Yup, the incentive is there to state your problem as clearly as possible to get back a good response. By doing this I answer my own question half of the time.
I'd say I almost always get 70%+ of the benefit just by having an answer. And there's other techniques that help, eg checking one problem against other problems, getting a bound on your error, asking on forums/mailing lists, etc.
I’ve done it in different communities. I don’t think it should be discouraged even though it can seem strange. There’s a person who wants their question answered, and someone who wants to answer it. Why make the sever worse by stopping it?
At times, they might be wrong, but they’re going to realize they’re a problem if they’re always wrong. I do think sometimes incentives seem misaligned, like, I was in an enterprise linux related community, where their income is related to providing support to enterprise customers. In that scenario, it seemed like someone answering questions for free could be problematic to their business.
I don’t know, I don’t think it’s an issue, but I’ve noticed it does seem strange being that person.
I find that answering questions on SO or some other forum, is actually a good way to get smarter about a topic. Or just keep sharp. So it doesn't have to be an all altruistic effort.
It's also encouraged to answer your own questions. So if you struggle with something, and find a solution, you can post the Q and answer at the same time even. To make it easier for others in the future.
I think spolsky hit the nail on the head with "answering questions is about learning". If I profit from it and the site owners profit from it as well, so be it. This is a very rare case of win-win.
I sometimes have a phase where I answer a couple of questions.
Usually because at that time I have nothing better to do and get
the enjoyment that I could spare someone else the frustration of
figuring out something obscure by themselves, just like a random
blog post or SO answer helped me with a problem.
So I suggest to always respond with at least a little "Thanks!"
or something if you found such answers helpful - it shows the
other person that their contribution wasn't a waste of time and
was kind of meaningful for at least one other user. Helps
greatly with motivation.
It matters because people respond to incentives. If what you want to see encouraged is good answers to novel questions, you need a system that rewards that over copy-pasting from documentation.
What do you think happens when the two are rewarded equally, but the latter can be done much more frequently per unit of time?
I believe it. And that's not even counting looking up answers or getting your questions answered.
When I am truly stumped, I immediately start drafting a comprehensive SO question. Nine times out of ten, clearly enunciating the problem leads me directly to the answer and I never even post it.
Isn't answering on questions providing free labor to StackOverflow too? Providing way more value to their company? Do you draw a line between answering and reviewing?
SO allows multiple answers per question. I have on occasion asked something and given a crappy/hacky self-answer as a stopgap, with somebody else eventually chiming in with a much better one later.
I used to answer forum posts quite a lot, and I eventually realized something similar:
If the person doesn't tell you what they've already done to try to resolve their issue, they probably didn't do anything. And it's a waste of my time to try to answer them.
That isn't always true. Sometimes they're just too lazy to type it all out, but that's another uphill battle. It's not my job as a random forum viewer to pull all that information out of them. It's their job to provide it if they want help.
I answer a lot fewer questions now, but I'm a lot more satisfied with the results.
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