometimes with comments that request exactly what's missing, because I think I understand the problem and I can solve it. But I realized, it might be a bad idea to answer those questions until the minimum amount of work of the asker is done properly (i.e. they do what is advised/requested in comments, like providing a MWE or clarifying the question).

I like to help users and, since this mainly affects new users, I don't want to discourage them. But I'm not sure. What do you think?

Answer 1

Personally I think you should only ask for a MWE if the presence of an MWE would help you to answer the question.

A MWE almost always helps even if only to avoid the answerer having to write some standard article class boilerplate to make a test file.

But it doesn't always help, and unless you have contemplated producing an answer and the lack of an MWE is hindering that, it is best not to comment.

Rather too often I've seen one of the "standard comments" inserted asking for MWE when it's fairly clear that the question is not document related. For example if the error message says tex isn't found, then it will say that whether or not a document exists and posting an example document to the question doesn't clarify that in any way.

Answer 2

I completely disagree with the proposition that we should refrain from answering questions in order to educate new users. I simply don't think it's my job to educate new users about how to ask questions. And I don't really agree with the idea that withholding useful information is a good way of educating people.

Like all of us, I don't theoretically like (what seem to me) to be lazy questions of the "do this for me" type, and I'd sooner ignore them unless they happen to pique my interest.

But there are lots of reasons for "bad questions" including lack of familiarity with the very weird and complex LaTeX ecosystem, and quite often language issues as well. When you know how to do something difficult (whether that is driving a car, playing a musical instrument, solving an equation, writing LISP or LaTeX or finding answers on TeX.sx) it's very easy to forget how difficult it is to learn and attribute bad faith where there is none. LaTeX is a vast (over-)complicated "system" built in a ramshackle way (I can install Ubuntu faster than TeXlive, or at least not much slower!). It's idiosyncratic to an almost absurd degree. Its documentation is both wonderful and, often, more or less useless to anyone who actually needs it.

So I like to be slow to assume bad faith. And we should bear in mind that the primary "educational" role this site can serve is to teach people about TeX and not to teach people how to ask questions on TeX.sx. I'd really rather put up with a few annoying jerks than put off sensitive potential users with real needs. An inexperienced person who is browsing and considering whether to ask a question will very likely not understand why what looks (to them) like a reasonable request is being treated with disdain: they may well just see the disdain.

If we behave like oracles, who will only speak when the supplicant has duly performed arcane rites to perfection---the archive meticulously searched, the MWE melodiously intoned, the log-file scrupulously offered---we will find ourselves sitting in an empty temple before a cold altar, while doctoral students write their theses in Word.

So, all that being said, nobody is obliged to answer, and if you think "I can't be bothered to answer" don't. But there's no need to say that this is done out of the high purpose of educating anyone; it's quite alright just to say "I can't be bothered answering if someone can't be bothered to ask a question to a certain standard". That's up to you. And if other people can be bothered answering, that's OK too.

For myself, I will answer any question if, however badly it seems to be written, I am reasonably confident that I know what the answer is, and have the time to spend to answer it. I'm not going to answer if I am completely in the dark about what the questioner wants, because I may be wasting everyone's time. And I may not answer if the questioner is so confused that it's going to take endless backwards-and-forwards with comments to set things straight, when the problem is simple and dull. But otherwise: sure, I'll answer, because I think it is more conducive to the lively and widespread use of TeX (which I care about) if people with urgent and immediate problems get them solved than if we build up (yet another!) comprehensive and intractable pool of wisdom, or a set of fossilised formal conventions.

Answer 3

I would like to tell you what happened to me some time ago.

In the beginning, I answered also questions without MWE.

One day I answered telling the OP: "Next time, please add an MWE" and he promised me he would do.

Little time after that, he asked again a question without MWE, and again I answered telling him: "Next time, please add an MWE" and again he promised he would do.

A few days after, he asked again without MWE. Honestly, I had the feeling of being mocked. I only left a comment asking for an MWE, but it was useless since someone else answered!

Since that day, excluding very exceptional cases of interesting questions, my policy is:

1. I leave a comment asking for an MWE
2. if the OP is not a new user (let's say a new user is one with less than 100 reputation points, complimentary bonus excluded), I downvote the question (if it wasn't already downvoted by someone else)
3. if the OP is responsive and tries to add an MWE, I answer (if I can, of course)
4. after some days, if there is no news from the OP, and nobody else answered, I close the question as too broad or unclear what you're asking.

I think that answering questions without MWE gives a wrong signal and it is unfair to those who have lost time to create one.

In any case, I think priority in answering should be given to questions with MWE and, at least, questions without MWE are not to be answered immediately.

Moreover, questions without MWE are often also unclear, and I think they will rarely appear in a search by people with the same problem.

Obviously, this applies only if the MWE is necessary, otherwise, see David's answer.

By the way, when needed, creating an MWE is useful also to the OP because it helps to:

1. reason on the problem, not to act as a monkey copy-pasting the correct solution
2. find the solution by herself/himself (just happened to me at this moment!).

Answer 4

I once made very bad experiences with a specific user. I asked that particular one several times to post an MWE and he never did. In the end I posted a longish comment that I will never answer any questions of him again if he doesn't post a perfect MWE.

In fact I was so mad about him it took me an one hour walk to calm down after I also posted to chat about that user (which certainly is bad behaviour).

I keep the user profile of that user pinned in my Firefox to remind me of my promise. Up to today I did not see a question of him meeting the criterias I set.

Today I often ask for an MWE, sometimes I post answers before that MWE is delivered, this is dependend on my current mood. Mostly I do this if I think the question is clear enough, sometimes this leads to incompatiblities.

I think good practice is what CarLaTeX does, but I don't downvote already downvoted questions. If that practice would be common to all or most of the users new users would still get good answers but the overall quality of the questions would be increased, I think.

Answer 5

I am pretty sure that you won't accept this answer, but anyway I'd say

No.

Why? This site is meant to provide answers and useful information for everyone, not just for the one who asks a question. So if you think you have got something (moderately) useful to say, or if you are able to fix some problem, just do it. You may thus help someone who deserves it. I personally don't see myself educating others how to ask questions properly. This does not mean that I do not comment on questions, it just means that I do not want to force anyone to change her or his behavior (unless it is rude, offensive or in similar ways inappropriate). Of course I often wish that the question was clearer or the OP would have made more effort, but again I do not want to impose a certain behavior on the OP. Needless to say that I do of course not upvote such questions.

Of course you will find the above self-contradictory in that I try to argue that one should not impose things on others, but if others follow this, I have in a certain way imposed some behavior on them. So if you decide not to follow my arguments, that's of course perfectly fine. The only thing I want to avoid is that some get blamed for giving reasonable answers to questions by lazy users. These answers may help some not so lazy other users.

Answer 6

No, I don't think that they should be some automatism here.

When I decide if I want to try to answer a question a lot of factors are involved: my free time, does the question look interesting, do I know something about it, do I know the user and naturally also the "quality" of the question. A missing or bad minimal example is normally a negative factor but it doesn't overrule all other factors automatically and it also doesn't have a fix weight. E.g. if a package has a bug after an update the first question normally requires an example to analyze the problem but the follow-up questions do not and so the importance of a good MWE drops.

If I decide to answer despite a bad MWE I often add as small nudge some remarks like "untested due to missing example" or "I can only guess ...", or I remove lot of unnessary code in my answer.

If I decide not to answer I don't care if someone else answers. Most factors and their weights for my decision are quite personal and can be different for others. But I do find it irritating if people answer and at the same time complain a lot about the missing MWE.

If I decide not to answer I often quit without comments (or even run away if the question is too horrible). But also quite often I leave a comment indicating what I miss. If the question is improved I reconsider, if the user ignores my comment I go away. If the user claims not to be able to make a better MWE I sometimes help to train this (important) skill.

But I don't let the user bully or persuade or "educate" me to answer if the question isn't improved before or some new important data emerges. I stick to my (normally sound) decision. I have seen too many people quitting support frustrated and feeling abused and pushed around because they answered too many question they actually didn't want to answer but weren't able to say "NO".