Back when we sorted out the book recommendation and resource recommendation requests, we made it so there was a permanent banner instructing those answering to abide by our policies regarding the questions.
Since we get so many homework questions, can (or should) we have a similar banner for those? The arguments for why it is good here are the same as for why it was good on the book/reference request ones.
It will also potentially serve as a reminder to the OP to check the policies. Right now, Kyle Kanos is pretty good about posting a standard comment:
Welcome to Physics! Please note that Physics.StackExchange is not a homework help site. Please see this Meta post on asking homework questions and this Meta post for "check my work" problems – Kyle Kanos 1 hour ago
with appropriate links. This comment is directed only at OP, but our banner could include similar wording plus directions to those who answer about not actually providing the full answer.
Since it might seem unclear who exactly such a banner would be targeted towards, here is a link to an explanation that occurred in the chat room. I will try to summarize it here:
For good, properly posed homework questions, the OP doesn't need to be reminded about the policies. However, those who answer the question should be reminded. For instance, somebody can show an example problem, explain what concept they are stuck on, and ask for help understanding the concept. That's a great homework question.
Somebody can then come along and say "Here's how this concept works. And when you do that, you get the answer X."
In other words, the person who answered the question violated the HW policy by going too far in the explanation.
The banner would be targeted to the answerer more than the questioner, although the questioner (and future people who come to the site) will also see the banner and get links/information on the policy. Everybody wins.
Compare this to the book recommendation policy and banner. Somebody comes along an asks for a recommendation, perfectly on-topic and valid. We put the banner up reminding those who answer the question that recommendations must explain why it is appropriate and not just give a link.
Books banner tells people who answer that they need to provide more information to abide by the policy.
Homework banner tells people they should provide less information to abide by the policy.
I see them as equivalent and helpful.
Lastly, since adding a banner requires a moderator, it can sometimes be annoying. Although QMechanic does a pretty good job reviewing almost every question on the site for appropriate tags so it probably wouldn't be that hard to add the banner.
It would be great if we can ask the SE team to make it so questions tagged with homework-and-exercises get the banner automatically. And if the tag is removed, the banner is removed. Although that's something that probably isn't trivial and shouldn't affect whether we have the banner now or not.