What is a "do it for me" question?

Question

There is a huge number of questions using the term "do it for me" question (such as [1], [2], [3] and many more), and I would like to understand what the term means. The most precise definition I have come across has kindly been provided by Marijn in a comment, and says:

1. asks to draw something based on an image or a short description ("I want to draw a normal distribution"),
2. does not provide any code or evidence of research or effort,
3. the drawing that is asked is complex, and
4. it is very specific and therefore probably not useful for anybody other than the OP

(but 5. it may serve as a good showcase for techniques used in the answer that are useful for other people).

My main question is very simple:

is this the meaning most of the users agree on?

That is, if you have a (very) different definition in mind, please give it in an answer.

My subquestions are:

1. Are "do it for me" questions necessarily drawings (and not tables or equations, say)?
2. What if the OP provides some code that can hardly be used to answer the question?
3. How is complexity precisely defined? That is, what if the OP asks for a complex output, which is however rather easy to achieve with some trick or package?
4. If a question is very narrow and the answer is unlikely to benefit anyone but the one who asked the question, do we have a separate way of referring to them (e.g. "low general benefit"), or even close them?

Any answer is welcome. In particular if it also explains why the "do it for me" term is used. Naively in any question the asker asks the community to do something for them, namely answering the question. (Which is what I am doing here, too. ;-) )

_{For the linguists, I am interested in the intensional definition of the term "do it for me" question.}

_{If otherwise useless this thread can be interesting to exemplify a clash of cultures between people from different fields. There seems to be a rather large number of users who prefer a vague qualitative approach over a precise one. Maybe language is inherently like this. On the other hand, mathematics is communicated in the usual languages, and at least in this context is possible to make precise, falsifiable statements.}

Answer 1

Yes, the characterization of a "just do it for me" you give matches quite closely with how I used the term in my question. It also matches various other characterizations to be found in the other meta questions you link to in your question. While people seem to disagree about whether they should be answered or not, most people do seem to admit that the rough description given is what fits the category. Like any categorization in regular natural language, the category will be fuzzy, and not definable in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.

My answers to the sub-questions:

1. I think table and equation images posted with no code fit into the category but they have a higher likelihood of being useful to others, perhaps.

2. Asking how much code needs to be supplied can quickly lead to the Sorites Paradox. There is no magic amount, but most people would like to see some code that shows that the person has tried something that resembles some or part of the image they're trying to reproduce.

3. Complexity is not precisely defined. This is the nature of language.

4. Again, there is no precise definition of what would count as very narrow, In the case of very specific diagrams, though, although there may be general techniques used in answers (one can obviously learn from any code) their usefulness seems limited.

5. I think the term gets used because it picks out a class of questions that many users perceive to be a kind of abuse of the "social contract" of the site (and I'm specifically avoiding using the term "rules" here.) Namely, some measure of prior research is expected of questions, and these sorts of questions very clearly don't show any at all. This combined with the relative amount of work it might take someone to answer the question is why some think that they are an abuse.

But I also think that most people have also realized that there will always be people who find it fun to answer these questions and therefore there's nothing to be gained by trying to legislate against them (something I agree with).

Answer 2

My interpretation of a do-it-for-me question follows your collection of points, but with less precision. I'd almost define it more broadly with the following characteristics:

1. Asks to create something based on an image or a short description.

2. Does not provide any code or evidence of research or effort.

This therefore includes things like drawings, equations, tables, layouts and the like. This even includes someone asking "What is that symbol used in X to represent Y again?" Why? For many reasons, depending on your interpretation of the question (because yes, they're using their language, which may not mean the same thing for everyone). Here are some interpretations:

• If it's just looking for the name of the symbol, then it's off-topic here, so move along. Off-topic questions should be closed.

• If they know what the symbol looks like and only show you an image, then they can do a bit of research via Detexify or the Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List to search for the symbol. From there, if they didn't find anything, perhaps they can include an image of their drawing, show their search on Detexify and mention that they've covered the symbol list, but without that an observer can argue that this person is leaving all of the research on the community's shoulders.

In short, and this echoes Alan's mention of language, its usage and interpretation or meaning, there would only exist rough guidelines for what the general audience would consider a do-it-for-me-type question. It's not a list of definitive check-boxes, nor is it something that necessarily qualifies when it meets all the criteria. Go figure! We've seen numerous examples of this on the site as well, where a question is posed without much research effort, yet it's received acclaim beyond the average. Examples include (literally just taken from the list of questions sorted by vote):

• When should I use \input vs. \include?

• Remove ugly borders around clickable cross-references and hyperlinks

• How to influence the position of float environments like figure and table in LaTeX?

• How to look up a symbol or identify a math symbol or character?

When you look at any of the above question, they seem to meet both criteria listed above (create something from a short description and doesn't provide much in terms of research). Some of these may have stemmed from a conversation in chat, or on Meta, about a canonical question related to some set of FAQs. That is not always evident from the post and therefore the do-it-for-me phrase here may have a different meaning. Others may be such generic or fundamental questions that there's no way around asking the question in that way.

Since the interpretation is inherently vague, it varies in how its handled from person to person. Some feel that the questioner may be a novice and should be guided or hand-held through the process from start to finish. Others feel that such posts should be dismissed as it doesn't deserve their attention. We can't fit everything into a particular set of rules or boxes, because invariably you'll one day find something that should fit the box, but doesn't... _{or fits a particular box but doesn't have the right colour... or fits a particular box but doesn't have the right shape... or...}

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My answers to your sub-questions are:

1. Are "do it for me" questions necessarily drawings (and not tables or equations, say)?

No. There are a broad range of questions I feel that are not drawings that ask to create something.

2. What if the OP provides some code that can hardly be used to answer the question?

That's okay, if it shows some form of research or effort. Why not?

3. How is complexity precisely defined? That is, what if the OP asks for a complex output, which is however rather easy to achieve with some trick or package?

Do-it-for-me questions have nothing to do with complexity in my opinion.

4. If a question is very narrow and the answer is unlikely to benefit anyone but the one who asked the question, do we have a separate way of referring to them (e.g. "low general benefit"), or even close them?

Scope of the question has nothing to do with do-it-for-me type questions. The question can be very narrow and have only a singular use/benefit, and that's fine. If it shows that the user has done some research and effort in trying to achieve their goal, then that's good.

Answer 3

As I understand it, a "do-it-for-me" question is a question in which the circumstance plays a role that the questioner has a task to do and is not so much concerned with gaining the deeper understanding necessary for accomplishing the task him-/herself.
For the questioner the "do-it-for-me" question is a means to have the task accomplished by those who answer the question, or to have "pieces" delivered by those who answer the question, which he or she can then with little effort put together into a solution to the task.

To put it casually:

With a "do-it-for-me" question the focus of the questioner is not on acquiring the knowledge he or she needs for doing the donkey-work himself/herself but the focus of the questioner is on having the donkey-work done by those who answer the question.

Since the reasons for writing "do-it-for-me" questions can be quite diverse, I am not one of those who are fundamentally against "do-it-for-me" questions—as long as the questioners deal openly with the circumstance that it is a "do-it-for-me" question. If you already know a little bit, such questions sometimes can be a nice pastime.

But I don't like questioners trying to hide the fact that there is a "do-it-for-me" question. This often leads to questions being asked in a more general way at first—in the hope that there is someone among the respondents who provides what is needed for solving the special case. If this doesn't work out, by and by the question is narrowed down to the special case: The questioner in his/her comments by and by mentions additional conditions that were not mentioned before—or the posting containing the question is changed by and by accordingly—, which makes it necessary to take a completely different approach, so that the work done in the initial answers is in vain. And those who answered arrive at the unpleasant realization that one could have saved oneself this work if the questioner from the start had said everything.

Do not confuse "do-it-for-me" questions with questions that also are motivated by attempts at getting a task accomplished, but where the problems have made the questioner aware that he or she lacks knowledge, and where the questioner now wishes to acquire this knowledge in order to be able to cope with similar tasks without assistance in the future. (That wish may be linked to the desire to get a concrete example where one is familiar with the underlying problem and therefore can more easily learn how to approach such things.)

Classifying a question as a "do-it-for-me" question implies making a statement about the underlying motivations of the questioner. Identifying underlying motivations often is difficult. Cautiousness, thoroughness and conciliatoriness are needed here. Especially since TeX/LaTeX is something that for beginners is often accompanied by a steep learning curve, which means that beginners may quickly reach a point where they have to ask others for advice on the source code for documents they want/have to write with TeX/LaTeX. Furthermore, StackExchange is a communication medium which allows only very limited insight into the situation/motivations of the individual communication participants.

I like the idea of TeX-LaTeX StackExchange of having a collection of questions that explains the many individual basic facts in such a way that you can "assemble" your own solutions to your specific problems/tasks using this collection.

But I see a problem and this problem is one of the main reasons why I don't reject every "do-it-for-me" question:

Many beginners are not familiar with the programming-paradigms, concepts and terms that underlie TeX and LaTeX. It is therefore difficult for them to break a problem down into partial aspects in such a way that individual aspects of the way TeX/LaTeX works can—for the sake of re-usability—be explained separately.

This breaking down and then explaining the individual aspects, and how they work together, needs to be done for them and shown to them by someone who is familiar with the subject.

Answer 4

I still do not really know what a "do it for me" question is.

However, from how the term gets used I see that this is a term that, willingly or unwillingly, divides the users. Ultimately, by using such categories there will be (or already is) a division between "good" users who ask useful questions and perhaps not so good users who ask (or even answer) "do it for me" questions.

Some seem to look down on those who ask questions that one can instantly answer. I, too, would really love to be in a community in which everyone is somewhere close to my point of the learning curve at which I am, certainly this would help me most. It may just not be realistic to wish this to happen. There will always be some who know stuff better than I, and if I ask them something what they think is trivial, I'd still appreciate it to get some answer that helps me and is tailored to my needs.²

I'd like to ask the community of users not to try to oversimplify matters, and in particular to avoid using divisive, oversimplified terms.¹ Rather, if you want to judge or rate something, vote on posts. If you are not excited about a post, just do not upvote (or even downvote if you must).

Please avoid introducing terms that assess the quality of posts beyond what voting does.

_{1 I am aware that most users do not have the intention of dividing the users. Nonetheless the effects of using such oversimplified terms are unfortunately divisive.}

_{2 I totally can see how a question which leaves all the efforts to the answerer may not very popular. Yet, for me personally, it is hardest to answer the question which come with an extensive preamble of unrelated stuff, which leaves the answerer with all the weeding tasks in addition to answering the question. To the best of my knowledge no one ever found a category for those. Let's keep it that way.}