Timeline for Do all questions need to show work?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 29, 2023 at 14:59 | answer | added | Sarvesh Ravichandran Iyer | timeline score: 7 | |
| Mar 29, 2023 at 5:42 | comment | added | Sarvesh Ravichandran Iyer | I will expand on the comment in an answer then. | |
| Mar 29, 2023 at 4:20 | comment | added | Snared | @SarveshRavichandranIyer you should post this comment as an answer | |
| Mar 29, 2023 at 3:52 | comment | added | Sarvesh Ravichandran Iyer | There are at least two situations (other than solution-verification questions) where showing work is the best form of context (1) When the OP was instructed to use a certain proof method (e.g. use Gaussian elimination to find solution to matrix equation) (2) When one can use OP effort to probe the question (for example, a well-drawn diagram for a geometry question, or well-written code for a conjecture on the convergence of some sequence). In many other cases, showing work will be inferior to some other form of context and we should find a way of encouraging those other forms. | |
| Mar 28, 2023 at 10:50 | comment | added | kludg | Context (work, for example) helps to give better answers, and it is good in any case. Context is necessary for basic questions, otherwise it is not clear what answer is expected and highly likely without context the question will be downvoted and closed. | |
| Mar 28, 2023 at 7:31 | comment | added | PrincessEev | " would rather a clean question that doesn't have shitty work under it." -- To address this bit in particular: there is no reason to assume that the work cannot be salvaged, and I feel like this much should be obvious to anyone who has done some amount of math. A lot of "I tried X" posts that don't include the X always come off as half-hearted attempts with no serious effort or thought behind them, or worse, lying. But maybe I'm jaded. As for whether it improves the aesthetics of the question, I don't know; that I imagine is context-dependent. | |
| Mar 28, 2023 at 0:47 | comment | added | Xander Henderson Mod | Note, also, that this is kind of expected, as most of the basic, foundational questions have already been asked-and-answered, hence a novel question is likely going to require much more context in order to justify its inclusion in the database. | |
| Mar 28, 2023 at 0:46 | comment | added | Xander Henderson Mod | Note that "showing work" has never been a requirement (at least, not if "showing work" is understood to be the high school notion of demonstrating what steps have been performed in a computation). Rather, the requirement is that questions must include relevant context. There are other (better?) ways of including context---"showing work" is only one form of context. That being said, the standards have evolved over time, and there are plenty of old questions which wouldn't stand up today. | |
| Mar 28, 2023 at 0:11 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | If you have no clue how to proceed then it is much better to include other context rather than attempts that may well lead nowhere (and possibly mislead answerers into believing that you wish to consider only methods based on your attempt). But always be sure to search for related questions first (these can help you supply context, or possibly already answer your question). | |
| Mar 28, 2023 at 0:00 | comment | added | Arctic Char | That post (as of now) has 156 upvotes and 38 downvotes. There are obviously some disagreement on the quality of that post. | |
| Mar 28, 2023 at 0:00 | comment | added | Bill Dubuque | Note also that the question was tweeted by SE (and possibly also a hot network question) so it likely received many votes from users not very familiar with this site and its standards. | |
| Mar 27, 2023 at 23:46 | comment | added | lulu | To your question, I can certainly imagine questions that have value but which wouldn't benefit from "work". Translation questions, say. "I came across this mathematical phrase in German and I can't sort out exactly what it means". No need to see bad translations, surely. But context still matters. Provide the citation, describe the subject matter and the historical period (if relevant). | |
| Mar 27, 2023 at 23:44 | comment | added | lulu | Force of habit...didn't even realize I had done that. | |
| Mar 27, 2023 at 23:43 | comment | added | Snared | I like how you wrote $2016$ instead of 2016 lol. @lulu | |
| Mar 27, 2023 at 23:30 | comment | added | Snared | Gotcha, not sure who made that change then. Is it not the case that some questions are simply better without a laundry list of potentially wrong methods the OP tried? | |
| Mar 27, 2023 at 23:29 | comment | added | lulu | That's from $2016$. Site standards have changed over time. | |
| Mar 27, 2023 at 23:24 | history | asked | Snared | CC BY-SA 4.0 |