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Exactly, and that's why most of us like to try and answer questions. But it gets a bit tedious when so many users only come here because they are too lazy to read the documentation, use their debugger to collect some useful diagnostic information, or even to use Google.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote: That's because they never try looking.
Presumably some do not. But there can be a certain amount of knowledge that one needs to phrase a question and to evaluate the results. For someone that has been programming for a lifetime doing that, even say for a brand new language, is almost intuitive. But for someone that has never programmed before it is probably much less clear.
Not even sure that I would fault all of those that do not look. Some of them are probably already frustrated because they have a feeling that they should be able to figure it out but have repeatedly failed. And thus trying again (to figure it out themselves by googling) seems like an exercise in futility so they just give up and hope someone will explain it. I know that myself it took quite a few years in school to actually realize that I had to read the book rather than just skimming it and hoping the answer would jump out at me.
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I was pointing to the ones thst cannot be bothered to try, rather than the ones who try and get nowhere. It's usually not too difficult to tell the difference.
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I think the extra 'noise' in QA is because a lot of people do not use search - Google or CP - at all...
We may think about an engine that do some auto-categorization of questions/answers based on keywords. The created categories should be presented (according the keywords one types) to the one want ask question, and that way he may find it without search...
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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Just plug the whole question into Google and give them the results while telling them it will be 2 hours before the question becomes visible on Q&A. Give them 10 points if they cancel the question within that time.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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That would work for a lot of the questions, but not for something like this[^] or this[^]...
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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I agree and perhaps the alternative is to have moderation of questions just like for articles. This also has it's problems.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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Yay, a rep farm!
Alberto Brandolini: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
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 I second your point. It would also be great if we suggest the existing questions based on the one user types, you know, more or less like what StackOverflow does.
Whether I think I can, or think I can't, I am always bloody right!
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I think this is a bad idea - though I reckon driven by very good improvement willing, no say.
The people asking the homework questions will not bother more for looking about posting their questions at the correct places than they are for finding an answer to their problems by themselves or redacting a question properly. The users you are targeting can already not cope with the basics, so adding a complication level will not help, IMHO.
More generally, I don't think having multiple entry points for a Q&A section is suited, this would break the "Fire (properly) and get an answer" philosophy. But then, I am not an hamster.
As I am not into coding anymore, I do not frequent Q&A regularly, but I hear voices of dissatisfaction here and there. The real question to ask is: What is the problem ? ( The question formulation ? The "laziness" of people who cannot even google before asking ? The attitude of some people answering questions ? A design layout of the Q&A section which makes it less user-attractive than it could be ? etc...)
To me, and this is true for programming in general, is that marketing of IT solutions encourage people to think that SW development is something easy, and that it gets even easier with the years, given that we have all these beautiful solutions/languages/frameworks which "supports" development, and what used to take hours can now be made by clicking on a button. And so this gives the impression to many that everybody can be a SW developer, hence all the silly questions in the Q&A sections from self-pretended(or boss-forced) WannBe SW developers. This is also partially encouraged by web sites like Code Project, which offer literally tons of resources and tutorials for free to everybody just stepping by - this is the main drawback of the advantage of free resources.
A big move, IMO, would be to go the quality path, e.g. harder selection of articles to encourage only the best of them. This would lower the race-to-be-published-so-that-I-have-a-new-line-on-my-CV, and maybe improve the average skills level of people visiting the site, hence maybe the the question sections. The drawback being, that it would certainly reduce the traffic, which can obviously not be a goal of a web site that earns money based on it.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Entropy isn't what it used to.
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Rage wrote: The people asking the homework questions will not bother more for looking about posting their questions at the correct places than they are for finding an answer to their problems by themselves or redacting a question properly. The users you are targeting can already not cope with the basics, so adding a complication level will not help, IMHO.
I agree that some of them (a lot of them?) fall into that category, but it can't be all of them. It just can't 
Rage wrote: More generally, I don't think having multiple entry points for a Q&A section is suited, this would break the "Fire (properly) and get an answer" philosophy.
See, I think that is a big part of the problem. There are +235,000 questions in QA right now - a daunting task for a beginner to sift through.
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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I should call this a perfect shot. I had raised the same solution before almost a year ago, i don't remember exactly but it didn't get any response. This is the only solution to curb the rubbish.
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly"- SoMad
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Sorry, I don't remember that, but maybe I saw that suggestion and it's been simmering in the back of my mind 
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
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perhaps a new "Type" icon would be better? (General, News, Question, ...) In QA you do not select one by default forcing the user to choose one before submitting the question. Another forum, another place, there are already so many around it is even hard for professional people to get around.
just my two cents 
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I doubt the idiots who can't be bothered to Google their exact question title will bother to post in the right section, either, particularly if that section has a reputation as a 'bin' where good answerers don't bother to look. So that leaves Protector members to move questions into the 'bin'. Why not just have Protector members delete the crap questions?
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SoMad wrote: a separate QA area specifically for ...
There are already enough questions posted to the wrong forum and posted in multiple forums. A "homework" forum just adds another dumping ground.
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Since a good portion of the homework questions are repeats what about a homework knowledge base?
Maybe a button when a question is answered correctly that would give the option to enter answer in the knowledge base.
Have you ever just looked at someone and knew the wheel was turning but the hamster was dead?
Trying to understand the behavior of some people is like trying to smell the color 9.
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A new section or area will just confuse people more. They will post in the wrong place and then just get nasty messages about how they need to post elsewhere.
How about a way to search/filter QAs by reputation? Typically a homework question is written by someone new with a lower rep value. Or else adding a way for the questioner to specify their experience level? And filters/search for that?
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I think a better approach is to allow the user to use a checkbox that says "This is a school assignment", or something like that.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Since QA is currently abused, many question can be answered by simply posting a link, those who asked a question probably doesn't come back to mark the correct answer, maybe QA could go after the users.
Questions older than a month could be purged as it is useless to keep them on the servers. Open and answered questions alike.
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I like the idea of a separate homework area, but I'm not sure trying to provide help with homework is where we should go as a community. Homework answers usually need to be timely to be useful. Trying to use a community of practicing professionals, who have real work to do, to get such timely answers is really expecting too much of them.
Perhaps we should organize it as a homework knowledge base, and a forum where people can suggest topics and explanations that should be added? That would eliminate the expectation of getting an answer in a timely manner. It would also discourage most of the questions where people just want us to do their homework assignment for them.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Writing comments, using proper variable names and having methods doing single or few tasks does not take away man points. 
/rant over
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I've felt your pain. I used to work in a place where these were seen as weak. Another prevailing indicator of weakness was preferring emacs over vi, because syntax highlighting and actually being able to use the arrow key. The only developer in the section that I'd hire was also the one who suggested emac to me.
Curiously, I got told off for using "high falootin' theory" to remove blank lines in postal addresses. My crime was to use pointer swapping (this was in c) rather than arrays as using the "high falootin' theory" took 20 mins off the process each day. So vi good, but knowing what you are doing bad. I don't miss working there.
Alberto Brandolini: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
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This one is age old VB.Net code. I have spent hours figuring out what is going on and I am still scared redesigning as I have no clue what change will break what else.
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