The title says it all. Where on this site can one find a clear statement of the policy regarding academic problem questions? I recently voted to close a question posted by a newcomer. I wanted to point the newcomer to the policy on questions that essential ask for solutions to academic problems. I thought it was in the tour, but no. I then looked in the help center, under "What types of questions should I avoid asking?" but couldn't find it there either. Perhaps I am temporarily blind to something obvious. Can anyone provide an appropriate link that can be given to newcomers?
Where on this site can one find a clear statement of the policy regarding academic problem questions
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3\$\begingroup\$ Duplicate of electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7520/… ? I guess the proposed changes there are still pending though. \$\endgroup\$– Tim WilliamsCommented May 5 at 17:33
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1\$\begingroup\$ As far as I know, there is no clear statement. But there is a consensus that it is allowed, provided that the asker has made some prior research. The only information you can refer to for this are the meta discussions tagged homework. \$\endgroup\$– dimCommented May 7 at 9:10
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It isn't explicitly off-topic and there is no policy.
Homework has been debated many times before on meta and there's strong community consensus here that it should be made an off-topic reason. SO staff (Catija was a CM at the time) were open to making it an official close reason in that same thread here and was apparently communicating with EE moderators about creating such a close reason. I don't know why nothing came out of it, perhaps the moderator team knows more?
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\$\begingroup\$ I would nuance your statement. You seem to say that the consensus is that homework should be made entirely off-topic. I never understood it that way, and the post you link to doesn't exactly says this. It says "Complete answers to homework are off-topic" (emphasis mine), and they even explicitly add "but specific questions about homework are acceptable if they include enough detail". Basically, do some research, and you may ask a specific question about the bit you're missing. What's forbidden is copy-pasting the raw textbook question and expect the community to answer it all. \$\endgroup\$– dimCommented May 22 at 7:04
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\$\begingroup\$ @dim Yeah this is particularly about no effort made kind of homework dumps. Obviously EE students etc who have done some research and attempts to solve the problem are welcome to post questions here. In general we don't care about the reason why someone asks a question, only the quality of the question itself matters. \$\endgroup\$– LundinCommented May 22 at 7:56