How are we supposed to show one's research when posting a question?

Question

A mod has decided, against the community, that showing research in a question is now a requirement. How are we supposed to show one's research when posting a question?

Example: How can I view the channels that I have been added to recently on Slack? The question was closed because it doesn't show research. What should I say in the question to show my research?

A mod's comment mentions:

Please show what you have tried, share what you found here and in the official resources for Slack end users and why it didn't meet your needs

I searched the question on Google, and looked at https://slack.com/help, but I didn't see any answer. So what should I say in the question to show my research? My search queries? URLs I looked at? etc.

Answer 1

For what it's worth. I agree with you.

Of course we want to encourage users to show research effort. But we don't want to close questions just because they can be easily answered. We actually do want easily answered questions on Web Apps Stack Exchange, because we want answers to every relevant question! A question that is easily answered for some might be a real puzzler for someone else. There is a reason why some of these easily answered questions get so many upvotes. It's because many users find them useful.

The purpose of the website, according to the tour, is this:

With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about web applications.

Of course, if a question doesn't show much research effort, you are free to downvote the question. But to close it is heavy handed. It hurts the purpose of the community, in my opinion.

Answer 2

The job of moderators is to enforce the rules that the community comes up with, not to invent rules themselves out of whole cloth. (Though moderators may also initiate and guide discussions about changes to rules.) If you feel that a moderator is going rogue, and enforcing rules with which the community demonstrably disagrees, then bringing that up on Meta Stack Exchange may be the best response.

Answer 3

While presumably you didn't get such a message (and maybe you should have), in the help pages - there's this page

Which includes

Any background research you've tried but wasn't enough to solve your problem.

I'd say while in many cases community consensus (and one answer doesn't really meet the bar of it to me) .

The answer to the quiestion you linked also says

It is also a pity that you did not spend as much time reading What does it mean if a question is "closed"?. You would have found that search and research are simply not a basis for closure, and might have better understood why your own question was closed.

Generally a reopen request involves making more of a case than "I disagree with the moderator". The chosen answer seems to imply the reasons for closure are... misrepresented, so it isn't really a great argument there.

Showing one's research is always useful too - it prevents people from treading the same ground you did (which wastes everyone's time), and if your failed solutions are less useful to you - they might help others.

People who answer things want interesting problems - and sometimes putting a little more effort into the problem, and laying out your user story is helpful.

You've asked 'what I want' - but I think the real question is 'what am I trying to do?' Which might make things better.

Answer 4

The link with text "against the community" poinst to an answer from Tedinoz to a previous question from you: Is showing research is a requirement when posting a question on WebApps SE? which currently is locked for 2 more days:

The Tedinoz's answer literaly says

Talk about red herrings!

No. IMO, showing research in the question body is not a requirement when posting a question on WebApps SE.

Please note that he is not making reference to anything having the high that you are pretending. Your previous question mentioned that is looked, was looked because in another post you have done the same what you are doing here and it is being reviewed with other moderators.

While I have being done my best effort to assume good intentions from you and I was feeling that I can't continue assumming that, I was adviced to keep doing it, but I found this really hard as I found this repetive practice from you done here and having the perception that you have done in other sites too to be a deceive behavior.

I'm really considering this to be my last public message directly addressed to you in Web Applications SE while I'm being a diamond moderator.

As a last message advice, if you want to dispute a moderator action mine or from any other moderator from this site or any other in the Stack Exchange network, follow the instructions provided in the following FAQ from Meta Stack Exchange: What recourse do I have if I believe a moderator has abused their privileges?

For your convenience here is a copy taken of March 7, 2023 (UTC -06:00) corresponding to the revision 25 with some comments:

If you have a dispute with a diamond moderator, your options are:

• Make a post on the relevant per-site meta regarding the action taken, which will allow the community to discuss it.
  • You can access the site's meta by using the site switcher in the top right corner: click the "meta" link there to open it.

Unfortunately latelythe participation here is very low and this channel isn't working between us, and I can no longer assume that you have good intentions regarding being open to give and receive clear, constructive and honest feedback .

• Flag for moderator attention and request a second moderator to have a look.

When flagging for moderator attention you should explicitely request that you want that another moderatar review the situation providing a clear explanation. Here is the FAQ from Meta Stack Exchange about flagging for moderator attention: Flagging a post for moderator review

• Visit the site's chat room and ask other users for advice. Note that you need 20 reputation to be allowed to chat, and not be suspended on your parent site. This would also be public, and both the moderator(s) in question and other chat users will be aware of your request.
  • You can find the button to access the site's chat room the same way to access the meta site: the "chat" button is right next to it.

Here is the link to Web Applications main chat room Google-Fu.
Here is the link to the homepage of the Web Applications active chat rooms -> https://chat.stackexchange.com/?tab=site&host=webapps.stackexchange.com

• If all else fails, send a message to the Stack Exchange team via the "Contact" link at the bottom of any page with your complaint and links to the questions/answers. Requests sent there will go straight to Stack Exchange staff and cannot be viewed by site moderators.

For the record, here are levels of moderation (from highest to lowest):

• Stack Exchange Employees (community team, devs)
• Diamond Moderators - Elected by community or appointed as Moderators "pro tempore" for beta-sites.
• Regular users with rep-based privileges

Some unsolicited advice:

It's often best for you to try to work things out at as low a level as possible. If you have a problem with one moderator, it's faster for you to reach any of the other elected "Diamond Moderators" on your site as they have the most experience with your specific site and may even have seen other actions you have taken that give context to the issue at hand. Sometimes you want to go above someone's head (or even straight to the top) with a complaint or request, but realize that the recipient will wonder why this person with a complaint couldn't resolve it with the team of moderators that were put in place to do just that.