# Tag Info

39

26

The user-interface actively encourages self-answers; I do not think it is reasonable to override this completely. Moreover, self-answered questions can be useful and I believe to recall various established users on this site used them on some occasions. However, I do think quite firmly that it is alright to impose higher standards on self-answered ...

25

I'm new here, but I don't see why it would be a problem. From the about page: Mathematics Stack Exchange is for people studying mathematics at any level and professionals in related fields. We welcome questions about: Understanding mathematical concepts and theorems. Mathematical problems such as one might come across in a course or textbook. ...

19

The answer to the question if it is allowed is readily found in the help center: Can I answer my own question? The short version of the answer given there is: "Yes!" On top of that the software explicitly supports self-answering. The more relevant question should be how this will be received. It is said in OP "[...]I think this question helps others." ...

19

If OP gets a very brief if not incomplete answer, and then adds their own answer which is a more complete version, who should be marked as Answering the Question. Whichever answer the OP finds most useful. Most design and functionality aspects of this site serve a purpose. Many serve to make the process of asking and answering as easy and painless as ...

19

The software allows you to self-delete a Question provided there is no up-voted or Accepted Answer. In the situation you describe it seems there is no Answer posted at all, so in that case self-deleting is an option. What you describe is something that happens to most of us, and is in itself a valuable lesson to learn (that with sufficient attention to ...

19

If you're posting a question and answer that that have long term value, then why not? By posting it on MathSE, you are not only making it easily accessible to your students, but to any future students you have or any anyone else studying the same topic. Also, it gives anyone else on the site, either now or in the future, the chance to weight in the question ...

19

Yes. You are allowed, and even encouraged, to answer your own questions, not just on MSE but everywhere else on the SE network: see these questions on the main Meta and this page in the Help Center. In short, the reason is because by self-answering questions, even in the case where you have asked the question intentionally to answer it yourself, you are ...

18

I rather like the general idea of exposing students to StackExchange. There is a lot to be gained, particularly for those students who haven't seen it before. It introduces students to a useful repository of mathematical information. Those who become users will obtain a gentle introduction to some useful technical tools such as LaTeX snippets and Markdown. ...

17

I agree that questions and answers should be judged by their individual merits. Should a user provide a large number of useful self-answered questions, we should really count ourselves lucky that someone is taking the time to provide this service. I, for one, would greatly prefer this over the usual lazy homework/textbook/assignment/text/exam/contest/&c. ...

17

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

I don't think it's a good idea to post your attempt at an answer. If you're not sure about it, then it is more a part of the question. If you figure it out after asking, though, go ahead and post your new solution. I include my attempt in the question. I start by stating the problem, which I highlight with a > to make it stand out. Then I give my general ...

15

It will be more useful if each question identifies the book, edition, and problem/page number. This helps in detecting duplicates, improves the accuracy of the Related questions list, and makes the textbooks more valuable to people learning from them.

13

In this context I want to bring up two possible uses of self-answered questions. My goal in posting this as an answer is to poll our user base, and learn whether people find this palatable. I am aware that theses cases form a tiny fraction of the possibilities related to self-answering. For the purposes of this discussion the point is that may be we can ...

12

Since my self-answered question is the most recent example that OP has seen of this, and since I've posted such self-answered questions quite a bit (see here and here and here and here), I figured I should post an answer to at least make my own motivation clear. :) I'm currently a teaching assistant for a precalculus class that I've been a teaching ...

12

The rationale behind the context requirements is, ultimately, that we want well-written questions. I understand what you're getting at: if you post a simple one line PSQ and a follow it up with an answer, then one might be inclined to think the answer could serve in some sense as context, especially if it is nice and detailed. But structuring things in that ...

11

It is allowed. But self-answered questions receive additional amount of scrutiny; in some users' opinion (including mine) they need more to justify their existence than "regular" questions. If it's a result to which you or other users are likely to refer later, self-answered question makes perfect sense. But yours looks like a puzzle in which you gave away ...

11

When you flag an answer as "not an answer" or "very low quality", the answer is pushed into the Low Quality review queue where other users can judge whether in their opinion your flag was justified. In this case, all three reviewers chose the "Looks OK" option, which resulted in your flag being "disputed". After that review, another user flagged the post as "...

10

9

Just to give my two cents, I'll say what I do about it. If my question was answered in the comments, then I @ ping the person who answered, telling them that my problem is solved and they can upgrade the comment to an answer. If I get no feedback, then I make a community wiki answer explaining the solution to the question, and referring to the comments ...

9

I think adding a self-answer is the appropriate behavior. Actually, I did so several times, e.g. here. I got an answer, the answer helped me to get a grasp on the problem, I then thought about the problem a bit more and in the end I had enough knowledge to type an answer that I would have given if the question would have been from someone else. Similar ...

8

I agree with the sentiment Gerry Myerson made in the comments above. Ideally, $A$ should post $CQ$ as a new question. If $A$ does not do so, $B$ should feel perfectly justified in creating a self-answered question. Why should $A$ be the one to post $CQ$? Simply put, comments are not the right place to be asking stand-alone questions. If $B$ recommends \$...

8

I would not object to this. Perhaps you could post the questions several hours apart and wait a few hours to post your answers. Posting questions several hours apart avoids an initial clump of questions. Waiting a few hours to post your answers gives others a chance answer the question without the aid of your posted answer.

8

If the questions was closed for lack of context (or "lack of shown effort", although this is not an official name for a close reason), then I think it should not have been closed in this case. The problem is simply that the users who voted to close did not notice the self-answer. (It is especially easy to miss when voting from the review queue.) In my ...

8

On MSE, it is recommended to accept answers (even your own), in order to mark questions as "solved" (and close them). When you accept your own answer, you don't get the usual 15 reputation points. You get up- or down-votes, though. Currently, your own answer is the one with the recent activity; if I choose to rank answers according to activity (it's a tab ...

6

I think it's rather simple: write the question as if you didn't intend to self-answer it, and write the answer as if you hadn't been the one to ask the question. The question is going to be held up to the same standards as all the other questions and should stand up on its own, and similarly for your answer. Trying to cut corners will only result in ...

Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible