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I realize that our homework policy states that when asking a homework question, one should include the tag. However, it seems to me that the tag is a meta tag and thus should be avoided. Mathematics (somewhat) recently removed their homework tag, although for other sites (like Physics) still have the homework tag.

Should we continue to keep the homework tag? Or should we remove it?

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3 Answers 3

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The homework tag is important because it lets the answerers know that they should not provide the full solution, but only hints about how to get to the solution. As Casey points out, like all other questions, homework questions must be well researched and up to quality standards of the site.

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I see nothing wrong with the homework tag: it encourages honesty. Some people don't want to help people with their homework (for whatever reason), so having that tag allows the answerer to easily discern which is which might be a good thing ?

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I think the tag should go. We do answer homework but we still don't answer bad, poorly researched homework questions, even with the tag. A homework question still needs to a proper, on-topic question up to site standards and in the limit of that quality it should in indescribable from non-homework questions except for the presence of the tag. At that point the tag isn't really telling us anything useful about the question itself and, as the OP points out, is purely a meta tag.

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  • $\begingroup$ The tag still tells us something very useful for the OP, see my answer. $\endgroup$
    – milancurcic
    Jul 18, 2015 at 15:45

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