# Tag Info

101

Provide Context Context matters. A question can sometimes be answered in one sentence when the discussion is between two experts familiar with each other's background, while the same question may take many paragraphs of detailed computation when being shown to an undergraduate student. By providing a context you help the potential responders to your ...

55

A good title The title of a question is the first thing people see. Like headings in newspapers, book, song and album titles, their importance is not to be underestimated -- the presence of a good, descriptive title for your question often greatly improves the exposure (and hence the amount and quality of answers) it gets. To ensure maximal descriptiveness ...

46

Avoid "no clue" questions Too many questions begin or end with "I don't even know how to begin with this problem". While this may be true (you may genuinely have no idea how to approach the problem), it is still not a valid reason to limit your post to the statement of the problem without any mention of your own thoughts. Such questions will most of the ...

45

Since this will be inevitable: Vote this up if you think Context Missing (see definition below) should be among our "Off topic" reasons. (And down if you think otherwise.) (Please vote on the idea of having a listing such as this, and not on the exact phrasing I used below. If you think the listing is poorly phrased, you can comment below with ...

39

Mathematical typesetting using MathJax Mathematics.SE uses the emulation engine MathJax for providing $\TeX$-like mathematical typesetting. This means that you can use mathematical notation in your questions in a visually appealing way. How can I use MathJax? Basic information: This gives a quick start for people familiar with the $\TeX$-family of markup ...

36

Tagging Tags are a way to help us organize posts on this website. People also use them to locate the questions they will find the most interesting. Thus, good tagging helps to attract the best potential answerers to your question. How do you select the best tags for your question Tags are about content. Tags (except "meta" tags, see below) are supposed to ...

36

I largely agree with this sentiment. The "work" done by an asker generally detracts from questions in numerous ways. It obfuscates what the asked question actually is. It prompts users to not answer the question asked, but instead show why that particular line of reasoning doesn't/won't work. It can make it more difficult for others with the same literal ...

34

Formatting and writing This is not some random internet forum. We strive for well-composed questions and answers of lasting value -- so keep in mind that your question can be of interest to others as well. Posing a well-formatted question Use proper English to the best of your ability The use of proper spelling, grammar and punctuation makes your ...

26

For the specific question, the context seems completely clear. The question reads: How deep is the liquid in a half-full hemisphere? I have a baking recipe that calls for 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract, but I only have a 1 tsp measuring spoon available, since the dishwasher is running. The measuring spoon is very nearly a perfect hemisphere. My question is, to ...

22

"Missing context" is a bit of a catch-all term, but basically it's a request for you to motivate the question (why do you want to solve this? Why is it interesting for you, and for people who might help you with it?) and to show some effort (there's a $\sqrt{2}$ there that suggests there's a substitution that might work -- what have you tried? Where did it ...

21

It is considered, by not few though certainly not all, as a requirement for a questioner to provide context for the question asked. This context can take many forms, one of them is their work on the problem. When "someone finds an interesting problem" there most always will be some story to this finding. Recounting this story can serve as context. While I ...

20

I think there are two separate issues: The complaint about your edit is of course unsubstantiated. If you face such a situation, please feel free to flag. (Flagging the post can be preferable to flagging in chat, as chat flags go to all network mods, while post flags stay on the site.) I was in the chat room when the comment was posted but had not (yet) ...

19

To edit posts to improve them is appropriate. However, one should make sure to respect the author's intent. Moreover, I recommend to focus such activities on questions that one actually finds worthwhile.

18

Sorry about being late to weigh in - I was busy last weekend. Why I support this feature-request? The norm re context that we have developed means that new questions at varying levels of mathematical sophistication often get put on hold for falling short of that standard. That is all well. But, the fact that the message This question is missing context or ...

16

It can be taken into account but in general it is not sufficient. For example, if the question is difficult to understand due to missing explanations of the notation, then this is not (usually) adequately addressed by providing an answer that continues to use the unexplained notation. Further, as you nicely point out yourself there can be rather ...

16

Actually, apart from the fact that you don't make the question clear in the title, it's well phrased and I disagree with the commentor. According to the question's edit history the context has been there from the start, and the major issue was with the MathJax. But: "range of $y=f(x)$" is not a question. I think you mean "What is the range of $y=f(x)$?", ...

13

After some discussion among the mod team, we've come to the proposal of changing the wording of the "off-topic: missing context" close reason. We plan to update the message to: This question is missing context or other details: Please provide additional context, which ideally explains why the question is relevant to you and our community. Some forms ...

13

I will repeat that the full text of the banner displayed after the question is put on hold looks like this: This question is missing context or other details: Please improve the question by providing additional context, which ideally includes your thoughts on the problem and any attempts you have made to solve it. This information helps others identify ...

12

(A new answer instead of editing Willie Wong's because of the long comment thread there.) There has been introduced a new standard close reason: This question is missing context or other details: Please improve the question by providing additional context, which ideally includes your thoughts on the problem and any attempts you have made to solve it. ...

12

The problem (most of) those comments are addressing are not related to posts from people who have interesting problems that they can't solve, but rather students who copy-and-paste their homework assignments and demand answers. Those problems are not interesting and have no inherent value aside from helping the student get a higher grade on his homework ...

12

I think I understand your concern, but I feel like adding a few words of consolation. I am quite content with the way the processes available to our core users work in cases like these. The close/reopen cycles converge the way they should in most cases (not talking about the rare c/r/u/d wars). In particular, the self-correcting mechanisms we have ...

12

I believe that this issue of what and what's not on-topic, or what counts as a question deserving closure has cropped up too many times in MSE. Is it the standing policy of this community to allow a question only if they meet every single one of these requirements? First of all, let's go through all the reasons for closure. Duplicate: this may not have ...

12

No, it is not unreasonable. In fact, it is recommended to do so. Countless times a question has been made comprehensible/answerable even for simple matters such as correcting typos. The above is the response in general. For this case in particular, the question is absolutely incomprehensible. The contents lead me to believe that indeed there is no reference ...

11

Firstly, I would say that you probably did not read the FAQ called How to Ask a Good Question. It basically tells you what "context" means as well as how to provide it. It is also shown to every new asker (and it is their responsibility to read it). After collecting little experience in MSE, it appears to me that the demand for context might be ...

11

I would say as long as you make the question easily discoverable and self-contained, extra background (within reason) is harmless and usually helpful. In general, I would recommend putting the question at the very top, clearly marked, and preceded only by any context that is necessary to understand the question. Further, the additional background, etc. ...

10

As Asaf alludes to in his comments, the question is closed because enough users have voted to close it. It's rather like trial-by-jury: if a sufficient number of people are convinced, a verdict is pronounced. You might not like that, but it is a way of approaching things that at least attempts to be democratic. Also, similarly to trial-by-jury, you can ...

9

Reading the question it is entirely unclear what the asker knows and does not know. For instance: do they know what $\mathbb{Z}/3\mathbb{Z}$ is? If you read the comments under your answer, it would seem like they do, but nowhere does the question reflect this. Do they know what $R[x]$ means when $R$ is a ring? Do they think that $3[x]$ is an ideal? What do ...

9

The question is terse to an extreme and certainly would benefit from adding a little more detail to the context (for example, drawing out Pascal's triangle and indicating the diagonal entries that sparked interest). You're right, there's not a lot else that can be said about the question; what could be added to make it a better fit (if that's the right word)...

9

[Promoted from comment to answer, by popular demand] It means that teachers like to formulate their answers to meet the needs of individual students, and can't do that if we don't know anything about the student. If a question just asks, "what's the integral of $\rm{sech}^2x$?" then we don't know whether the student's problem is not knowing what $\rm{sech}^... 8 Pare question to its basics Pare your problem down to the minimum core problem. Instead of asking for $$\frac{\sin 2 k \sqrt{3 + q^3}}{b! (b-2)!} \int\limits_{x=0}^{\infty} \frac{e^{-x^2/(2 \sigma^2)} \cos \sqrt{3 + \sqrt{y}}}{\sqrt[3]{2 - 1/g}}\ dx$$ for constant$k$,$b$,$\sigma$,$y$, and$g$, eliminate all constants and ask about$\$\int\limits_{x=0}^\...

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