How is "One doubt about Dirac notation " a homework like question?
This is a common misreading of the closure reason, both by those whose questions are closed as well as the users trying to evaluate the closure reason. The entire reason currently given is (emphasis mine)
Homework-like questions and check-my-work questions are considered off-topic here, particularly when asking about specific computations instead of underlying physics concepts. Homework questions can be on-topic when they are useful to a broader audience. Note that answers to homework questions with complete solutions may be deleted!
There is a misconception that when this closure reason is applied there are PSE users who see a question an think, "this looks like homework, it has to be closed". And maybe there are people like that, but as someone who voted to close this question, I will say I didn't think of closure like that in this case, and I try not to do that in any other cases as well. In fact, when I see a "homework-like question", I am always hopeful that it will still be a good example of an excellent PSE post, since I really do enjoy helping people learn physics by focusing on key physical concepts.
In this case, I voted to close because of what I put in bold in the quoted closure reason above. This is clearly a "check my work" post. The post is not asking about an underlying physics concept here. Even the only answer given is just "here is the step you got wrong", and then some math to show the correct step. Of course, a post should not be evaluated by the answers it has, but the type of answer can be indicative of what the post is about.
So according to this guideline, asking homework-like questions is fine as long as you
- ask about a specific concept
- show your work
In my opinion, both these conditions are met. In fact, I would say this question is an excellent example of a good question. It showcases both these conditions and it also showcases a common misconception that a lot of students would benefit from.
I disagree. I don't see a specific concept being asked about in this post. Maybe you could pull out the mistake and pinpoint the error as a misunderstanding of some concept, but that is basically true of many "check my work" questions.
This question (my question, not the one I linked) is actually not really a question, but more a call to pay attention to behaviour like this. Physics stack exchange can be very unwelcoming to newcomers and closing questions unjustly is not only unwelcoming, but actively hinders the results that this site was built for. This question, that a lot of people can benefit from, can now no longer receive new answers with possible valuable insights. That's why I will vote to reopen.
I really understand this sentiment, and I do agree that there are cases of questions being closed way too quickly where it seems like there was not a lot of thought put into the decision, but the argument that we need to be careful about posts that many people can benefit from just doesn't hold up. There are plenty of useful questions that one could ask that should be closed based on the rules and guidelines of the site. Of course, no one should be unwelcoming in their interactions here, but posts should be judged based on their content and what is/isn't acceptable for a PSE post. Closure reasons have guidance to help improve a post, and users are still free to make posts and interact on the site.
