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Off-topic questions specifically list "

must describe the specific problem and include valid code to reproduce it

Yet many questions that clearly do not live up to this standard are allowed to remain on the site.

I'm aware that much of the SF philosophy is that we are able to develop with out code specifically - so how do we approach questions that specifically deal with codeless issues? Do we manage these as a case by case basis, or should they basically be flagged?

It seems as though even without coding, some click path to reproduce the error/issue should still be included.

Am I off base or being too picky?

8

I think we need to change that description. I specifically proposed this site so that we could have questions that didn't include code, because Salesforce questions about declarative aspects of the platform would often get closed as off-topic on StackOverflow.

That said, if a question is clearly about code and doesn't include any, then a comment to highlight hat is definitely appropriate, as is closing it if OP doesn't circle back or provide more info.

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    Ideally, the description needs to include that some resemblance of work has been attempted. I think what I'm mostly hoping to quell is the number of questions where the expected outcome is an answer without doing any work. I'm good with declarative, so revisiting the description makes sense – Kelly J Andrews Feb 24 '15 at 3:20
  • Agreed. It's the How do I abc? that's readily covered by just looking in Help or Getting Started with SF. – crmprogdev Feb 27 '15 at 17:20
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In my opinion, if the question is about a topic that's code related then, depending on the context, it's not at all unreasonable to expect the person who's asking the question to provide said code, or code snippets. The volume of questions being asked in this forum seems to have absolutely exploded of late. I don't think we have the luxury of "prying" that kind of information from people when they ask questions like when we were still in beta.

I'm coming to the view of, flag the post for closure if it's incomplete, unclear, etc., and users will be forced to learn "how to ask a qood question" before they receive their answer and the entire community will learn from observing.

When it comes to questions about things which don't include code, Airline pilots have been known for years in having their flight checklists they go through. In my view, understanding a "process" and making it "repeatable" is most definitely a key to solving any issues related to it. People often aren't taught how to think this way. It's something I learned in engineering school. There's a methodology to analysis that's more than sorting code. I've definitely no issues with asking someone how you can repeat the problem being described if they've not volunteered the info. They may not have a clue on where to begin attempting to do that themselves!

  • I'm more concerned about them actually trying to learn on their own before posting. Getting a large influx of "any one have an example of" questions... – Kelly J Andrews Feb 20 '15 at 17:12
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    I totally hear your "pain" Kelly. Its obvious from many questions I've seen this week, the people who posted them haven't gone through the most basic of tutorials. You can lead a horse to water, but it's amazing to watch a burro that can kind water all on it's own and will even save some for the trip home... – crmprogdev Feb 20 '15 at 19:07

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