Explicitly indicate the reasons why answering a just-do-it-for-me question

Question

I already said that answering just-do-it-for-me questions gives a wrong signal.

Moreover, it makes this site become a just-do-it-for-me(-for-free) service.

Indeed, it leads to comments like this one by a serial just-do-it-for-me asker, please note the

I would like to suggest, when we answer to a similar question, to make a premise to the answer or comment the question like this:

Your question is a just-do-it-for-me one, you should add a minimal working example, I'm answering only because:

• you are a new user
• I think your question is interesting, anyway
• I have some spare time, I'm answering just for fun

or

• I am a reputation seeker.

Some clarification

I am not saying "do not answer bad questions" (I, too, do it every now and then) I am only suggesting (I do not want to oblige anybody) to write an answer like this one or leave a comment like this one.

Otherwise, a user will always ask just-do-it-for-me questions and will be annoyed if someone asks him/her to add it.

In the long run, it is good also for the users. If they only cut and paste the solutions, they will never learn how to do things by themselves.

Further clarification

I don't want the answerers to justify themself for answering, I would like to make the OPs know that, even if they got an answer, it is not fair to post a just-do-it-for-me question, they got an answer only because they are new users, etc., not because the question is perfect and they can continue to ask such questions in the future.

I think that seeing many questions with the classical request for the MWE and then answered, gives the OPs a wrong signal, if the answer begins with "you should have provided a MWE but I'm good and answer anyway", the ones who required an MWE would appear less bad.

All this is only my opinion, you are free to think and act differently.

Answer 1

Some simple ideas:

• If you want to answer just-do-it-for-me questions, answer them.
• If you don't want to answer them, don't.
• If you want to leave a comment explaining why you answered, leave a comment.
• If you don't want to leave a comment explaining why you answered, don't.

In general, trying to legislate behaviour, especially of people who are giving answers freely, is the best way to alienate people. I used to participate on English Language and Usage until people started downvoting my perfectly reasonable answers to questions they deemed not sufficiently researched. Let's not get to that stage.

Answer 2

I disagree with this for the following reasons:

1. This attempts to "force a policy" onto the community that might not align with everyone's intent.

2. "Enforcement" of this seems like it will clutter comment sections with "Please see [this Meta post]", suggesting answerers now have to edit there post to conform to something.

3. You may end up alienating new and existing users who don't want to follow this suggestion.

An alternative proposal:

1. Let users be free to ask do-this-for-me questions as is the current state.

2. Use voting to establish the site behaviour. That is, if you don't think someone has done their research (as indicated by the hover text on the voting buttons), then down-vote the question. That's literally what the voting system is designed for. Down-voting is not something that one should be scared of doing. It's one of the only (anonymous) ways we have to distinguish between relevant/good content and irrelevant/bad content.

   Additionally, you can vote-to-close with a reason of the question being "too broad", as there are no specifics in the question for which help is requested. New users who take advantage of this will soon learn that such behaviour is not well received here.

This allows users who want to have fun in answering do-it-for-me question to do so. If a question is closed before they can answer, then cast a re-open vote, or ping a moderator, or start a discussion in chat where you'll find plenty of support to re-open something.

Answer 3

I personally do answer question which lack an MWE or a perfect MWE if they are still answerable (e.g. they are using some local images instead of example-image-duck I'll leave a comment saying that we don't have those files available and that he should use example-image-duck, but still would work on an answer). I sometimes even answer do-it-for-me questions if I have enough spare time and like the challenge or think the answer is easy enough to not be a challenge at all.

If a user gets rude towards me for me requesting some work on their end, wherever I find it appropriate, I try to remember myself to not answer questions from that particular user if they are not well stated including an MWE. So in this case I'd ban the user you're anonymously referring to from my personal help/support list (or more precise add to a blacklist) for as long as they need to become well-behaving. Currently I have 1 user on said ban list and in that case I left a comment stating that he won't get any new answer from me unless said conditions are met.

Answer 4

I agree with Alan's answer here. No one should feel the need to justify answering or not answering a question. If you want to answer do, and if you don't don't. If you feel the OP is abusing the site and repeatedly asking poor questions downvote (if you wish).

If I had the time or inclination to learn tikz, I'd probably try to answer as many tikz questions as I could as I have always found that to be a useful learning strategy. Whether or not the person asking the question has made a reasonable attempt to answer themselves really isn't that relevant in such a case. Answering the majority of questions posted to comp.text.tex a lifetime ago is how i learnt Tex in the first place.

Currently (as I'm quite happy with picture mode and not trying to learn tikz in depth) If someone posts a tikz question without a MWE I am quite likely to comment asking for one, as with a non working example I can often debug and make a reasonable answer, but without an example I wouldn't know where to start.

So whether or not it's reasonable to answer poor questions is as much about the state of mind of the person who is answering as about the attitude of the person asking the question. I don't like any of the boilerplate texts used on the site, and certainly would not like to see any standard texts used here.