Question

Can you provide some examples of questions that are deleted from Socratic?

To be continued!

Answer 1

Why, I'd be delighted!

Explanation:

The purpose of this collection is to provide some examples of the type of questions that I delete if I happen to spot them before someone attempts an answer.

Keep in mind that the examples below are just a very, very small fraction of the questions that eventually get removed from the site.

In fact, all of these questions are a small fraction of the questions that have been deleted from the site in the past couple of weeks alone.

`("I")` `ul("Incomplete questions")`

A lot of questions are simply impossible to answer because key information is missing. In some cases, contributors address this issue by asking for more info from the person who asked the question.

If a contributor asks for clarification on one of your questions, please reply and leave the additional information in the comments section. If no additional information is provided within `24` hours, the question is deleted.

`("II")` `ul("Non-educational")`

This one is pretty self-explanatory given the nature of the site.

`("III")` `ul("Make little or no sense")`

Some questions are simply too difficult to understand, either because they are incomplete or because they are poorly worded. If you want contributors to be able to help, try to be as clear as possible with the wording/syntax of the question.

`("IV")` `ul("Just links")`

Questions need to include a description of what it is the student is looking for. It's ok to use links in your questions, but make sure to specify what the question is about first.

`("V")` `ul("Too general")`

The key here is to be as specific as possible with what you want to know. The more specific a question is, the easier it will be for contributors to tackle it.

`("VI")` `ul("Don't contain an actual question")`

This goes without saying, but if you want to ask a question, make sure that you actually ask something, don't count on contributors guessing what you want to know.

`("VII")` `ul("Papers/assignments")`

Please don't ask contributors to write a full paper/assignment for you because that is not going to happen. If you need help with an assignment, ask questions about specific parts.

`("VIII")` `ul("Multiple problems/exercises")`

The point here is that each problem/exercise should be posted as a separate question, so please do not cram a lot of problems/exercises/questions into a single question.

`color(white)(a/a)`

I will update this answer periodically to include more examples of questions that are short-lived on Socratic.

`color(white)(a)/color(white)(aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa)`

In closing, a quick note to the members of the community--we still have a lot of similar questions floating around from the "old days" of Socratic, so please, if you spot questions that match this description, don't hesitate to report them.

Thanks in advance! :D