Hacker News Reader

Comment by a3voices | Hacker News Reader

It's amusing how the same person posted and answered the question. It's almost like he's using Stack Overflow as a blog.

View on HN

It's a StackOverflow feature. The question has been asked before on Meta : http://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/17467

Question: "Can I answer my own questions, even if I knew the answer before asking?"

Answer: "Yes! There are already numerous posts that answer their own questions. There's nothing wrong with it. It's even encouraged."

I think the amusing part is how long it took the asker to answer their own questions, suggesting that he asked only to answer right after. Nothing wrong with that, in fact I think it's great.

Oddly enough, that's something which is not only allowed but encouraged: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/07/its-ok-to-ask-and-answ...

When you "ask a question" there's a checkbox at the end to "answer your own question". I guess it's the stuff one could do after spending hours tracking an issue and realising others could benefit from a google-juiced answer.

I often answer my question if no one else does. But my process is:

    1. post question on SO
    2. realize I'm stuck, so spend the day figuring out the answer.
    3. since no one else has answered, write up my solution

I'm always hoping it goes:

    1. post question on SO
    2. get an immediate reply with the solution

but that never seems to happen for me. I guess I ask the kind of questions that don't have quick answers.

You mean the kind of question that is beyond 'how to read file in <language>? TBH I wish SO consisted only of that kinda questions (the difficult ones, that is)

It's very much inline with the "original vision" for StackOverflow, as represented here:

http://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/uploads/2008/09/...

Also, see http://blog.codinghorror.com/stack-overflow-none-of-us-is-as...

It may be amusing, but it's a feature of SO. When you ask a question it gives you the option of answering it yourself. This is so you can share the solution to a problem you have solved in case anyone else has the same problem in the future.

Thus avoiding https://xkcd.com/979/ and the equally annoying "Nevermind, I fixed it."

I've done this a few times actually. If it's a problem that I can't find the solution to using Google and I suddenly solve it, I'll answer it on SO so other people can benefit in future :)

Please remember that the goal of SO is to share knowledge. The point/karma system is the cherry on top.

It's common and encouraged on SO to answer your own question. The comments on the question address the reasons why.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com