Shouldn't we be less harsh with respect to asking for prior research?

Question

Prompted by this question:

Are there any examples of California gold rush prospectors becoming exceedingly wealthy due to their claim(s)?

There's a twice upvoted comment in 12 minutes as I write, asking what research got done. I'm one of those upvoters. I did so almost as if I was conditioned to do so. But I'd take it back if I could. The reason I'm asking this question is that upvoting felt wrong for some reason.

It's a valid question. It's an interesting question. It's a non-trivial question. By non-trivial, I mean something that someone who hasn't dug into the topic before will probably not know off the top of their head; and something that you won't know how to google directly unless you know enough about the topic. All of this makes it a good question.

Sure, the answer is probably a few well informed google searches away. Note the operating word: well informed.

But should requiring that OPs do those [well informed google] searches really be our "prior research" criteria?

Doing so seems to me like a recipe to turn the whole site into california in the long run.

Which is to say, mostly unanswered questions that tend to require hours or more of research to answer. I'm struggling to imagine how we'd miraculously attract scholars on a website whose main means of attracting newcomers is StackOverflow HNQ visitors.

(For Aaron, as I certainly wouldn't want you to take this personally: I relish reading your questions. They're all wonderful, and they set a very high bar on the site. But let's get real here, only a handful of erudite scholars are able to answer many of them. And insofar as I can tell you actually end up answering them yourself on a regular basis -- which also make for great reading when you do. So please continue. My point is that there's little in the way of questions and answers by different people when we set the bar that high.)

Anyway, re-reading the question, it actually seems somewhat researched, if only to the degree that OP read something on the topic before asking, as demonstrated by the fact that they know "that the people who became wealthy from this event were the ones that were selling supplies to the miners, and not the miners themselves".

Even if we can't find a consensus on how well informed well informed should be, can we at least try to agree here on what we expect as a minimum research requirement?

Answer 1

While I quite accept that the comment text may be seen as "too harsh" or "elitist" by some, I think that T.E.D. may have hit on the core of the problem in his comment to your answer.

I think different people mean totally different things with the research checks

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The comment you think may be too "harsh" and "elitist" is mine, and I accept full responsibility for it. It is the form of words that I developed over time, and which have been adopted in a slightly modified form as the suggested 'boilerplate' text for questions from new users lacking prior research.

So, perhaps some background is in order.

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The general expectation on SE is that SE sites work best if the questions are supported by preliminary research. This point is also made explicit here on our meta site in Mark C. Wallace's excellent post Why did my question get a downvote?.

I wanted to develop a form of words that would be supportive to new users by clearly explaining just what it is that we expect them to tell us when they ask a question. I wanted to point them at our Tour and Help Centre, so they would have some idea of what we expect and how SE is different from other sites that they may be used to. I also recognise that the length of a comment is limited, so brevity would be a good thing.

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I was fairly clear in my own mind that I needed to know:

1. Where have they searched

So that I don't have to duplicate any research they have already done.

2. What they found

So I don't just post an answer that tells them what they already know.

3. Why that wasn't sufficient to answer their question

This will generally tell me what they really want to know. Did they search, and not actually find anything? Or perhaps they searched and found a paper that they don't quite understand (both are perfectly valid questions for History:SE, IMO, but they do require very different answers).

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By late 2017 I had developed & was using this as my basic "Welcome to the site, but where is your preliminary research" comment:

Welcome to History:SE. What has your research shown you so far? Where have you already searched? Please help us to help you. You might find it helpful to review the site tour and Help Centre and, in particular, [ask].

I originally included "Why was that not sufficient?" but was told that it sounded "condescending", so I've since been leaving it out in most cases.

I posted this as an answer to the meta questions Dealing with newbie questions - again and What should be the standard message for “Please document research”? early last year.

This was subsequently modified by LangLangC and posted as an answer to the Standard comment situations: suggestions for close votes and down votes meta question.

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Now, obviously, I have been editing this to suit the circumstances. For example, if the OP has the 'Informed' badge, I cut the bit about the Site Tour. The fact they have that badge means that they have at least scrolled to the end of the tour. They may even have read some of it.

If I search for keywords from their question an get an answer on the first page returned by Google, or in a Wikipedia page, then I try to add something like:

When I did a Google search for xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx, the xth result on the first page was the paper xxxxx. Perhaps you could edit your question to explain what you think is missing from, or unclear about that paper?

or

Perhaps you could edit your question to explain what you think is missing from, or unclear about the Wikipedia article (with link).

either edited into the question or posted as a supplemental comment.

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Unfortunately, that approach is often less than successful in dealing with questions that should probably be closed as 'Too basic'. All too often, someone will then take that comment and post it as an answer. Regrettably (in my opinion) these answers also often attract upvotes, occasionally hit the HNQ list, and/or get tweeted by our Twitter bot. This then sends the message that these are examples of what is considered acceptable questions on History:SE.

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So, is the comment text "too harsh" or "elitist"?

I don't think so. But then I wrote it, so am perhaps the wrong person to ask. It reflects how I actually speak in life, and - more importantly - it asks the specific questions that I want the user to edit the body of their question to address.

I'm not wedded to that particular form of words, but I do want whatever 'boilerplate' text we adopt to ask explicitly for that information. It is important, and - again in my opinion - should be the minimum that we require for prior research.

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However, if a majority of the community want something different in terms of what we expect from preliminary research, then maybe we need to settle that in another meta question before we agree on a standard comment text.

Preferably with a canonical answer that can be linked to from our Help Centre.

Answer 2

Sempaiscuba said:

I would certainly like to know what research the OP had done before they post the question, if for no other reason that I then don't have to repeat it, or post an answer telling people what they already know.

in response to that comment, the OP then cited their source for that (an article on sparticus-educational.com). Obviously, I would have preferred to see that in the question, with a link to the specific article, which would then have made my request for information about prior research unnecessary. Anyway, I'm interested to see what the community views are on the subject.

I would then like to suggest that we change our message. Instead of:

Welcome to History:SE. What has your research shown you so far? Where have you already searched? What did you find? Please help us to help you. You might find it helpful to review the site tour and Help Centre and, in particular, How to Ask.

Can we try something less hostile, like a variation of:

Welcome to History:SE. Could you edit your question to clarify what you've looked into already, complete with links and references, and context if applicable? In particular, please let us know what you find missing or unclear about the Wikipedia entry on the topic, if one exists. This allows those who might want to answer to do so without needing to redo the work you've already done. You might find it helpful to review the site tour and Help Centre and, in particular, How to Ask.

You know... something friendly that doesn't sound too elitist.

Answer 3

_{This is getting too long for a comment:}

We can certainly rephrase the 'standard comment' on that. I didn't write any canonical answer there. I posted a suggestion for the wording, to be varied and adopted to the situation from the beginning, and the text/wording is an evolved, collaborative effort. If it can be made 'just friendlier', that's a good thing.

As such I still see problems here

1. "well informed": we can't require askers to already have the answer, but I think we have to require that they opened a book, typed in a search, or something. Not only showing some effort, but also avoiding 'bad' duplicates, mere answers copying Wikipedia, or answers that require really nothing else than typing the keywords into the search field of a browser.

   How does anyone answer any question? By asking questions, sure – but first to oneself, then to resources, then to other people. Outside logic and pure thinking, these are the steps to be taken in succession. And we do want to help, indeed at any point in that chain. But always jumping to 'other people' is lazy and unproductive in the long run. In principle. But especially so if the answer is 'really easy to find'. If it is in fact 'not easy' to find, or problems arise along the way, then 'help' is the most useful. Always asking 'others' first is not 'please help' ("certainly, and gladly"), but "do my work for me".

2. "elitist"/harsh": As said, if it is (often) perceived as 'too harsh', we might change the suggested 'standard comment' anytime, and everyone, now, can take the canned comment and rephrase it to personal preference. As I hoped to make clear in the other thread, personalised and situation aware comments are the real goal for the suggestion!

   Then I do not perceive that as 'elitist' or 'too harsh', in the sense of 'putting down a newbie'. That's of course a matter of taste as well. The suggested comment already evolved from inspiration found on other sites. And everywhere on SE these comments were discussed and improved to exactly that standard: welcoming, friendly, but also guiding and helpful. That process of perfecting is for sure not finished, nor perhaps ever finishable.

   If 'elitist' means: "we expect a certain standard, (please conform)" then that's not so good. But if 'elitist' means "we expect a certain standard, please conform, and here's how you do it", then we should all be much more elitist! Community moderation certainly does accept questions that aren't perfect now. But our standards and the quality of posts on this site should be raised, not lowered. Showing askers, newbies, the ropes and guiding and helping them to raise the standard of their own question and that of the site is a good thing.

Seeing how long this comment as an answer gets already: One of the reasons, apart from everything listed so far: the comment is what it is now is also found in the character limit of comments. The comment should at the same time be terse, avoiding redundancy, yet contain everything needed. As some of the links in it are needed to 'show how it's done', these often are so long as leading to exceed the imposed character limits.

Answer 4

Upvote the question with vigor - important question to ask. This is where we determine the culture of our site and what community moderation means.

Having said that, I have a different opinion than Mr. de Bernardy.

I don't want H:SE to compete with Google or Wikipedia. I want this to be like the other SE sites where it is strongly expected that the question will demonstrate that the poster has made the effort to solve the problem. Asking a question on this site is an implicit request that the community do work on my behalf. I personally find it insulting when OP asks a question with no preliminary research.

I want the site to communicate the cultural expectation to new users - we're not here as a front end to google; we are not motivated to type your query into Wikipedia for you. We're here to do interesting research, to leverage what we know about history.

This also clarifies a bunch of X:Y questions, by revealing the assumptions OP is making about the time/location/culture/context.

I'd be perfectly happier with "nicer" wording. Unfortunately during the day I can only log in from my cell phone and I can't copy and paste the standard answers from the cell phone interface. When I get home, I try to replace the quick comment with the standard comment.

SO please give me a standard comment that meets the standard. But let's find a middle ground between "elitist" and "Bad interface to Wikipedia".

Thanks for voicing the issue.