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I see many questions where the OP just asks whether his or her calculation is correct . These type of questions will most likely not be helpful to the majority . The questions pertain to a specific numerical calculation or to a specific application of a formula which the OP thinks might be wrong and just wants to verify it .
These questions are usually answered or clarified in the comments and no one bothers to write an answer for it ( as it is unnecessary ) .

So shouldnt these type of questions be deleted by the OP ( after the clarification ) or by the administration as they are mostly of no use in future ?

P.S. No new user is going to hit a search query with the exact question and land up on these pages .

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    $\begingroup$ I really applaud your contribution to the community! Keep up the good work! $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 16:25
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    $\begingroup$ @MARamezani Thanks . Got inspiration from you when I was new out here . $\endgroup$
    – Del Pate
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 21:24
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    $\begingroup$ Part-2 of this question is over here $\endgroup$
    – Del Pate
    Commented May 19, 2015 at 7:26

2 Answers 2

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So shouldn't these type of questions be deleted by the OP (after the clarification) or by the administration as they are mostly of no use in future?

No. If the questions are just homework questions with a guessed answer, typically a unitless number, they will get closed anyway.

Laziness, often coming with a certain attitude here, isn't rewarded here. This isn't do-my-homework.SE.

If the OP actually bothered to communicate single steps of his calculation and the error can be found, the question and the corresponding answers and comments are worth to be kept.

No new user is going to hit a search query with the exact question and land up on these pages.

Somebody else will - and close the question as a duplicate. Tough luck!

In summary, I think that we don't need additional rules when common sense will do!

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    $\begingroup$ So basically keeping those questions will let the site have stock of different types of question styles which can be used by new users ? $\endgroup$
    – Del Pate
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 21:29
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    $\begingroup$ @DelPate Yes, some step-by-step examples for frequent problems will be helpful. At least, we can link against them when closing the n-th duplicate of recurrent questions :D $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 21:39
  • $\begingroup$ Plus not all questions that someone doesn't have an answer to check their calculations against are homework/graded questions. There were a couple times last semester when I needed extra practice with a problem type, and wanted to do some of the even numbered, unanswered, problems in the book. But they wouldn't have done be much good if I didn't have I was getting them right/wrong. So I came on here again for help and another set of eyes to look over what I'd done. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 15, 2015 at 21:37
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First, thanks for being concerned about the searchability of questions and keeping the quality of the site at a high level.

Our dream of dreams on the science-oriented sites is to have conceptual questions that we can use to close the "I have X g of powder"-type questions against. On the other side of that coin, though, we have to recognize that students tend to have trouble with specific examples, and shutting good quality questions (in which a user has actually made an effort to answer ahead of time) would drop our traffic down significantly. Obviously, the conceptual/foundation questions are something to strive for, but this isn't (yet) in the cards.

In a practical sense, as Klaus has nicely pointed out, we do quite a bit of policing as it is to try to rid the site of questions in which people have so kindly transcribed their homework question into the Ask Question page. I'm comfortable with the community deciding what is practical and useful, and we have quite a few users with the reputation to make their voices heard. If you don't yet have the privilege of voting to close and/or deleting posts, it's best to leave a comment on the question so that these users can then act accordingly.

What is the stopgap measure for the situation you describe? Suggest an edit to the title of the post that succinctly describes the general aim of the problem. This does make it quite searchable, so if someone is looking for "determining the X when given Y in a calorimeter" they can find it readily. This is much better than having a bunch of titles that say "I have a 2.0 M solution...", as you've presented in this question.

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  • $\begingroup$ And keep an eye open for one of these buzzword questions titles: meta.chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/583/4945 $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 17:00
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    $\begingroup$ @Martin Whenever I run into buzzwords (except when the Q is low quality or homework and will get deleted soon) I correct them. But sometimes there aren't any buzzwords but the title is a mess, or is nothing comprehensible. I know you know it, but I wanted to state that "Help questions have good titles, either when they contain buzzies or when they're just not good enough." $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 19:42
  • $\begingroup$ I am confused a bit . Does this question help the future users ? $\endgroup$
    – Del Pate
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 21:35
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    $\begingroup$ @DelPate It will if you elect to give a more complete, conceptual answer. :) No, that's not a shining example. In fact, I would have expected the answerer to elaborate further. Also okay to leave a comment to that effect. $\endgroup$
    – jonsca Mod
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 23:47

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