Asking/answering questions which are 'discussed in every guide'

Question

I recently did the following:

latex test.tex
$ bibtex test.tex
I couldn't open file name `test.tex.aux'

Once I had tracked down the cause of the problem, I felt stupid for not having noticed it earlier -- but at the same time, I wasted five minutes on it. I then posted a Q+A; my reasoning was that I wanted to save time for anyone else who hits the same problem.

(Also, even if it's only in a small way, I want to give something back to the site. I ask a lot more questions than I answer. That's usually because all the easy questions are snapped up before I reach them, so recording simple things like this is one of the few ways I can provide answers.)

In any case, after I had posted this, an experienced user noted that this common problem was warned against in every LaTeX manual. After a short discussion, I wrote:

if it is the case that some questions should not be asked because everyone should know better/it's in every guide, it would be great to have that policy documented somewhere

I'm following that user's suggestion and opening up the question here: is it alright to ask and answer questions about issues discussed in every LaTeX guide? I might add that one reason I'm inclined to do so is that the last time I had time to read a LaTeX guide cover to cover was about 10 years ago; now I try and pick things up as I need them, and when I hit errors Google and this site are my first two ports of call.

Edit: also, my reasoning was that this kind of sentiment applied: because this is a website rather than a paper manual, and it has a search function, adding extra material doesn't impose very high costs on anyone. But perhaps you will disagree with me about that...

This may also be relevant: How "elitist" should the site be?

Answer 1

I would like to add couple points, the second part of my post is probably more important.

Many people think: "Oh this can happen someone else as well, let's make it a self-answered question." The problem is that somehow such posts often miss the basic good qualities of a post. (I do not say these apply to your case.) The most common ones are the following:

• Question not being properly stated (MWEs missing, question to vague, generally in for that obviously nobody else is able to answer it because they don't know what's it about).

• Mixing questions and answers (parts of the answer is posted in the question etc.).

• Answer not being of much help anyways.

It seems that none of these "objtective" points apply to your case, which means that somehow the Q&A are not bad.

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On the other hand, I believe that people searching for solutions of really "simple" problems usually cannot find it anyways, no matter how well you try with your question. In my opinion, the "answer your own question" idea is more suited for tough problems where many other people can benefit from reading it.

And in my opinion this has nothing to do with the site being elitist. Your question is completely answerable so if you asked it not knowing the solution, in 2 minutes you would get an answer: "Remove .tex from the command."

Answer 2

I fully agree with @Mohan's post. I recognize the sentiment brought forward. I would like to add the following thoughts.

First, I think questions should be asked no matter how "simple" they are since users have very varied backgrounds. As I stated in a different discussion I also think that the site can be a very valuable platform for incresing knowledge and also attract new users to LaTeX.

The problem with some questions is that they can be solved by a simple search. I therefore think that any person posting a question should have given it some effort and perhaps there should be an addition to the FAQ indicating a few good web sources for basic information (such as for example lshort and the LaTeX Wikibook). I know this is stated but perhaps not as clearly as needed in the system. There is of course not possible to still weed out those who have no intention to search for an answer but just want the answer served. I think that is something one has to accept.

Another aspect is that what is difficult for one may be simple for someone else, particularly for beginners.

I think one problem for a site such as this, where we all get educated by the excellent answers provided by the peers, is that as we all get more and more educated it becomes easier to discard more and more questions as too simple. Add to that the problem that they are likely may have been asked already. So they key question is then how to best manage the "simpler" questions from the perspective of the person asking.