Homework help! It’d cut down on traffic in GQ, and help people. In general. What do you guys think?
Well, if your looking for opinions from your fellow users: I wouldn’t like it. There are plenty of places on the net and elsewhere to get homework help, and our hamsters are strained enough as it is without taking on something new.
Here’s some links to previous staff posts on the subject:
http://207.97.195.229/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5298797&postcount=2
http://207.97.195.229/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4966758&postcount=8
http://207.97.195.229/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4968831&postcount=14
You’re serious here?
You’re not smoking crack or posting drunk?
This is counter to all our prior policy, for all these reasons:
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This is deliberately NOT a kid-centric, family-oriented, kid-friendly site. In fact, we don’t even like having teens around unless they’re very well behaved. The last thing we want is to be overrun with the younger set looking for assistance with anything.
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There’s lots of sites out there that do this, and do it better than we could, including homework help on AOL, to name just one.
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It has also been our policy for time out of mind to only offer the most limited help, if any, for homework. Under certain circumstances, if the membership feels like doing this, sure, okay, we’ll help you FIND the answer yourself, solve the math problem, frame the essay, etc., but we will not give you the answers. To do so is not making people any smarter or teaching them how to find out things for themselves, and isn’t that the point, to learn how to learn? It’s counterproductive to what we’re all about here. It’s the old “give a man a fish versus teach a man how to fish” theory.
Over the years I have personally caught grief for this policy, more so from the parents of children than from the kids themselves; I used to get yelled at pretty regularly for not providing homework solutions/quiz answers, etc. Back when we used to have chats as well, I often found myself hassled by parents who were DOING their children’s homework for them. I was always horrified at parents who not only thought this was the way to handle the homework problem but who were also quite irritated that we weren’t the Knowledge Jukebox, spitting out knowledge at the push of a button. Looking back on it, I’m sure my remarks such as “You gonna follow along behind them and take all their tests for them for the rest of their lives?” probably didn’t help, either, but sheesh.
If you want to help someone under these circumstances, you are free to do so, keeping the above mentioned guidelines in mind. We ask that you do not solve their problems for them, for all the reasons stated above. If you find these questions annoying in GQ (or anywhere else, for that matter), skip the thread.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
who sometimes can’t count.
Then I guess my ideas for a “Do My Taxes” and “Balance My Checkbook” forums are right out. As well as enabling posting .jpgs on a forum that lets us upload pictures that our children drew. Shucks.
Kids pictures? Hey, that would be a great website: “refrigeratordoor.com.”
your humble TubaDiva
Wow. I didn’t expect such a harsh backlash…
I really didn’t mean a forum for “Hey, here’s my essay prompt, write it for me”. I meant the same kind of homework help already given in GQ, but separated. Dunno if anyone else has the same problem, but it’s hard for me to tell sometimes when something is a GQ and when it’s homework.
Hmm. Shot down.
Sorry if you think it’s harsh, wasn’t intended to be so.
But it does touch on two issues that have been hotly debated in the past: “Homework Help” and “Children at the Dope.”
The homework threads are pretty easy to figure out.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Hmm. I never thought that having teenagers here was a problem… I’d been lurking about the SD/SDMB since… oh, I was… (Subtracts) twelve or thirteen… Finally joined when I was 15. Or was it 16? (subtracts) Aha! 16. Hmm. Oh well.
We usually suggest that over about 14 is the appropriate age for reading our boards. Younger than that, well, we discuss things that many parents wouldn’t want their li’l kids to hear. The main teenage years, our experience has been that there are plenty of teenagers who are reasaonble people and valuable posters, and we’re glad to have them. But the majority, alas, are a P.I.T.A.
When I was a kid and needed answers for my political science class, I had to walk all the way into Philadelphia, in the snow, to Independence Hall and ask Messrs. Franklin and Jefferson in person!
You got to walk to town, Eve? Hell, in my day we didn’t even have feet!
Absolutely. And here’s why:
That is exactly what we want to do here and you are a wise parent as well as a good Doper.
Thanks for sharing that with me, it brightens my day to read when we do good.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Thank you for the kind reply. I feel all warm and fuzzy.
I’ve said this before, but it seems to me that, to the extent homework help is allowed, it fits perfectly into GQ. A thread on “Help me understand _____” is perfect for that forum, regardless of whether the person seeking understanding is a student or an armchair enthusiast of the subject. And the people who are typically qualified to answer these questions already hang out in GQ.