Our Do-it-for-me and Draw-it-for-me comments don't reflect our hypocrisy. Can they be improved?

Question

Yes, we don't like people pasting something and asking how can I do this? or if it is TikZ, PSTricks, Asymptote case how can I-draw this? without even making a template of a TeX document, let alone creating something that almost looks like an attempt (whether working or not).

And our bot comments attack (I'm not criticizing but it takes two clicks to insert our blocks, it's just what it is :) Anyways, just under those comments a bored user, including myself, might post an answer because s/he is sitting on the train or using Matlab so has ridiculous free time while it computes, or any other reason to do what the question asks for. This is a perfect example of our inconsistency and the comments could probably reflect this.

This is our current stock comment for "Just do it for me" graphics questions at Text building blocks

Welcome to TeX.SX. Questions about how to draw specific graphics that just post an image of the desired result are really not reasonable questions to ask on the site. Please post a minimal compilable document showing that you've tried to produce the image and then people will be happy to help you with any specific problems you may have. See minimal working example (MWE) for what needs to go into such a document.

I would propose something along the lines of;

Your question leaves all the effort to our community, even typing the essentials of a TeX document such as `\documentclass{}...\begin{document}` etc. As it is, most of our users will be very reluctant to touch your question, and you are left to the mercy of our procrastination team who are very few in number and very picky about selecting questions. You can improve your question by adding a [minimal working example (MWE)](https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/q/228) that more users can copy/paste onto their systems to work on. If no hero takes the challenge we might have to close your question.

I think this is less formal and more to the point with less self-conflict.

What do you say? Please post your alternatives and also can you fix my english in the meantime?

Thanks!

percusse

Answer 1

I like your proposed text block and intend to use it in the future.

_{("Answering" questions on Meta feels weird)}

Answer 2

I think an important pedagogical angle also needs to be emphasised. A significant point of the OP providing an attempt at coding is that it is an indication of their level of expertise. It's not just about helping with problems but knowing at what level you need to start your discussion from. Neither of the code blocks as presented emphasise this enough I feel. "Produce a minimal compilable example and then we'll help you.", or "Don't expect us to do all the work.", have reasonable sentiments behind them. The suggested block is too long and too chatty I think and doesn't really add to the key message.

Perhaps the following minimum comment might do:

Recommended practice at TeX.SE is to include a a minimal working example with your question. The importance of this, or at least providing some code that you have tried unsuccessfully to run, is that it will give any answerer a good indication of where to start with their help.

The following sentences could optionally be added to the above to clarify:

For example, if you're a beginner, you don't want someone to suggest the most complicated package available.

Otherwise, it's no different than expecting a doctor to know what's wrong with you without providing any symptoms.

Answer 3

To be honest, I think we'd be better without boiler plate text blocks for this kind of thing, If a situation isn't worth writing a custom comment, it's probably not worth making a comment at all.

Answer 4

Since other text blocks that we paste in sometimes have alternatives, perhaps both this one and the original one can be preserved, and people can use whichever one suits their degree of formality/hypocrisy.