31

TL:DR: Is lack of effort a reason to close a question?

Over the past few weeks, I've seen conflicting information about whether a lack of effort should contribute to the closing of a question. I've been under the impression since I first became a member that yes, a lack of effort should be a reason to close a question. My impression was formed by:

This Question and its Top Answer

You won't have to contend with a poorly-written duplicate of a better answer that already exists somewhere else on the site. And you won't get frustrated by having your question closed, and the folks reading it won't get frustrated by having to close it.

The Official 'How to ask a good question' page

Search, and research ...and keep track of what you find. Even if you don't find a useful answer elsewhere on the site, including links to related questions that haven't helped can help others in understanding how your question is different from the rest.

However, it was recently pointed out to me, by very high reputation users that a lack of effort "Has NEVER been a reason to close a question". Is this strictly true? Is this a unanimous view?

Most recently, I have seen this as an answer to a question about why a question was closed;

Lack of Effort has never been a reason to close, but several of the commenters alluded to that and one said: "Show us the code".

The other examples were in now deleted comments, or revised answers. I guess what I want to know is - where do we really draw the line in terms of the effort expected from an OP? If there is no visible evidence of some kind of effort put forward in a question, should we vote to close it?

5
  • 10
    TL; DR; Of course it is. Best outcome is an appropriate duplicate though.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 14:17
  • 3
    @ πάντα ῥεῖ That's never been a reason to close; though other reasons were abused to try to fit that reason. It's always been a reason to downvote, however.
    – George Stocker
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 14:28
  • 12
    I think this is one of those areas where everyone has a different definition of what, "effort" means. That's going to be a hard thing to ever define consistently, so maybe a focus on effort is misleading; perhaps looking at post quality is a better thing to weigh for closure.
    – fbueckert
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 14:41
  • 3
    Possible duplicate of How much research effort is expected of Stack Overflow users?
    – Robert Columbia
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 21:02
  • 4
    @RobertColumbia Not a duplicate. That one was from the point of view of the asker; this one is from the point of view of the curator.
    – duplode
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 21:10

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
53

I have a friend who is... Good at stuff. Even stuff she's never done before. It's always risky to challenge her in a competition, because while I might have been playing a certain game for 10 years there's a non-trivial chance she'll still beat me within a few rounds.

Some folks seem to be able to get away without putting much effort in. They seem to be able to walk up to a new activity / game / community / system and just succeed without even trying. Maybe they live a charmed life; maybe their efforts are hidden, their casual demeanor masking years of careful research and practice.

Regardless, what matters is the results: if you can produce a good question with a trivial amount of effort, more power to you! But if you can't...

The results of effort... And the lack thereof

I wrote about this topic, at length, years ago now:

Folks aren't looking for "effort" because they think displays of struggle are some sort of magic pixie dust, able to turn a terrible, useless question into gold. They're looking for effort because the lack thereof is the most blatantly obvious hallmark of the thousands of terrible, terrible questions asked every day on Stack Overflow.

  • Lack of research effort leading to countless duplicates.
  • Lack of effort describing the problem, leading to unclear and misleading questions.
  • Lack of presentation effort, leading to hard to read questions.

Visible effort by itself is pointless, even counter-productive. But if a lack of effort leads you to ask a duplicate, unclear or overly-broad question, then you probably should have put more effort into avoiding those problems.

So to answer your question: we should draw the line at the point where the problems with a question are so severe that it cannot (unclear) or should not (duplicate) be answered.

See also:

2
  • 3
    Thanks, useful information in those links (particularly the third one, a perspective I hadn't previously considered). It's a shame it isn't consolidated somewhere more immediately visible - particularly to newer users.
    – Someone
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:10
  • 1
    I think a similar discussion can be has about drawing the line on "Too Localized" questions. Low research questions and very localized questions are very often bad questions, but knowing for sure that a question has low research or is really too localized is typically impossible.
    – Raedwald
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 19:37
24

A question which has demonstrated a lack of effort can manifest the symptoms in different ways.

In general, if a question really doesn't show any effort and is just soliciting opinions or guidance, that's likely too broad.

Questions which seem to not really offer a concrete question associated with their question could also be considered unclear, since it's quite useful to have an objective with what the OP wants to accomplish at some level. Clarity helps answerers deliver better answers.

If an asker wants to make it clear that they have code and that they have a problem, then the problem needs to be self-contained. If it isn't, then you can close it for that applicable reason.

Additionally, if the question treads existing grounds, then the lack of effort was searching (although in some kind of defense, perhaps that is less accessible than we'd like); in that case it should be closed as a dupe.

I wouldn't read too much into the blanket rule of, "Lack of effort is not a reason to close". There's too many associated symptoms with it to take that at face value.

15
  • 2
    "Lack of Effort" means calling people lazy. I doubt that passes muster with the CoC. Use the other terms you've detailed in your answer instead, like "Too Broad," "Unclear What you are Asking," and "Duplicate Of."
    – Robert Harvey
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:19
  • 11
    Two things there @RobertHarvey: I don't recall calling anyone "lazy" or any variant thereof when dealing with their questions. I've simply dealt with them, and haven't really read much deeper than the immediate problem. Second, by definition, saying that someone's question is a duplicate would imply that they're lazy because they didn't search for it; a question which is unclear would imply that they're unable to communicate clearly enough; a question which is too broad would imply that they're not focused. All of those could be considered insults. None of them are what I said.
    – Makoto
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:22
  • 7
    @RobertHarvey: My fear is that everyone is taking semantics a little too literally and is missing the forest for the trees.
    – Makoto
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:23
  • Maybe not what you said, but every time I see this on main, I also see the implied swipe. It's better to stick to the official close reasons.
    – Robert Harvey
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:25
  • 6
    *scratches head* But I am using the official reasons, and justifying why I'm doing so here. I'm saying that the blanket problem is a lack of effort, but 999 times out of 1,000 it can cleanly map to a close reason we have already established. Not sure where you're going with this now, @RobertHarvey...
    – Makoto
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:28
  • meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/388588/…
    – Robert Harvey
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:28
  • 3
    I can explain it in detail, if you like. The short version: asking "What have you tried" has (to some degree) turned Stack Overflow from a repository of programming knowledge into a troubleshooting forum. I'd much prefer a well-articulated, tightly-focused "how do I do [this thing]" question, but we can't have that, because "you didn't show your code."
    – Robert Harvey
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:35
  • 1
    Yes, and I admitted to being a part of that eons ago, and I've decided to better myself. I still actively rail against that phrase since there's better ways to extract that information from someone, but I see the temptation to slip right back into it. I even believe we have (or have had at some point) a way to automatically delete those comments. So yeah...I'm still confused, @RobertHarvey.
    – Makoto
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:39
  • 1
    "You didn't show effort" is no better than "what have you tried."
    – Robert Harvey
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:39
  • 5
    ...you're gonna have to tell me where that's been tacitly stated. I feel like you're really nitpicking on the semantics here where I'm simply mapping "lack of effort" on to the already approved close reasons. I suppose the nit may be with my reasoning?
    – Makoto
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:41
  • I'm saying that "no effort" is a red herring. It distracts from the real problems with the post. The most obvious problem with it is that it is a statement about the poster, not the post. No mapping is required; the close reason already suffice.
    – Robert Harvey
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:42
  • 5
    The mapping is the problem, @Makoto. It leads to these awkward situations where folks are voting to close perfectly clear, narrowly-scoped questions as "too broad" because... They think the question should have shown more effort. Lack of effort is bad when the result is too broad - but deciding that "broad" is a euphemism for "short", a mapping from some other inscrutable evaluation... Ruins the whole thing. After all, what good is effort put into properly scoping your question when the real problem was someone's opinion on your lack of visible struggle?
    – Shog9
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:44
  • 3
    I'm not seeing that, @Shog9. The way I've always operated has been to give questions which are narrow and well-scoped the benefit of the doubt. The vast majority of the time in which I've had to go down this road has been with questions which were truly irredeemable. I still believe that I'm arguing that a question which lacks effort is a symptom of something we could legitimately close it for, which I outline above. But, now at least I understand the issue with my response...
    – Makoto
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:48
  • I'm not suggesting that you do this, @Makoto - but it has repeatedly been a problem with this sort of "mapping". That "minimal understanding" close reason was never meant to be a "no effort" close reason, nor was "too localized", "too broad", "unclear" or any of the rest - but once folks get into a habit of mapping, it becomes too easy to ignore the purpose, ignore the problems (or lack thereof) and focus on the heuristic.
    – Shog9
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:51
  • 2
    @Shog9: I was one of the people who celebrated its removal. Maybe this is just us talking past one another, but I am acutely aware that what I'm doing is applying some kind of heuristic. Once people start wanting hard-and-fast rules, that's when the issue really manifests itself. So, I'm not interested in recommending hard-and-fast rules. I'm recommending someone actually look deeper at the issue. Maybe "map" was the wrong phrase for it. But...I can't linger on this for much longer.
    – Makoto
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:55
9

The single most important piece of advice I can give is: don't conflate not knowing what to search for with a lack of effort.

When we designed the question wizard (one of the longest discovery periods we've run), we realized that most people do indeed search prior to asking a question. They've either searched for several things in Google, or searched on-site, or tried clicking some of the suggested links they saw while asking, or all of that. We dug this up through looking at how folks arrived to the site, a whole lot of user interviews, and a survey we ran on an A/B model that came up after folks had asked their first question.

They searched, they just didn't know the words that would surface meaningful information about their problem. Capturing and displaying the search term is something we almost included in the wizard, because it would give folks a really good idea of what kind of experience lens the person was looking through as they were working on the problem.

That doesn't mean they didn't ask a duplicate question, but it's good to wonder if their understanding of the problem would be a useful thing to help other people find the right information, and what they should have been searching for all along. So sure, we might mark it as a duplicate, but try to see if it could actually be a good question.

Effort in other things? That's way too subjective and I'd really like folks to (as Shog kind of alluded) look more at the implications than the motive, or lack of any. In other words, look at problems with the question, not the asker.

If there's a lot of missing information, or the question is just completely off-topic - it can be put on hold because it clearly meets one of the established criteria we've set up to mark questions as problematic so people looking to answer can optimize their time more productively. That's why we put stuff on hold and ultimately close and delete it if it doesn't improve.

But don't draw the line at effort. Approach stuff with the intent to evaluate if you can and want to answer it. If something is blocking you from doing that, there's a very good chance you can vote to put the question hold for something way less subjective than the amount of perceived effort :)

9
  • 3
    One thing I keep in mind: writing a question on Stack Overflow is a whole lot harder than googling a problem if you know what to search for and the answer is easy to find using a simple web search. And when searching, you don't have to wait for someone to look at your question and write up an answer. So it makes no sense someone would ask here if they did know how to search for it and find an answer that way. True low effort is probably very, very rare. Low visible effort, however, is all too common.
    – Erik A
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:52
  • 3
    @ErikA: Question askers on Stack Overflow are not required to demonstrate effort. All that is required is that they ask a clear, on-topic, suitably-scoped, answerable question.
    – Robert Harvey
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:53
  • @ErikA Well, unless we didn't have an answer that really worked with the circumstances they just can't control. That could be due to out-of-date answers (a problem we know is getting worse over time) or a very similar scenario that leads consistently several different outcomes, but only one of which we've got documented. I have over 20 years in C, and I think I'm just at that point where I'm sure about it most of the time (or, maybe, I'm still Dunning-Kruger compromised)
    – user50049
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:56
  • @RobertHarvey That's sort-of my point. Even if a question has low visible effort, the OP has likely invested a lot of effort anyway, because asking an SO question is just not an easy/low-effort way to solve your problems. So we should not dismiss such questions if they are salvageable. On coaching, I've already left a comment, that just doesn't work.
    – Erik A
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:56
  • I'm not sure to clearly understand some points in this answer. Is the "... we might mark it as a duplicate, but try to see if it could actually be a good question." part implying that we might also not close it as dupe, and even maybe answer it? If this is so, I must admit it's quite surprising: I thought this situation was the whole point of closing a dupe: make sign posts all redirect to the same pot of answers. If it is not the intended meaning, could this part be clarified? Maybe just a "so don't forget to drop an upvote if deserved after you closed it." would do.
    – Kaiido
    Commented Aug 17, 2019 at 1:18
  • 5
    Strange...because, on those questions where I have commented 'Please list the search text you used - we may be able to suggest better', I've had 100% result of... no reply, OP goes silent.
    – Martin James
    Commented Aug 17, 2019 at 12:30
  • 1
    @RobertHarvey re "are not required to demonstrate effort", the first point in the downvote tooltip is "doesn't show any research effort", so I'd argue that askers are required to at least drop a line at what they searched, even just so we may understand where they come from to write a better answer.
    – Tensibai
    Commented Aug 28, 2019 at 13:21
  • 1
    @tensibai that’s a reason to downvote, not close. Hence why we don’t have a close reason for “no research effort”. “Required” == “criteria for post to stay open”. No research effort is not a valid reason to close a question.
    – George Stocker
    Commented Aug 28, 2019 at 13:53
  • @GeorgeStocker I think we disagree only on semantic, in my point of view "Required" == "criteria for the post to be correctly received", closure is not relevant to my point, Shog's answer explain very well why a real lack of effort leads to closure for other valid reasons.
    – Tensibai
    Commented Aug 28, 2019 at 14:18
-17

Lack of Research effort has never been a reason to close a question. It's always been a viable reason to downvote a question, however.

We even got rid of 'minimal understanding' because it was being abused to mean 'lack of research effort'.

Ultimately we want users to bring their questions here, and we either coach them on editing their questions into shape or we edit their questions into shape to be useful for others to find. We want this because that google juice is what keeps us relevant to search results, and ensures that the lexicon people are using when they're searching for a problem matches up with the answers we give them. When the question is so out of whack that we can't do either, that's when it should be closed and deleted.

7
  • 21
    Eh.. I think people are downvoting George because they dislike his answer. I specifically dislike the coaching part, imo the tools on Stack Overflow are terribly unfit for coaching
    – Erik A
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:30
  • 17
    Yeah, I'm seeing this more as disagreement. I won't doubt that there are some people who would cast a vote just because it's George, not analogous to how people would cast a downvote just because it was another moderator. But would it be OK with y'all if we just disagreed with this diamond moderator's perspective without it having to be tied to any historical baggage?
    – Makoto
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 15:31
  • 11
    @RobertHarvey I think that's a bit presumptuous, I for one downvoted it because I disagree with it, as I've mentioned to George before. IMO users should spend enough time researching their question looking for an appropriate answer that they shouldn't need "coaching". By the time they find out their question is not a duplicate there should be some minimal understanding of how to ask, and, as they've researched, they should be able to show that. i.e. Effort.
    – Nick is tired
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 16:43
  • 2
    All good. Until you mentioned "coaching".
    – Raedwald
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 19:57
  • 1
    @Raedwald A coach doesn't take the shot for you, they do however explain what to improve when you take the shot. The person asking still does the heavy lifting, but if we don't take the role of coaches we aren't going to improve the behavior of the people that come to Stack Overflow to ask questions and receive our advice.
    – George Stocker
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 20:18
  • 2
    I feel folks here are reading too much into the word "coaching". It can simply amount to pointing out what is problematic with a question in a way that persuades its author to fix it.
    – duplode
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 20:22
  • 1
    @duplode Quite right. We still expect them to do the work; but our part is to give them guidance to understand what to do.
    – George Stocker
    Commented Aug 16, 2019 at 20:56

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .