Today (at most 5 hours before the time of writing, sorry for my bad memory), a question was asked by a relatively new user (IIRC, below 50 reputation points and a member for less than a week or so) about errors in Gradle build. It was about Gradle returning a 503 error and didn't need almost any code, and is usually solved by changing a setting in the IDE; the OP had "Android Studio" in the post.

Nearly 30 seconds post posting the post, there were 2-3 downvotes and two comments. One of them was only asking the OP to provide code and a minimal, reproducible example. Whatever it was, it didn't look like it was typed then. It looked like a copy-pasted comment. I understand that the problem could've also been solved by using another library manager editing the Gradle scripts. The OP deleted the question after this.

Link to Question

Screenshot

What I don't understand is when the OP is clueless about what code to provide, why highly-reputed people with more than 5-10K reputation points ask new users to provide code without any context. I'm not disagreeing that a user should do some searching before asking a question, but the way of asking for more information; wouldn't something like "Please add the build.gradle file's code in the answer" be a clearer way? Shouldn't the commenter at least read the question and understand the problem before straightaway asking for code or a "minimal, reproducible example" the asker doesn't know what to provide? I feel that that link would only confuse the asker more. If the user adds Java/XML code to the answer, it'll probably get only more downvotes, and the clarification would extend. Will this loop of beginners searching for solutions and failing ever end? I've seen many such comments, not meaning to offend anyone. If the comment was righteous, how and why?

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  Unfortunately these are quite common. In the same way askers often don't know what's relevant to their question, potential answerers don't exactly know what is needed to recreate the problem either, given it isn't their problem. 

  – Kevin B

   Jan 5 at 17:59
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  If the OP doesn't know what code is causing the error, then that would (at least in most languages) mean they haven't done any/enough debugging. Even if the error could be occurring in a block that 10/15 lines, and they don't have the knowledge to work out what part (maybe due to not having high enough error reporting enabled), they would still be able to test their application to see what action causes the error and then add a breakpoint and debug from there. Though true an MRE isn't always needed, posts completely devoid of any explanation of the error cause and code are often low quality. 

  – Larnu

   Jan 5 at 18:02 
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  Possibly this one: stackoverflow.com/q/70593960. Screenshot: i.stack.imgur.com/FtSsQ.png. 

  – Mike M.

   Jan 5 at 18:04 
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  The onus is always on the person who wrote the post to provide the necessary context for the post to be answered (or for an answer to be useful), rather than on future visitors to poke and prod at the user who wrote the post to get the needed information. 

  – Kevin B

   Jan 5 at 18:04 
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  when the OP is clueless about what code to provide ... well, we can turn this into a Q & G site but I wonder if that would bring us success in the long term, as much as the Q & A model did. (for those who wonder what the G stands for, take a Guess) 

  – rene

   Jan 5 at 18:11 

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  @MikeM. yes, that's the question. I understand these, but what about a beginner who doesn't know about Gradle or the build process? (My main question was about how to clarify and ask for the faulty code...) and Gradle scripts are not something a beginner would be dealing with, right? So it only makes sense that they include the file's name in such obvious cases (Gradle files are too confusing)... 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 5 at 18:36    

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  @rene nice, but if the site intends to help people, what is the bring us success in the long term? I only agree that the asker should do justice to the question they ask. Again, that's NOT my question... 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 5 at 18:44    
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  Honestly, @TheAmateurCoder , that question just looks like an error dump and nothing more. I doubt that the comments and downvotes have anything to do with each other. It very much falls into what I said before I knew what the question was: "they haven't done any/enough debugging." There is clearly no attempt to try to work out what the cause of the error is in that quedtion. If I discover a "question" that is just an error dump I'd downvote it, even if I didn't know the language (particularly well); and I would if I'd seen that question. 

  – Larnu

   Jan 5 at 18:45 
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  @TheAmateurCoder whilst it seems harsh, you can't have a different set of rules for beginners and another for everyone else. If they don't understand the topic well enough to write an acceptable question, they shouldn't be asking a question at all. 

  – user438383

   Jan 5 at 18:51

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  @Larnu yes, so did I, but I'm not talking about that. I was telling that the commenters and potential answerers, who know the problem already should ask for the particular file's code instead of bluntly leaving the asker in the help center. And as far as the error dump is concerned, that explains the problem itself, but the asker doesn't know; yes it's not a proper question, I agree. 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 5 at 18:55   
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  The tone of this gives me the impression that you consider this a help desk and that it is our responsibility to play 20 questions with the OP to get to the bottom of what the problem is. That's not how the site is intended to work nor how it does work. Tutoring beginners is also not what the site is all about. The honus is on them to learn themselves how to at least identify what their issue is 

  – charlietfl

   Jan 5 at 19:00 
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  Remember we're not here to help the OP but the many visitors that have the same problem that arrive here after the OP posted their question. For that to work, the question needs to be clear, understandable and answerable. The visitors are the success, not the one lost soul that got their question guessed correctly. Quora or reddit or a chat server are much better venues for that. 

  – rene

   Jan 5 at 19:03

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  @charlietfl no, I just mean to say generally, leaving that post, when the question is clear: comments should not just contain such links and also include filenames when it's obvious for future visitors too. 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 5 at 19:08   
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  @TheAmateurCoder I am not an SME in any of the tags involved but a quick google search of "Disable Gradle 'offline mode'" returned a ton of results. SO should also not be the first point of research. I understand your empathy for beginners. we have all been there. But hand holding should not be expected here 

  – charlietfl

   Jan 5 at 19:21 
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  @TheAmateurCoder "but if the site intends to help people" but it's not a help desk. It's a repository of useful questions and answers. If a question is not useful then it doesn't help people. At best it helps a person but that's not what the goal is. 

  – VLAZ

   Jan 5 at 19:22

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  @charlietfl and VLAZ, I agree. What I'm telling is the way someone should comment, not simply ask to provide code. The asker needs to understand what is to be provided. If the commenter is not capable of understanding the question (AGAIN, I'm NOT talking about that cursed question). I'm also not telling to be a help desk telling "Welcome to Stack...". I'm talking about questions that ARE acceptable and answerable, just lack that file's code. In many questions, everything is clear but the needed file; I'm talking about them. How does directing them to the help center help better the question? 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 5 at 19:38   
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  Merits of the question aside, I am not sure why are we voting to close it as lacking details? Looks pretty good on those to me in the current state. 

  – Oleg Valter

   Jan 5 at 22:07
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  Does "minimal reproducible example" imply providing code? Isn't it just providing enough information to reproduce the problem, not necessarily code? 

  – Peter Mortensen

   Jan 5 at 22:55 
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  If you were choosing to pick a question to be representative of the problem that you are discussing, I think that your choice may have been one of the absolute worst ones possible. That question needed code, detail, relevance,... it was, to be quite honest, a terrible question. Any comment asking for code (MRE or otherwise), detail, or clarity would have been an appropriate comment for that question. Much better if you had chosen a decent question, one that possibly illustrated your point but just wasn't found so wanting. 

  – Hovercraft Full Of Eels

   Jan 5 at 23:57 

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  @PeterMortensen what is a minimal, reproducible example of Gradle files? I'd like to know how they could be summed up. Or do you mean the structure of the project or its details? 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 6 at 3:06   

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  @HovercraftFullOfEels I'm not trying to get such comments, and yes, that was a bad choice- that was for the copy-pasted-like comment; sorry if that post was a bad one to discuss about. I've found some proper questions get such comments; just couldn't get hold of them because they're sometimes deleted and old (I remember seeing such comments on proper questions) but are hard to find but are not so rare. 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 6 at 4:23   

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  I got this question which points out such a question. Screenshot of that question and the link to it 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 6 at 4:26   

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  What about this and this (not for the comments)? 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 6 at 4:34   
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  It is unreasonable to expect absolute beginners to write reproducible codes or to detect what the problem is. So, asking for an MCVE makes sense from our perspective, but that may be unhelpful for absolute beginners. So, if we describe what code we are interested about, then we can help that way the asker to improve the question. But all this should happen in the comment section. 

  – Lajos Arpad

   Jan 6 at 16:15

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  @LajosArpad yes, but what do you mean by the third line? 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 6 at 19:14   

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  @TheAmateurCoder excuse me, I did not understand your question. Can you quote the part which is unclear? 

  – Lajos Arpad

   Jan 6 at 20:27

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  @LajosArpad This one: "So, if we describe what code we are interested about, then we can help that way the asker to improve the question.". 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 6 at 20:33   
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  @LajosArpad "It is unreasonable to expect absolute beginners to write reproducible codes or to detect what the problem is" and is that something that helps us build a knowledge base or just help an individual? Because what you describe sounds a lot like a support ticket, rather than something of value to other people. 

  – VLAZ

   Jan 6 at 20:48

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  @VLAZ the same question would not be asked soon; every question is important for building a knowledge base. When you help clarify a proper question properly, you help a question (problem faced but not known how to solve) that is rare in SO but common among newbies and other people be solved and understood, and the question is added to the collection; if it's of value to the OP, it'd to other people too. Just looks like people new to coding are brushed aside. Also, the question gets proper answers, and further chatting to get details are avoided. 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 6 at 23:16    
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  "every question is important for building a knowledge base." -- a very strong heck no here. Very low-quality questions not only exist but they threaten to overwhelm the system. The whole point of this site, what makes it different from others, is that we have the ability to help to winnow out the low-quality questions, to separate the wheat from the chaff, so that we can focus on decent questions and their answers. 

  – Hovercraft Full Of Eels

   Jan 7 at 0:29 

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  @HovercraftFullOfEels sorry, I meant excluding questions that aren't acceptable. 

  – The Amateur Coder

   Jan 7 at 0:32   
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  @TheAmateurCoder oh, right. In general we need to be specific about what code we need. For example, if the asker has a stack trace in the question saying that some line in foo threw an exception, then we may ask for 1. The source-code of foo, 2. the way foo has been called. We can tell the asker that we need him to send us some code, but he/she may be inexperienced, not knowing how to read a stack trace (it looks like a wall of code from a beginner's perspective). Also, if someone has a Javascript bug and gave us a description of it, then it is nice to infer as much as we can from 

  – Lajos Arpad

   Jan 7 at 11:22
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  @TheAmateurCoder the description and ask an informative question. We can tell them that we need an MCVE, but he/she may not be able to write one (being an absolute beginner), so, in that case we may ask for the functionalities that are related to the error, based on the information he/she gave us. I find it rude to refuse to help explicitly when a beginner struggles. Of course, assuming that the beginner at least tries to solve the problem and to ask the question properly. 

  – Lajos Arpad

   Jan 7 at 11:24
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  @VLAZ I did not advocate acting as if we were doing some support ticket-related work, I assume this discussion is more serious than using logical fallacies, such as the strawman fallacy. I said that we should not expect a beginner to be able to write reproducible codes or to detect what the problem is. My point is that before we start criticizing the asker and closing the question, we may at least try to get some information regarding the question. If we close the question, then we explicitly refuse answering it. It is elitism and I think it is rude towards beginners. 

  – Lajos Arpad

   Jan 7 at 11:28
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  @VLAZ so, if the asker provides a very long code and a stack trace, then we can edit his/her question, removing the unnecessary parts or we can ask the asker to do so before we start downvoting and closing the question. If the asker proves that he/she is unwilling to invest effort into finding out what the problem is or asking a question properly, then I also recommend closing the question. So I'm not against building a knowledge-base as you mistakenly assumed. I just advocate some more patience towards beginners before we start "yelling" at them. 

  – Lajos Arpad

   Jan 7 at 11:30
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  @HovercraftFullOfEels there is an entire spectrum between very low-quality questions and high-quality questions. The majority of the questions is low-quality, but not very low-quality. Some of these questions are improvable, some are not. If someone is evidently a beginner and does not know yet the basics, despite searching and reading to find out what the solution is, then, in this case I am usually much more patient than in the case when someone should do better because he/she is evidently experienced or lacks willingness to solve their problem. 

  – Lajos Arpad

   Jan 7 at 11:33

"[OPEN!]" also means you're free to vote to Undelete the post if you have enough reputation. Anyways, I don't think the post would receive any positive feedback from the MSO/SO "community", so the read-only version (this) is no different from the original post.