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The Stack Overflow has an interesting guided mode which got implemented quite recently, see https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/381671/the-ask-question-wizard-is-live .

Personally I think it would be a great addition to the site, as it could increase quality of questions by sort of enforcing things like context of the question, of course unless a person disables the guided mode. In context of this site, it could remind users to consider formatting using MathJax and searching using https://approach0.xyz/search/ for example.

Are there any plans or is there any interest in having this on this site as well?

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    $\begingroup$ An older discussion (although rather old): Should M.SE consider a Question Wizard Guide? I will also add link to my post: Suggestions for examples of well-asked questions. (If there is going to be such wizard, some of the points mentioned there could be used.) $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 1, 2019 at 8:18
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    $\begingroup$ Perhaps in this context it is worth reminding that users are shown "How to ask" page when asking for the first time. This was introduced as a result of this discussion: Show “how to ask” advice before a new user asks a question. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 1, 2019 at 12:12
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    $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak: Is there a way to see what the current new-asker experience is, other than creating a throwaway email to make a new account? $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 2, 2019 at 9:57
  • $\begingroup$ @HenningMakholm I don't think there is - anyway I have asked in chat whether somebody has a reasonable idea. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 2, 2019 at 10:02
  • $\begingroup$ i see that question wizard was discussed on several per-site metas. Does somebody know whether it was actually implemented on some other site than SO? $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 6:21
  • $\begingroup$ I thought that adding [feature-request] tag would attract some admins attention who would be able to address this, but I guess not, should have made it with [bug] instead ... It's mind-boggling that SE still does not have a proper reporting system so we just don't end up discussing it with ourselves (as seems to be a case on other sites as well) $\endgroup$
    – Sil
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 7:46

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There seems to be an inherent tension between, on one hand, providing an ask-question wizard that will actually help homework askers with asking their question in a good way, and on the other hand not giving the impression that homework help is what MSE is for.

The really good questions that we always want and need more are not about homework. They would be ill served by being shoehorned into a homework template -- or worse yet, the person with the question could get the idea that his question is not welcome here because it doesn't fit the template.

(The basic difference is that homework questions are asked by people who in principle ought to know enough to solve the problem by themself. Answering such a question -- other than with a ready-to-hand-in solution -- requires figuring out which particular piece of the knowledge the asker should have they are missing, hence why we keep asking for own work, failed attempts, etc. This is different from really good questions, which are most often asked out of honest curitosity and there is no expectation that the asker can do any work to show. On a general, abstract level, it is still helpful to know which level of previous knowledge the asker has, but it is hard to ask for that with template prompts that are also practically helpful to the homework asker).

I played around a bit with the SO feature. It starts out very promising, with a "what type of question do you have?" multiple-choice prompt. Unfortunately it looks like the only thing the answer to that is used for is suggesting other sites to ask at for some types of question. When you get through to the actual question template, it is the same no matter what the initial type selected was.

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    $\begingroup$ I don't see a need for reducing it to a homework template, instead something along the lines: describe your thoughts about the problem, describe the context - why is it important for you, you get the idea. The fact that SO has some settings does not mean it cannot be customized for MSE needs. $\endgroup$
    – Sil
    Commented Aug 2, 2019 at 16:43

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