What should we do about homework problems?

Question

I have no statistics available, but when you take a "tour" in homework tagged posts, the ones that are on hold, usually get closed; not due to moderation strictness, but mainly due to the asker's neglection.

Imagine that you have a question about chemistry assignment your teacher gave you. You come over and ask it in the SE, then 2 hours later you see it is put as on hold by moderators. They ask you to put your own effort in answering, whether it leads to a final and correct answer or not. It's possible you were only looking for the answer and in other words, making SE write your homework.

Or maybe, as I believe some users' intention is that, you were facing a problem in chemistry you have never seen before, and are asking to know "what main concepts does that question relate to?" Or maybe, you have been dealing with this type of problem for the 1st time and want to know the scientific approach a chemist will make to solve it. (the two groups are different: While the first doesn't know the laws and formulas for the solution, the 2nd group only has problem using those laws.)

The latter two types of askers, when asked for a solution, will get baffled, and therefore, won't intend to do any corrections to their post. How should we assist them? Of course we shouldn't give them the bare answer, but shouldn't we keep them from leaving and not watching their back? (I used lots of shoulds:))

Answer 1

Comment, comment, comment!

Maybe leave a link or two to a helpful wiki article, there are a couple helpful chemistry sites... Post a formula, ask questions, there are so many things you can do. Those who want to understand the problem will try to use those hints, subsequently improve their post and eventual receive an answer.

You can even engage in a brief discussion - comments will/can be removed after a while.

If you see they post relevant information in the comments, edit them into the original post. Make them aware, that you (and everybody else) can edit the post.

Answer 2

Martin's answer is the best piece of advice, but i wanted to add a few opinions:

An interesting point that you're making, is that a question can be closed under the homework pretense when they're not looking for a solution, but an explanation. The close flag does specify though that you need to show an attempt to understand the problem, and that is a pretty clear cut explanation for why their question is on hold.

If it is apparent that the asker gave what they could, then the question being on hold may be a result of poor reviewing. If you feel like a question that's on hold, or is proposed to be on hold, shouldn't be, then vote for it to be left open!

The latter two types of askers, when asked for a solution, will get baffled, and therefore, won't intend to do any corrections to their post.

This site is very active and engaging, but when people show up to play the game, we simply ask that they play by our rules. If they are confused, they can express they're confused and we can work through the problem. There may be a little too much of assuming and speculating about the other side.