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Four questions from this person have been answered by the same member and appear to contravene what is said here: -

How do I ask and answer homework questions?. In particular, this advice is given: -

Providing an answer that doesn't help a student learn is not in the student's own best interest. Therefore you might choose to treat homework questions differently than other questions.

The member making those answers has been previously informed about making this type of answer a couple of times to my recollection. Many of us are guilty of this (including me); it's easy enough to slip into making an answer that can be used almost verbatim for homework purposes but, a stern word or two usually prevents recurrence.

What should be done about this?

Do we do anything about it?

I've downvoted said questions and answers but I'm not really sure that this is effective or desirable.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ For late comers, it appears that the account of the aforementioned person has been deleted. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Jan 14, 2021 at 14:06

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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We have decided in the past to allow homework questions with an attempt at a solution.

For those that don't: Close the questions, in a nice way. Ask the OP to provide a solution for the question.

Unfortunately sometimes the site (moderators and ques) can't respond fast enough to questions being answered.

The moderation team can send serial offenders a warning and suspend them from the site if it becomes a problem, most of the time people don't know what the site policy is and will correct their action when they are informed of the site policies.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I think the real problem is the persistent way a certain person is answering these questions. Sure, there will always be chancers asking homework questions; that isn't the problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Dec 22, 2020 at 16:00
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    \$\begingroup\$ Is there a canned comment (with a link to some canonical meta question) that can be used on such questions (not answers)? \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Mortensen
    Dec 30, 2020 at 17:43
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    \$\begingroup\$ Threatening to ban someone for answering a question regardless of "policy" is ridiculous. \$\endgroup\$
    – Passerby
    Jan 3, 2021 at 4:29
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    \$\begingroup\$ Where is the threat? That is a standard moderation practice, please don't put words in my mouth, I never said the word threat, or threaten. The word was warning \$\endgroup\$
    – Voltage Spike Mod
    Jan 3, 2021 at 7:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ @passerby, I can't see that as it's a pretty simple structure here. The site has to have a purpose. Disregard for, or abuse of, that purpose is discouraged or prevented by rules. The rules are coalesced into policies to keep rules consistent and make further rules easier to produce. And persistent disregard for those policies eventually leads to a ban. Answering questions is subservient to all that. It's a commonplace methodology, this site's not inventing anything here. A public library does the same, for example. \$\endgroup\$
    – TonyM
    Aug 14, 2022 at 8:54

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