[billnotgatez]

I was wondering what the moderators and administrators though about this idea.
We do not want to do someone homework but many questions are left unanswered. Do you think that if you know the answer and the methodology to get to that answer you post it after a period of time that would be well after the homework needed to be submitted? This would be voluntary and only used as a teaching point.

Of course this would cut down on the number of questions as long as the person asking took the time to do a search. The down side is that most of the hits on a question would be from guests and people would not sign up as members. I would only answer a few this way, since my knowledge and time are limited.

I ask this in order to avoid doing something not in the spirit of the forum.

[constant thinker]

Although I'm not a moderator or administrator, I like like the idea that after a period of time answering it. The whole time thing though does become a problem.

[Ψ×Ψ]

Welllll...ideally it should depend on the source of the question.  I mean, if the question is straight from a textbook, and it gets answered...someone with the same homework problem can come along later.  Do you see many duplicate questions like that on the forums?

[billnotgatez]

I think that there are many questions that are very similar that we do not see a final answer. If one is to have positive feedback then you eventually need to know the answer. There are several people who answer here who have web sites that give answers to standard questions or have calculators. But, there are still problems that never get answered. The textbooks seem to have errors as well. There are occasions when the steps and solution would be nice. But, I understand we can not spoon-feed and expect someone to learn. That is why I suggested a lag time. This would allow persons who have a similar problem to follow the steps with the posted problem and see if they get the same results. Then they can apply it to their problem.

I am not sure we want to do this since it might effect the hit count and member count.

Since this would be voluntary, the only issue is if it is condoned. I want to make sure we stay in the spirit of the forum.

For myself, I have seen a problem I would like to resurrect and discuss some points about. But, I would want to put the answer and methodology down as well. Then discuss issues about that type of question.

 
I have rambled enough

[Borek]

OK with me to answer such a question after a week or two but... Mitch is the Boss here

[billnotgatez]

agreed

[Yggdrasil]

I've noticed that a lot of the same types of problem show up on the forum frequently, such as empirical forumla/mass percent questions, concentration conversion problems, titration problems, ICE box/equilibrium questions, etc.  Perhaps if staff have some free time on their hands (), we could create a page with example calculations where the steps are shown and explained in great detail.  Borek has already done this with concentration conversion problems and titrations in his site, but it could be something useful for this site to do.

[Borek]

I think geodome started to collect threads where such thngs were described and explained. IIRC the idea was to devote a forum for these selected threads.

[Donaldson Tan]

We used to have a student FAQ that was dedicated to the consolidation of such threads.

However, it is an under-used and debunked resource now.

[constant thinker]

Creating an FAQ for things like that is a good idea, and I do remember it being attempted at one point. The problem is, it would take a lot of time.

If we were to reinstate a FAQ with complete instruction that go into heavy detail, it should probably be in a prominent place, and all forum veterans/regulars should know about it and use it. I would gladly post the link to the FAQ if there was one. Most of the math questions are usually answered by the time I get to them, or I just don't want to take the time to type out all the steps and explain it to someone.

One adverse effect may be that the number of new topics would go down.

Now, where is Mitch? We've yet to hear his opinion/final ruling.

[billnotgatez]

Actually, I posted here (rather than 1 to 1 with Mitch) to see if anyone could think of a downside to this that may not be apparent at first look.

.
Now, where is Mitch? We've yet to hear his opinion/final ruling.

[Mitch]

Necrophilia is fine here, if it'll be answering a question no one ever got around to.

[billnotgatez]

lol

too much magic the gathering in your youth