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I was wondering if users would be penalised in any way for posting examples instead of questions?

Is this site for questions only?

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migrated from stackoverflow.com Jan 9 '11 at 3:15

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If you think you have examples that could help people and answer questions that haven't been asked, you could ask a question, and then post your own answer. –  Yahel Jan 9 '11 at 2:37
It took me a minute to understand this, but I think you're asking if it's ok to ask a question you think others may have, and include the answer in the question itself. This is part of the FAQ already: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/17463/… –  Michael Mrozek Jan 9 '11 at 8:52

3 Answers 3

You actual question must be a question, and your answers should be helpful information about the question. Your are totally free to answer your own question.

This isn't as restrictive as it sounds. If your example solves a reasonable problem, post a question asking for an answer to the problem and post your answer. Just do a check to see if its a duplicate.

If you want feedback on your example, figure out some specific questions to post with the code and ask away.

And if you have any future questions about the validity of a question or anything else about stackoverflow, meta is free for you to ask away. :D

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Thank you! I just did exactly that! I posted a question, but included my own solution inside the question ;) –  techexpert Jan 9 '11 at 2:55

If you think you just want to post a solution to some problem you came up with and will be helpful to others, I would suggest you to write a blog article about it, describing about the issue and solutions. If you don't have or want to have a personal blog there are free sites where you can post your code/article.

And if anyone has that problem in future your blog/article will show up in the web search. I don't see a reason to posting it on stackoverflow.

Usually it should be like: You have an issue/question -> ask on stackoverflow -> After getting /gathering appropriate answer /solution (that includes solution you found after posting the question) -> blog about the issue in detail and the solution to it pros/cons and point stackoverflow as a reference giving credits to the persons involved.

In short:

1: I wouldn't recommened just posting self question/answer post. You can get downvotes if you do that. Instead blog it somewhere.

2: In future if you have question about stackoverflow itself you ask it on META and not stackoverflow.

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Thank you! I didn't know about the META. Next time I would definitely ask there. But I see no reason to not want to post a question and offer my solution as a part of the question on StockOverflow and let other people offer their solution as well. Because a lot of people are using the site's search engine (and Google too) to see if anyone already has a ready-to-go question/answer before they would post their own. I also think that this site is much more effective than most blogs I came across. But, again, thank you for the META reference. I gave you an "Up" vote just for that! Peace! –  techexpert Jan 9 '11 at 3:13

This site is for questions only. You will get downvotes if you post examples.

And why would you want to post examples?

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Because I think I might have a solution that would be beneficial to other people when they're doing a search, whether on this site, or in Google. –  techexpert Jan 9 '11 at 2:41

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