Let's update the modal for new askers

Question

The Issue

There are many posts on CR that are off-topic for various reasons... Sometimes 10-20 per day! Apparently many users don't read/heed the text on the right side (i.e. "Your question must contain code that is already working correctly, and the relevant code sections must be embedded in the question. Please avoid stripping out key details that may be relevant to the review. If your code is incomplete or not working, you should ask for help on another site."). Perhaps the Ask Question Wizard would help with this issue, but who knows when that will be available?

Meanwhile...

The SE Meta post The new ask page is now live on the network! mentions the following:

The /questions/ask/advice page has been replaced by a new modal for first-time askers, and the flow is now broken down into two steps: drafting the question, and reviewing the question — so no more random warnings triggering when you switch from the tag to the title field, while others only show up if you actually try to post. And as the blog post notes, there's also an informational modal at the end, so new askers know what to expect once they've asked their question. Enough words, here's what it looks like... (click on the images to see the larger versions)

Welcome modal for new askers:

and

These can only be edited by staff, so the process to get them live is as described here:

• Create a Meta post on the appropriate Meta site, and discuss it with your community.
• Once a consensus is reached, a mod should escalate it to the CM team. Generally speaking, the "contact us" form is the best way to go, though a ping in chat can sometimes work too (the most that could happen is we ask you to use the form).
• Unless there are any outstanding issues, the CMs should be able to get to it Soon™.

The text in the modal is very coupled to the SO notion of problems (and problematic code) - especially the latter parts:

Before you post, search the site to make sure your question hasn’t been answered

1. Summarize the problem
2. Provide details and any research
3. When appropriate, describe what you’ve tried

On code review the code must be working and the title should describe what the code does instead of a user's goals for review.

My proposal:

• replace the text

  Before you post, search the site to make sure your question hasn’t been answered

  With text like this:

  Before you post, please read What topics can I ask about here? and How do I ask a good question? the guide to posting

• update the ordered list to something like:

  • Ensure that you are the author/maintainer of the code
  • Ensure the code works to the best of your knowledge
  • Make the title describe what the code does instead of CR goals
  • Ensure enough context is supplied so reviewers don't need to make assumptions

Update May 26, 2020

I like the suggested list provided by Peilonrayz on May 17th

1. Code must produce the desired output
2. Code must not error or contain known bugs
3. Titles should describe what the code does
4. The more code you provide the more we can help

Update September 02, 2020

We have been notified we can't change the desired text or list items. And upon discussion we've decided on the following:

You’re ready to ask your first question and the community is here to help! To get you the best answers, we’ve provided some guidance:

Please read What topics can I ask about here? and How do I ask a good question?

1. Code must produce the desired output
2. Code must not error or contain known bugs
3. Titles should describe what the code does
4. The more code you provide the more we can help

Before you post, search the site to make sure your question hasn't been answered.

1. Summarize the problem
2. Provide details and any research
3. When appropriate, describe what you've tried

_{You'll find more tips in the sidebar.}

Which will look like:

Update September 16, 2020

There is a slight change of wording from the previous decision -specifically list items 1, 2 and 3:

You’re ready to ask your first question and the community is here to help! To get you the best answers, we’ve provided some guidance:

Please read What topics can I ask about here? and How do I ask a good question?

1. The code must produce the desired output
2. The code must not error or contain known bugs
3. The title should describe what the code does
4. The more code you provide the more we can help

Before you post, search the site to make sure your question hasn't been answered.

1. Summarize the problem
2. Provide details and any research
3. When appropriate, describe what you've tried

_{You'll find more tips in the sidebar.}

Update October 9, 2020

The modal has been updated! 🎉 🎉 🎉

Answer 1

Question close stats for the 30 days leading to 2020-05-17 are:

Close Reason	Closed	% of total
Missing Context	51	20.08%
Broken	147	57.87%
Migrated	12	4.72%
Authorship	12	4.72%
Custom	4	1.57%
Needs Details or Clarity	20	7.87%
Duplicate	1	0.39%

One of the downsides to these stats is that we don't know which of the sub reasons that make up the current close reasons to target. For example how is Missing Context split? Is it 50/50 between context and best practice questions, or more a 75/25 split meaning we shouldn't focus on one of the reasons?

I'm not a fan of most of our current wording as, to me, they focus too much on words that have a specific meaning to us, but not to question askers. ^{[1] [2]} I think with nearly 2/3 questions being closed as broken I think it warrants two different explanations. I'm not sold on the wording for 4, it may be too indirect to actually help.

I think the following would be better:

1. Code must produce the desired output
2. Code must not error or contain known bugs
3. Titles should describe what the code does
4. The more code you provide the more we can help

Answer 2

I don't think linking directly to the guide to posting is a good idea.

1. It's fairly verbose, it's quite literally a wall of text. Whilst this is undoubtebly good for people that want to get the most out of their post it's just going to make the average Joe run.

2. It doesn't actually tell the user anything that is off-topic. The link only contains site policy and suggestions for posting a good question.

   These are undoubtbly good things. But scope is much more important to the vast majority of people.

3. The answers aren't ordered, making the post more challenging to read for users new to Stack Exchange.

I think linking to both the on-topic page and the how to ask pages are much more likely to help the average Joe.

1. Whilst they are still fairly long, they're much smaller.
2. Together they highlight a lot of the site-policy and suggestions, whilst also covering site scope.

Answer 3

Counter idea: Run a meta contest for a 30 word or less mini-requirement statement.
The "Welcome modal for new askers" s too wordy IMO.

We all have ideas of what new users need to read.

It can't be long (few read it) nor too short (uninformative).

---

My comments per your short list

Ensure that you are the author/maintainer of the code

Authorship is only a 4-5% problem. Leave that for detailed requirements.

Ensure the code works to the best of your knowledge

Yes, and post with example input/output data. This directly addresses the 2 big issues: Missing, ContextBroken.

Make the title describe what the code does instead of CR goals

A less than 10% issue. Leave that for detailed requirements.

Ensure enough context is supplied so reviewers don't need to make assumptions

Too vague - hard to objectively measure.