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Add the ability, using markdown, to place an image directly into the message. I know this feature was removed a few years back when it was done using regular html markup (  ) due to the bad, bad script kiddies. But, with markdown you need not fear...
#SupportHeForShe If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
Only 2 things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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It had nothing to do with script kiddies. It had everything to do with inappropriate images.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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oooh, aaaah, hmmm. I see. Ok then, nevermind.
#SupportHeForShe If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
Only 2 things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Alas, we still suffer from the consequences of that sad picture leak story with @Sean-Ewington and mankinis...
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As far as I've seen, it frequently happens that inquirers of questions in Q&A post a comment or an addition to their question as a solution. So I would suggest a message pointing them to what they're attempting and the potential "better" option (obviously only for the inquirer of the question).
Edit: And another one: Before showing the form for the actual question a form asking
[ ] do you need code?
[ ] do you have a programming question?
(Where choosing option 1 would then obviously result in a SWAT team visiting and/or forced VB6 exposure.)
modified 3-Apr-15 11:06am.
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Sascha Lefévre wrote: inquirers of questions in Q&A post a comment or an addition to their question as a solution
OK
Sascha Lefévre wrote: a message pointing them to what they're attempting and the potential "better" option
Can you give me an example of how you see this being done?
Sascha Lefévre wrote: [ ] do you need code?
[ ] do you have a programming question?
People will answer "yes" to both. What would it achieve?
Besides, SWAT VB teams are notoriously difficult to work with.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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When attempting to reply to ones own forum-message there already is a messagebox-popup asking "You are about to reply to your own message. Is this really what you want?". To avoid people inadvertently posting solutions to their own questions there could be a similar messagebox plus pointing them to the reply-to-comment-button.
To allow for that, it would probably make sense to initially hide the solution-text-input and instead have a button "Add your solution here" to show it, which would first display the aforementioned message if it's the inquirer of the question clicking on it. Or maybe only initially hide the solution-text-input and display that button for the inquirer of the question but leave the whole thing as it is for everyone else.
Come to think of it, a similar messagebox-popup would make sense when the inquirer of a question attempts to comment on his question (via "Have a Question or Comment?") instead of replying to someone elses comment, which also seems to happen quite frequently.
The other suggestion wasn't so well thought through. I would replace it with this one: Before showing the actual form to post a QA-question a page showing only the most important rules for QA with a "proceed" and a "reconsider" button, where "the most important rules" would have to be determined. In my humble experience it would be "be specific ..", "include the actual error message" and "don't ask for code".
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I am a strong proponent of removing any possibility for self-answering. I already submitted such proposal long time ago.
We all know why such self-answers can be bad. In absolute majority of cases, they are. I guess, I have to explain why removing the option to self-answer would do no harm. Some say, "my answer is useful for others". In most cases, it is not, but what if it is really useful? Maybe, then the correct action is simple: publish a short Tips&Tricks article and, optionally, reference your original question. If some say that it does not worth doing, my argument is simple: it means that this post is certainly not interesting to anyone except the author of the original question. And then, the post will be judged by the criteria for articles, not answers. This is a simple consequence of the statement "the answer is useful for others".
"Add your solution here" should be reserved to the attempts (at least attempts, the experts should use some freedom here) to help the inquirer first, and only then other people. And such "solution" does not have to be the direct answer. There is a subtle threshold here: I think the advise to read some books and learn programming is a legitimate variant of "solution", but "we don't do you homework" is not at all, but can be a good comment. The post "this is impossible to resolve by the following reason…" (with some explanation of the reasons, of course) is quite a legitimate solution, because it helps to save time and switch to something useful. Even the answer "yes" to the question "is is possible" can be considered legitimate ("you got what you asked for"; if give some information and experience). In other word, the "solution" should at least contain some useful advice which can potentially improve the inquirer's situation, even if this is "give up and spare your time" advice.
As I can see from my experience, absolute majority of the experts' answers are valid at least as "solution attempts", in some ways (I don't mean the quality of the advice; of course there are many mistakes, but we all do some mistakes). And most invalid answers (non-solutions) come from the inquirers.
Generally, nobody is interested in seeing how someone creates oneself problems, asks the question, and than bravely resolve those problems. If writing an article is not reasonable, comments and "Improve question" are more than enough.
—SASergey A Kryukov
modified 16-Apr-15 15:43pm.
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I'm hiding the "add your solution" buttons for the author of the question.
Sascha Lefévre wrote: Before showing the actual form to post a QA-question a page showing only the most important rules for QA with a "proceed" and a "reconsider" button, where "the most important rules" would have to be determined. In my humble experience it would be "be specific ..", "include the actual error message" and "don't ask for code"
I do like this idea.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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I mean it, some good news.
Thank you, Chris.
—SASergey A Kryukov
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Chris Maunder wrote: I'm hiding the "add your solution" buttons for the author of the question.
Additional suggestions, serving the same idea:
- Hide the "Have a Comment or Question?"-button below the question for the author of the question
- Make the "Improve question"-button always visible, not just on mouse-over-question
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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Friendly bump
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Chris, please take a look here: how to insert into references[^]
I'm new here on CP - but in this time I've seen this in QA already so many times, I'm sure it's worth to be taken care of.
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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Chris, I don't mean to bug you but I would appreciate a feedback after I explained my idea in more detail 
I see this issue all the time in QA. I think it would improve the "quality of life" of both QA-inquirers and experts.
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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Please bug me - I apologise for taking so long to reply.
I've replied to your previous idea and am hiding the "add a solution" button for the author of a question,
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Cheers!
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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Hi Sascha,
fyi: some of us do frequently post reminders to OP's who post a comment/response as a solution asking them politely to re-locate the comment, and delete the not-a-solution. if I happen to see the content is not re-located in a day or two, then I may report the not-a-solution with the "Not a Solution" report tag.
but, in my case, I certainly don't this on a systematic basis.
"Automating" this is, imho, one of those "nice ideas" where the actual implementation might have unforeseen consequences ... or, ASFAIK, prohibitive implementation costs (time, labor, by CP staff).
A simpler way might be to just totally prohibit the OP from entering any solution on their own question ... but ... that goes "against the grain" of CP's history of allowing OP's to post a solution of their own. imho, allowing the OP to post their own solution is a good thing.
cheers, Bill
«To kill an error's as good a service, sometimes better than, establishing new truth or fact.» Charles Darwin in "Prospero's Precepts"
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Hi Bill,
thank you for your feedback! I agree with you; OP's shouldn't be completely disallowed to post a solution of their own. But I didn't propose that, or at least I didn't intend to. My idea is to have a messagebox-popup in case they're attempting to do that, asking them if that's really what they want to do and pointing them to the alternatives (leaving a comment to a proposed solution or replying to another members comment); so that it will hopefully become the exception that a OP posts a solution that isn't one. This would then also mean that it's a one-time programming effort for the CP-staff.
cheers, Sascha
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Okay, I take your point, and, I am ashamed to admit that I assumed there already was such a MessageBox popped-up when the thread-starter chose to post a "solution:" so much for my site-knowledge, and reading comprehension, today 
I agree with you that a MessageBox for this purpose would be a very good thing.
thanks, Bill
«To kill an error's as good a service, sometimes better than, establishing new truth or fact.» Charles Darwin in "Prospero's Precepts"
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I'm not sure whether it has something to do with Markdown, but the code display in Q&A seems to be acting strangely. Take a look at please help error:::null pointer exception[^]. The <pre> tag in the middle of the code does not exist in the source, if you click on Improve question, but attempts to make it go away just make it jump about randomly.
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Yes,I saw some strange tag in some questions.. 
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That was a nasty one.
Fixed, give or take an edge case (if you indent code by 4 spaces and then decide to wrap in pre you need to ensure the pre is on a separate line)
cheers
Chris Maunder
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My OCD ensures I always put my <pre> tags on separate lines.
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 ![Beer | [beer]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/beer.gif)
I always put my pre tags on a separate line and I wish the editor would too.
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