I have come across a few questions which were of the "help me get started" variety, but, the poster was not asking for spoon-fed solutions, just directions on how to get started. These questions are in direct contrast to "send me the codez" type questions.

I think this behavior should be encouraged and supported on SO. This is one way to ensure that new programmers inculcate good habits and learn to think for themselves rather than expecting gratuitous answers. What does the SO collective think about this?

A related issue - such questions often become the victim of drive-by downvoting because of being grouped with "no-effort-newbie" questions. How do we prevent this from happening?

  • 8
    Whether they should be downvoted is up for debate; whether they should be closed is rather straightforward. – roippi May 15 '14 at 6:12
  • 5
    Perhaps a possible solution is to redirect such questions to programmers.stackexchange.com. I've seen some similar questions like this there - newbie programmers asking for starting resources. It also seems that discussion-like questions (on-topic of course) are more tolerated there. In contrast SO requires the question to be problem-centered and reproduceable, and thus quite technical. – Ivaylo Slavov May 15 '14 at 7:27
  • 4
    I think the main problem is, that drive by downvoting is not only being not being discouraged, but being encouraged as well. meta.stackoverflow.com/a/252740/2621357 "don't even try to parse the question" – Pat May 15 '14 at 7:39
  • 25
    I think such questions are among the most interesting, and I've found a few of them to be pricelessly useful. The issue is whether they belong on StackOverflow. I wonder if instead of simply blanket saying, "Doesn't belong < downvote >", maybe we should reconsider the types of questions that are appropriate for StackOverflow. This site is a natural draw for high level programming discussion. Perhaps instead of being so exclusive, we should consider a reasonable amount of inclusiveness. – ouflak May 15 '14 at 7:40
  • 6
    @IvayloSlavov I completely disagree with you. Please don't send newbies to programmers.SE, read the help-centre on programmers.SE before re-directing people there. – user2140173 May 15 '14 at 7:51
  • 1
    @mehow, I see, it is stated explicitly in the help center that this is off-topic there. This does not change the fact that there are such questions in programmers as I have personally seen some of them. Since it is explicitly stated they are off-topic, we should indeed respect the terms. So, I take my words back, do not go to programmers.stackexchange.com for such questions. Yet, I agree with the OP that guidelines like the described in the question need a place under the sun – Ivaylo Slavov May 15 '14 at 8:48
  • 3
    @IvayloSlavov wrong way: Are “Point me in the right direction” questions acceptable? (note it's "ported" from Programmers meta) Please stop using Programmers.SE as your toilet bowl – gnat May 15 '14 at 9:05
  • 3
    @gnat, you must have missed my previous comment, where I already took my words back in writing. I never intended to make use programmers or any SE site as a "toilet bowl". I backed up my fist suggestion by questions I have seen in programmers which were of the kind the OP talks about, and were not closed or down-voted by that time (for longer than a day). – Ivaylo Slavov May 15 '14 at 19:41
  • @IvayloSlavov This reasoning is slippery (softly speaking). Say, judging by questions I vote to close at Stack Overflow (I think I am in top 20 reviewers there now), I would say these present much more compelling evidence that questions of this kind (and even much worse ones) are okay at SO - they hang in there for months or even years, without being closed or voted down (despite what SO help center says). Slippery reasoning indeed – gnat May 15 '14 at 19:47
  • @gnat, if by "slippery" you mean misleading, I agree. I've read the link to the meta post, and this particular answer describes the common situation, where leading by example, and the example being wrong, can cause this entire misunderstanding. Also, not sure how programmers is at this point, but SE is understandably clumsier in terms of moderation as to its huge user base, thus the too much content (and garbage among it). – Ivaylo Slavov May 15 '14 at 19:57
  • 3
    I always vote to close on this type of question as too broad or as opinion based. SO is for very specific programming questions only. – JK. May 15 '14 at 21:12
  • Thanks for the responses everyone! As per MetaSO guidelines, am I supposed to accept out this [discussion] or to keep it open for further contributions? – metacubed May 16 '14 at 3:49
  • 3
    It seems odd to me to be discouraging this sort of question while at the same time people are railing against having RTFM-like close reasons. – Hot Licks May 17 '14 at 17:16
  • off topic is off topic regardless of how noble the intentions of the poster might be interpreted as being – user177800 May 19 '14 at 19:12
  • I'm sorry, i think you meant "sent mee dem codez, lolol" , right ? – user1159791 May 21 '14 at 16:50

10 Answers 10



While it is a noble idea, it just isn't what Stack Overflow is about. The site is about being a repository of high quality programming questions & answers, and the incomplete answers that would result from these types of questions would go against that idea. Answers should also have broad appeal for multiple visitors. A short & incomplete pointer is usually only helpful for that specific user, so it really doesn't serve its purpose.

The biggest problem is many new users think Stack Overflow is a "teach me how to program" site. It isn't and never will be unless the site radically changes its course. Of course, a user can learn how to program by using the site, but it takes effort on the part of the user to extract the information out on his/her own. The users on the site won't teach you directly.


The fact that there is a need to discuss "preventing" downvoting on these types of questions is a misinterpretation of the downvotes.

Downvoting is supposed to be about the question (specifically the quality of the question), not the asker. Forgetting about rep and pride and everything else, all question voting does is signal other users "hey this might be an interesting question for you to look at" or "I'd skip over this question". A side benefit is they also work out to be a signal to the OP that something might be wrong with the question.

When questions of this nature get downvoted, the downvotes are just doing their job to signal to users that they should skip over the question and go try to answer another question.

However, the gamification of the site, and the tying of privileges to reputation have made downvotes out to be a personal attack against the user.

Now I don't necessarily like to see such questions be subject to pile-on downvoting, but I don't think there is anything that needs to be controlled here. The downvotes are just doing their job, and the OP will get their rep back if they delete their question. Sure, if they do that enough, then they might get question banned, but that aso means that they haven't learned what constitutes a good and acceptable question for Stack Overflow.

  • 13
    I honestly don't see how a specific question about programming approaches/concepts (off-topic) is any less appealing to a broader audience than a specific bug fix question (on-topic); both are specific to the questioner. Also, a bug fix question may have multiple solutions, each driven by a different concept. – dilbert May 15 '14 at 7:01
  • 11
    I'm not a huge fan of bug fix questions either. Most are usually very localized and don't have much value. – psubsee2003 May 15 '14 at 7:02
  • 2
    Understandable, but bug fix questions ARE on-topic. I think the boundaries of on/off-topic are somewhat intangible to user appeal; it's highly probable that users would find questions about abstract design or approaches appealing. In fact, if they were considered on-topic, it might reduce duplicate questions; users keep asking these questions because they have appeal. – dilbert May 15 '14 at 7:09
  • @dilbert going back to the part about appeal is more about the quality and completeness of the answer. Hypothetically, User A asks to help get him started in something that is effectively a 10 step process. User A may only need steps 1 and 2. But every other user who has the same question might need a different level of support. Maybe User B needs help through Step 4 and User C needs help through Step 6. The point is because the answer is incomplete users who need more than what is given will find the question only slightly more valuable than an unanswered question. – psubsee2003 May 15 '14 at 7:14
  • 6
    +1 because I agree with so much about this answer. However, you are making the assumption that such questions don't lead to high quality Q&A. A question about doing something common such as 'How do I get started manipulating HTML documents in X language' can end up as a great 'tutorial' with suggestions of tools to use, things to read, hints and gotchas. That (serious, unlazy) people ask this kind of question is proof that a need for answers like this exists. – jwg May 15 '14 at 7:48
  • 7
    @psubsee2003 many (not all) bug fix questions have an enormous amount of value. A question about an obscure API call or weird edge case in some tool may have only three upvotes, but those three people might have found it so useful they would have voted it up 100 times if they could. I have often, often found that SO is literally the only place on the web where I can find a solution. – jwg May 15 '14 at 8:08
  • @jwg, agreed. SO is full of gold; information gold. But the value of this gold is entirely contextual. – dilbert May 15 '14 at 8:12
  • "...Answers should also have broad appeal for multiple visitors." This is like only treating diseases that affect a great deal of people. Isn't the motivation supposed to be about helping people? If so, then what does it matter that a million people may not have the identical problem? What other noble motivation other than "helping people" would anyone ever have for contributing an answer to this site? – alcalde May 20 '14 at 4:12
  • @alcalde the goal is helping people, not an individual person.If a question is only applicable to a single person, then chances are it is not a good fit for Stack Overflow. – psubsee2003 May 20 '14 at 8:30
  • I don't think such answers would be incomplete. If well answered, they would be complete in that they would completely answer the question of what direction someone should go in getting started in something, such that it serves as a resource to others in that situation. If it is too localized to a single person, then yes it might not be a good fit, but that is not necessarily always true. – AaronLS May 21 '14 at 17:32

IMO there can certainly be good questions in this category, but it's an extremely slippery slope. Not all SO questions have to be about 1-10 lines of some particular code or API; a large part of coding is certainly application design. Arguably more programmers should spend more effort on application design and architecture instead of where to place their semicolons exactly.

As such, I think questions asking to be pointed towards the right approach to solving a problem are perfectly fine and great. However, such questions need to be really very well crafted. The asker should make very clear what he knows and what he doesn't know, what considerations are part of the problem, which avenues he has already pursued or researched and abandoned, how detailed an answer he really needs. It must be possible to provide an answer within a paragraph or three; if you feel you need a whole book to answer the question in appropriate detail the question is obviously too broad. I would also not attempt to answer such a question if it's clear the OP has absolutely no idea what he's doing and "giving a pointer in the right direction" actually means "take me there by the hand".

Since most trivial questions have already been answered to death on SO, I think this is certainly a category that could be expanded. I'd encourage everyone to not reflexively close-vote but to truly evaluate each such question whether it might be an opportunity to expand on application design and problem solving approaches.


I just had a turnaround on this type of question a few days ago. Case in point:

I read it late at night and immediately DV, flag to close as "too broad" IIRC, and left a comment about "send me the codez".

After a few minutes, I thought I should leave a comment about it - and maybe help the guy a bit. So I dropped the basic answer into a comment, and advised he learn to walk before running.

The next morning, I realised that

  1. Maybe this wasn't so easy to just google, if you don't have context (read "beginner")
  2. I already had a demo widget with code available, that I'd written as a tutorial years ago
  3. It was actually on my backlog to turn one of my widgets into a lockscreen

So I googled and all the results I found did not look particularly useful to me. Perhaps the issue wasn't as black & white as I thought the previous evening.

OP would have a tough time, and I was in a perfect position to give a solid answer to this. So I did. You can all see what I put down, and I think it adds a small dash of value here.

So I'm basically saying that for us "experts" (define expert here as someone who knows a bit more than a beginner?), perhaps we lose sight of how the world looked back in the day. What at first looks like "send me the codez" could be viewed from a different perspective.

Sometimes, a client will have what sounds like a really simple request. However in reality the request relies on a lot of other unknowns, like in this case making a simple widget is quite tricky first time round. These sorts of situations can lead to what I view as valid questions, that look like this.

  • 2
    +1 for kindness ;) – Brad Thomas May 21 '14 at 5:31

They're still not good questions. SO is for specific, factually answerable questions. Requests for tutoring don't fit that criteria (and would tend to produce lots of duplicates).

  • 6
    It doesn't have to be tutoring. Often, just 1 or 2 crucial facts can nudge someone in the right direction. Asking for tutoring is different, this would clearly be help vampirish behaviour. – S List May 15 '14 at 9:59

If the asker has made enough effort and done their research, and the question is one that's useful to other people, the important thing is to answer it in a way that is also useful.

I know that requests for book lists are very controversial here (meaning although a lot of people hate them, a lot of people think the existing answers we have are very high quality). But someone asking for starting points on a general topic can benefit from a lot of other hints, pointers, warnings and explanation which do not lead to link-only answers.

As an example, I often see questions about LINQ (the C# 'generator'/'lazy evaluation' stuff) by people who have used LINQ a little bit, but haven't really grokked how it works. When they start doing something a little tricky, they get very confused. To solve their problem involves explaining some basic stuff, giving definitions, explanation of gotchas, and pointers to offsite stuff that has been written about LINQ. This is all the kind of content that is generated in response to 'how do it get started' type questions.

Why shouldn't there be a 'Just started looking at LINQ, what do I need to know?' question which serves as a central repository of this material, avoids repeating it again and again in slightly different contexts, and is more easily findable through search than How to select data with linq after filter parameters are determined, which requires an explanation of LINQ basics, but will only be found by someone doing something very similar, not the many other people who need to read that explanation.

To say that someone needs to read a book or 'find online tutorials and resources' is just ignoring how people work and find material these days, and the obvious solution that SO could be a good place for this kind of stuff. What the downside of this is (assuming that answers are good) isn't clear to me.

I should add, I am not particularly in favor of either co-ordinating upvotes to these kind of questions, nor of trying to discourage downvotes. Voting is what it is, and everyone votes based on what they personally think of the site and want it to be. The way to fix undesirable, unintended consequences of the voting system is in software.

  • 1
    I agree that there should be room for some of these types. Had a similar experience when trying to write Ant build scripts for Blackberry dev. Was hard to find solid basic tutorials – Richard Le Mesurier May 18 '14 at 8:16
  • 2
    That's a great example @RichardLeMesurier, because it's something that lots of people might want to do, but not anywhere near as popular or basic as 'how do I write helloWorld.java?' Rather than have a lot of different questions about small steps and problems different people might make when starting out with this, why not have a single place where lots of beginner's help can be found? – jwg May 19 '14 at 7:31

Those are not great questions because they are usually too broad to answer combined with primarily opinion based possible solutions.

If I was learning Ruby on Rails the first thing I would do would be buying a book, finding online tutorials and resources to learn not come to Stack Overflow and ask "How do I get started with Ruby on Rails?". If I got stuck with something along the way of studying and have done all the research and tests but still couldn't solve an issue then I would consider asking a question on Stack Overflow - always the last resource.

A good way to teach someone is to teach them to fish. In some cases there are questions where you can just answer providing some alternative ideas to solving a current problem and explaining why the alternative is better. Questions asking for how to get started are usually the ones I downvote as no effort shown, usually not very specific- no real problem = no real question.


too broad & primarily opinion based => off-topic.

  • 3
    What if you don't know what book to buy or what online tutorials to do? (I know that 'What are the best XX books' questions are very controversial on the site, but they do have a lot of support.) – jwg May 15 '14 at 7:51
  • 1
    Recommending external resources would actually be a good example of teaching how to fish, wouldn't it? – Trilarion May 15 '14 at 7:52
  • 1
    Recommendation questions are still off-topic. If I didn't know what to buy then I would read reviews on amazon. – user2140173 May 15 '14 at 7:53
  • @Trilarion no, not really. I would rather tell someone how to navigate around and understand an API instead of pointing to an external page where there is a copy-me solution waiting for them. – user2140173 May 15 '14 at 7:59
  • 2
    @mehow I didn't mean copy-me solutions but books and online-tutorials for the beginner. Recommending them would be a good example of teaching how to fish, wouldn't it? I know that this is off-topic here but a teacher would actually do it. – Trilarion May 15 '14 at 8:03
  • 5
    @Trilarion we are not teachers. You absolutely can learn from hanging around SO but it's not the nature of SO to teach people. It's about asking and answering specific questions. – user2140173 May 15 '14 at 8:04
  • I have found the point me at good Tutorials for XXX to be rather useful. – TJA May 20 '14 at 3:56
  • @me how Answering questions IS teaching. Are you suggesting we should avoid imparting sufficient wisdom to the asker so that they are unable to solve future similar problems on their own? Saying we're not teachers but about asking and answering questions is like saying police/firefighters' job isn't to help people, it's to enforce the law or put out fires. Helping people is the reason to enforce the laws and put out fires, and the primary motivation for those doing it. It's the same with answering questions here. – alcalde May 20 '14 at 4:22
  • 1
    @mehow Amazon might not help you. Take Delphi. No commercial books published since 2005 and lots and lots of gaps in the standard library. There are no books to buy, and no official central repository like CRAN or Nuget or pypi to find libraries (and no links to existing ones on the language vendor's website either). SO has become one of the very few sites on the entire internet for Delphi users to get help, so it's heavily frequented by the remaining Delphi developers. Pointing new users towards the Delphi resources that remain would be invaluable help. – alcalde May 20 '14 at 4:26

The problem for the users of this site who are not so proficient in programming is that they do not have enough knowledge to sufficiently narrow the question.

"I want to achieve XX but I have no idea how to start" - you see that very often.

These questions are not answerable. It would simply take too much time. Therefore they should be closed.

But before (or directly after) closing one can still do something to not let them go without nothing. One can give tips in the comments for example: Learning XX and YY might help you. or An important question to ask yourself here might be XX. or I would go into the ZZ direction.

I think this will help (and doesn't cost much if you already have read the question) and so everyone who wants to give tips in comments in these cases, just do it.

  • 2
    One word of warning on the 'tips in comments' is that it still gives a positive (rather than neutral or negative) outcome to the question and can encourage people to do more of the same. If the question is not answerable in the Q&A format, suggest that they head to chat as an alternative. – user289086 May 16 '14 at 15:44
  • 1
    @MichaelT The question is likely to be closed for one or another reason. I think this is already so discouraging that general tips or comments won't likely lead to a repeated behavior. But they could also encourage to ask better questions. I think it's important to tell people at least once how they can improve. If they then don't follow the advice and ask better questions ... fair game. – Trilarion May 19 '14 at 12:14
  • "These questions are not answerable. It would simply take too much time." That's not a justification for closing a question. SO is a huge place and there are often many who would take the time to answer the question (as we see over and over when questions like these are only closed after several detailed answers are provided). – alcalde May 20 '14 at 4:28
  • @alcalde Not all questions get so much attention. I also see low level questions that get only comments if any. But you're right. It's not about time it's about a certain entry level. I've heard that here very often that many users don't want to put up with badly formulated trivial beginner questions. They will be closed. And if you have too many closed questions in a row you get banned automatically. So we need to discuss if they should these questions should be closed and if when they are closed we shouldn't give a few more hints. I'm fond of giving hints. – Trilarion May 20 '14 at 6:22

I don't think it would be a good idea. Help me get started questions may invite a lot of link only answers. User may drop in links to tutorial sites. In the long run the post would become like a tool recommendation / shopping question as some links may become obsolete or some users may think that site X is better than Y thus starting opinion-based discussions.

In case an answer is self-contained (that is it is not a link only answer), OP of the question may continue to ask for getting-started questions on related topics in the same post. For example, please help me get started on how to connect php code with mysql then after that ok I am done with that please help get in connecting php code with webservice.

  • 4
    We shouldn't discourage certain behavior because it is likely to lead to other, undesirable behavior. We should discourage that which is undesirable directly. – jwg May 15 '14 at 7:50
  • @jwg would you consider Optimizing For Pearls, Not Sand to provide a counter point? – user289086 May 16 '14 at 16:12
  • 1
    @MichaelT, I think the spirit of that article is exactly in tune with what I am saying here and in my answer. We shouldn't prevent people from asking low-quality questions if these lead to high-quality answers. – jwg May 16 '14 at 19:25

I think that the means to deal with the person is to be polite since in years time the person may help you; whereas if you simply say "bad question, deleted, get lost, goto this site" then they may never come back.

The so-called "correct Solution" is to direct them to https://stackoverflow.com/help/on-topic and https://stackoverflow.com/help/dont-ask -- to assist them in making an "On Topic Question" and to help them avoid asking questions that are unwanted. RTFaq, man.

The reason that Solution is "correct" is because that is the Rules here. IF this is THE Thread for "Protesting the Rules" (and not labeled as such) then there is a problem with the Title of this Question.


Persons with enough Rep. can have a [Button] in the 'Comment Area' that when clicked performs an automatic action (runs a Server Script). 'The Button' can produce a Comment and the person can be asked to delete their own question once they have read the (temporary) 'answer', such questions not read and deleted by the OP can be scheduled for deletion (in a week or two).

Then the person can delete their 'bad question' and correctly formulate a 'good question' that does INDEED contribute to StackOverflow rather than being shushed away and WE lose the possibility of a 'good question' and more importantly both a great answer and a future Contributor.


Why did I join SO ?

I had a few questions recently, but I did not need to ask anyone specifically -- I just typed the question into a Search Engine and boom, 10,000's of answers.

Fine by me. I can usually tell when the answer is helpful and often find the Snippet of Code that I am looking for by using the correct words. I know what I am doing (both Programming and using SEs) so I choose words that trigger the SE to produce the results that I want.

I know how to formulate a 'good question' for the Search Engine, so it gives me a 'good answer' (when there is one to be found).

Sometimes I need to do one or more Searches just to get enough words, to cobble them together, to form a Search Term that WILL produce the answer that I want.

Recently I noticed that more often than not StackOverflow had an answer come up and that some of the time it was helpful. By having someone else ask the Question, and someone else answer it, I was able to find what I wanted by using the Search Engines,

I was able to get my answer without having to ask "someONE" (I asked "someTHING", the Computer).

So for the help provided me by the StackOverflow Community, without me even having to post one question, I decided I would join and attempt to help also.


And that is the reason to have an "Easy Button" (for the Mods) that prods the person to a correct course of action (ask a 'better question' by doing this) so they can write great questions and we can see those wonderful answers.

The "Baby and Bathwater Solution" saves a LOT on Diapers but then they won't mow your lawn later on (when your old), and the rest of us with Riding Mowers don't have the fun of watching.

  • This already exists, in the form of closing questions. When a question doesn't meet the site's guidelines, users vote to close it. When it's closed, answers are prohibited, and the user is given guidance as to what is wrong with their question and directed to links in the help center describing how to fix the problem. If the question is fixed, it can be reopened. If it is not, it can be deleted. – Servy May 19 '14 at 20:44

I absolutely think questions like this should be allowed. I've read statements above saying "SO is for very specific programming questions only". No link to rules specifying that was included as proof, and I've never seen or heard that that was the case, except for these current complaints. Maybe I'm one of the newcomers to SO that thinks this is a place where any question should be allowed. But in its very basic form, this is a programming forum, and people ask all kinds of questions on forums.

If there's something a person wants to do, have tried a few things, failed, and they're not able to find it anywhere else, what better place to ask it than SO, the largest collection of developers I'm aware of?

If a question is going to be closed or downvoted, there should be an explanation as to why, and, if closed, a link to where the answer to the original question is. Otherwise, how is the person to improve? It's frustrating to think you found your answer, only to see that the question was closed, with no forwarding link.

In the end, why shouldn't these questions be allowed? The more resources for programmers, the better, right?

You must log in to answer this question.

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