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Why would i ask a question i have an answer for, or a solution to already?

I've noticed that lately most of our most valued members havn't been actively contributing, and that may be because they're busy with work or have real life stuff they need to give priority to(we all get that).

...but I've also spotted alot of new users, some that have a good understanding and knowledge of coding in WordPress(or code in general), thus truely having something to offer to this great community of ours, so i'd like to give all of those new guys a chance at scoring some rep.

I'm thinking about asking a question or presenting a problem to the community and have them solve it as best they can to score some rep, placing a bounty on the question and selecting the best answer, naturally. Realistically it'll likely be something i could solve myself(and possibly may have already), but would act as an exercise for members of the community and an opportunity to score points(rep).

Can i go ahead and ask a question knowing full well i can answer it myself?

Does that contradict the nature of the stack exchange way?

  • 2
    nice to see you back as an active member of WPSE :) We missed you. – Brady Dec 22 '11 at 10:12
  • Unfortunately my time is very limited of late, but i do try and drop a few useful comments here and there to push people in the right directio, thanks for the reception. :) – t31os Feb 26 '12 at 9:24
  • Yeah and it's a great way to boost your stats because if you know the answer then so does someone else. It's kind of cheating but if it helps someone and has not been asked yet then go ahead. – user6686780 Feb 9 '17 at 5:08
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This is absolutely fine thing technically, however I feel that focusing on reputation is wrong approach.

The point of the network is not to merely answer questions (or rack up points), but to collect and refine high quality knowledge on topic. If you want to do this - better to approach it from this perspective.

Good things to do:

  • mention explicitly that your goal is to gather high quality answer, not merely resolve issue
  • ask for community wiki when appropriate (those got scaled down, so it's not going to be required in most cases)
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    The issue is that we have alot of new users and alot of bad questions(recently) and i see alot of potentially good community members answering questions that they should be down voted instead of answering. It seems to me that they're answering just to score rep(perhaps it just looks that way to me, i'm willing to admit that), so i'd like to give them a fairly simple but useful problem/question to answer so they don't feel they need to answer bad questions. In essence it would be a way to let those who truly have something to offer a chance to shine(and outst the not so useful). – t31os Dec 21 '11 at 23:34
  • Appreciated your answer all the same, i did plus one, but ran out of characters to say thanks in the last comment.. ;) – t31os Dec 21 '11 at 23:40
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From my experience, there is rarely The Answer. I had working solutions for all of my questions (okay, just four) … but: No matter how good my solution is, there may be a better one just waiting for my question. :)

We all write code sometimes which isn’t as elegant or robust as we wish. Such code is good question material.

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Hmmm. I was wondering this as well. I struggled with finding a tabbed widget that worked. enter image description here

I finally found one, and have been tinkering with the tabs, e.g. to swap one out for "recent comments" for example. I asked myself if it was worth sharing as I'd imagine if I have the issue, others would as well.

I'd be happy to write up the question/answer, but of course since it's to share, and not seeking help, I'd hope such posts are welcome.

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I'm perfectly fine with this, in-fact I think it would really help with the low quality issue the site has faced for a while now. Adding in purposely useful content would drive traffic and force experts to contribute an answer. If it stops someone else asking the same question albeit worded differently I'm all for it.

The question is: does WPSE want to merely be a Q&A website or a Q&A website as well as general knowledge base for Wordpress? I think it's already both.

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