# Should more context be expected from verification questions?

Should more context be expected from verification questions?

A basic (proof) verification question will contain the proof they want verified and a question along the lines "Is this correct?"One of the downsides to these sort of questions is that they tend to only receive answers that belong in comments, and normally the answers are in comments. For example: Roots of $z^5 (z − 2) = w$ in Unit disk is such a question with the essentially useless comment answer (to anyone but the OP). From my perspective these sort of questions don't get put on hold because there is an honest effort put forward by the OP, but I am not sure if that is enough to make the question valuable. (Maybe these questions are closed, I just don't see to many proof-verification questions put on hold)

I think that there should be a higher expectation of context to these sort of questions. The type of context I am thinking of is along the lines of the OP finding a couple of spots that they are unsure with, or leaps in logic that they are pretty sure are true but can not pinpoint why. This gives an answerer something to work with and address, and any answer should be expected to address the points the OP asks about. Plus these more conceptual questions are the questions that the OP should be asking anyways, but now they also have the added benefit of having people critique their proof so they can gain confidence in their proof writing skills. An excellent example of this is: Prove $f$ is uniformly continuous (although, as of posting this, they did not get an answer that addresses their concerns).

Basically I think context should be added so that these sort of questions get more valuable answers, and in turn these sort of questions become more valuable than they are now.

Some related questions:

• The suggested behaviour when answering those (cf. here) puts the "burden" of fleshing out the answer to make it work keeping on the answerer. I don't think all OPs will be able to pinpoint weaknesses in their argument, so I'm afraid they won't be able to supply the type of context you describe. – AlexR Mar 30 '15 at 18:20
• I believe these kinds of questions serve a purpose for math students, and often there is some improvement to be suggested about presentation, an overlooked corner of the proof, or even a fundamental misunderstanding. But sometimes the OP's proof is actually well done. I reviewed a one-line Answer to such a verification request Q today ("yes, your proof is completely okay"), and resisted the temptation to recommend deletion. It was a close call, because the correctness was also vouchsafed in a Comment, and there was a 2nd Answer that went into how the result and its proof might generalize. – hardmath Apr 7 '15 at 4:34