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If you read through this post (link to picture for < 10k)), there is a new contributor who has asked a question about reversing a string in Java. He was new to the site and someone provided an answer, but then the answer got downvoted and the stated reasons for downvoting were

We don't do other people's homework, it's cheating them out of an education.

My question is:

a) How did the guy who commented figure out it was a homework question? It could well be just the OP is doing his own self-guided venture into the Java programming language.

b) Most probably the guys who say they can't do other people's homework, do contract assignment, help sites, and get paid to do hard programming assignments for students. There are very many programmers here on SO who get paid to do other people's homework.

So why would anyone think that helping someone beat a homework assignment is cheating out of education? They could learn through the help.

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    "Most probably [...] get paid to do hard programmig assignments for students" - citation needed
    – bmm6o
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:05
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    "There are very many programmers here on SO who get paid to do other people's homework." not sure if you meant on SO, but Don't be that account: buying and selling reputation and bounties
    – Andrew T.
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:10
  • 15
    'answer got downvoted and stated the reasons for downvoting to be' - please note that (down/up) votes and comments aren't related.
    – MagnusO_O
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:10
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    Cross-site duplicate
    – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:12
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    Also, do you have any kind of evidence to support your claim? Your only reply to bmm6o's comment requesting a citation was to make another unsupported assertion.
    – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:20
  • 7
    Some of the comments in the question might be gone by now, but this still feels like an overreaction to a bad question being, as expected, being badly received. If anything, we can continue inviting people to keep downvoting and moving along in these cases, rather than trying to educate the neverending masses.
    – E_net4
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:23
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    Stack Overflow is not a forum!
    – Dharman Mod
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:50
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    The comment should have been flagged either as NLN or unkind. Please do not leave comments like this.
    – Dharman Mod
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:51
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    The rest of your question is really based on the unfriendly comment, so I see no reason to delve into it.
    – Dharman Mod
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:52
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    ...Most probably... no, most probably not. ...millions of programmers do academic writing as a side hustle... I don't believe there is anywhere near that many. Do have a reference for that claim?
    – President James K. Polk
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 20:48
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    I'm even more surprised that the OP didn't even bother a single second to do some research on that topic. He could have written that question title into any search engine and would get several answers on different sites. Why do people think that in 2023 you still need to ask the most basic things about established technologies and why do people keep answering the same questions over and over again?
    – Tom
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 22:42
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    @Tom: Well, he could have a vested interest...
    – Peter Mortensen
    Commented Jan 5, 2023 at 2:49
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    Paid homework is a form of corruption. We find it abscheulich.
    – Peter Mortensen
    Commented Jan 5, 2023 at 2:54
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    @Gimby How do you know why every voter voted and therefor know "It is definitely abuse"?
    – Tom
    Commented Jan 5, 2023 at 9:15
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    @FlaviusStandswithRussia In every 10 software engineers, at least 2 do it Again, where's your evidence for this? You keep making baseless claims.
    – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
    Commented Jan 5, 2023 at 18:10

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I mean, academic dishonesty is a problem, but...

  • it's not our problem, and
  • it really does cheat the student out of a legitimate education or opportunity to learn.

In this case I don't think that question you linked to even comes close to coming close to the standard of a homework question. It was just...really bad. No code, no explanation, no nothing. It's just asking us to do their work for them, which is bad even before we talk about anything education-related.

The commentator was out of line; the question should just have been unceremoniously closed.

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    Not sure I agree the the commenter was out of line (although I guess you could say that telling other people not to answer is arguably not constructive).
    – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:18
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    the comment wasn't needed, is more hostile than it needs to be, and is also simply wrong. If an answerer feels their answer will be useful to the OP and future visitors, it's certainly correct for them to provide it regardless of the OP's education level or purpose for being here.
    – Kevin B
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:21
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    @EJoshuaS-StandwithUkraine: In no universe, present, AU or otherwise, would a comment on Stack Overflow saying, "We don't do other people's homework" be an acceptable comment. If the question isn't on-topic then just close the question. If it's not useful then just downvote the question. Why comment at all?
    – Makoto
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:25
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    I'll agree that it's more hostile than necessary in its phrasing, but it was also wrong for the answerer to just do the whole assignment for the OP.
    – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:26
  • I mean, i do think it's wrong on some levels, but it's not wrong in the sense that we should do anything about it or leave comments suggesting it shouldn't have been posted. It's certainly a disservice to education on some levels, but that's not our problem to solve.
    – Kevin B
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 19:37
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    It is not wrong to answer homework question as long as it is on-topic ("how to reverse string" is perfectly valid on-topic question, does not require extra info to be one)... It is wrong so to answer duplicate question - downvoting answer that is no better than well known duplicate is fine in my book (as "not useful") .
    – Alexei Levenkov
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 20:01