How many times have you answered your own question while typing it out here?

[MarkS]

This is happening to me ALOT!    I'm in the middle of typing out the problem, describing the issue, and BOOM! A bolt of lightening hits and the answer presents itself! I guess it's the act of describing it that makes the answer clear?    Am I alone in this?

[mendip_discovery]

I wonder if that is why there are soo many posts on the forums where the person posts the same problem you are searching for, but never says it is solved or if they do they never say how.

I find in the effort of making a post I figure it out becuase you start to explain it to people clearly and then you make the connection. I have then turned a few of those into posts about the stuff I worked out so that I can save the next person suffering.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes that's a very frequent thing.
And it makes sense. The hard part of solving most problems is to be able to describe the problem at hand clearly enough, something you'll make an effort with when trying to describe it to others - while making that effort for yourself only looks a lot less "natural", so we often don't and get stuck not fully understanding the problem we are trying to solve.

https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/aspnes/pinewiki/ProblemSolvingTechniques.html

[MK14]

This is happening to me ALOT!    I'm in the middle of typing out the problem, describing the issue, and BOOM! A bolt of lightening hits and the answer presents itself! I guess it's the act of describing it that makes the answer clear?    Am I alone in this?

Also, what sometimes happens.  Is that you are so convinced, that google won't be able to possibly find the answer, and the answer is so unlikely to be out there, that you don't actually try.

Then as you write out the thread starter, as an act of politeness and fairness to other forum users.  You submit the appropriate part(s) of what would be the opening post to google, just to confirm there are not any answers.

Then you find there actually are answers, so you abandon creating the thread.

Also, ChatGPT might give enough initial pointers and ideas, to avoid needing to create a new thread.

[PlainName]

I'm in the middle of typing out the problem, describing the issue, and BOOM! A bolt of lightening hits and the answer presents itself!

Nope, never worked for me. The post has to be completed and preserved for posterity, and only then will the obvious answer present itself.

[BradC]

Nope, never worked for me. The post has to be completed and preserved for posterity, and only then will the obvious answer present itself.

Yep, it doesn't matter how much I search, nor how many times I edit the draft. The answer never presents itself until at least a number of seconds after I press "post".

[hli]

I once read about a German university where the office supporting the students with their IT questions, back when you used to go to a computer lab instead of having one at home (my login doesn't work, program X does not work, etc.) had a teddy bear on their counter, and you were required to tell the bear about your question before you were allowed to ask one of the support persons. They said it solved at least 50% of the questions.

[MarkS]

I once read about a German university where the office supporting the students with their IT questions, back when you used to go to a computer lab instead of having one at home (my login doesn't work, program X does not work, etc.) had a teddy bear on their counter, and you were required to tell the bear about your question before you were allowed to ask one of the support persons. They said it solved at least 50% of the questions.

 

[CatalinaWOW]

I have fairly often come up with an answer while typing.  And more often just after hitting the Post button.

Those latter instances are instructive, because they often give other points of view, alternative solutions and more complete evaluations of the problem than I had completed.  There is value to asking even questions for which you know the answer.  Or at least think you know.

[shapirus]

you were required to tell the bear about your question before you were allowed to ask one of the support persons. They said it solved at least 50% of the questions.

This is precisely the approach that exists in, probably, most of IT-related companies today. The only difference is that the teddy bear is now called L1 support.

[mendip_discovery]

Even if you hit post and someone points out the obvious. At least if it's there it might help the next person.

It helps as well when it's one of the smarter/established users here as it shows that they don't know everything and not to be afraid of asking people.

I work with people that in most cases have less knowledge about a subject than me. So it's hard when trying to figure out a problem. This makes forums like this rather helpful for me so that I can get my head around issues I face.