Protecting or marking self answered questions to avoid "lack of research" downvotes

Question

I recently had a small problem to solve, googled and found a solution. Since the question was out of Stack websites, I thought I would post it already with an answer, and so I did it:

Replace any number of spaces using regular expressions

However I got a downvote. I can only guess, but it wasn't for lack of clarity or quality, it must have been for lack of research. But I did post an answer so the research was there. So, I assume, the downvoter saw the question, thought it was trivial or that I was asking people's help without doing any effort, and downvoted it.

So my question is: Shouldn't question posted together with an answer somehow protected from downvotes, at least by putting a clear marker like

This question was intended for documentation purpose. The author has already provided an answer to the problem. Read about self-answered questions. You are welcome to submit alternative answers!

Answer 1

I don't know why the particular person downvoted you, but the post was confusing. It was unclear whether you wanted to remove 1+ spaces, or 2+ spaces. First you answered for 2+ then you decided 1+. You have also mixed up whitespace and space in your question, stating space in the title, then whitespace in the first sentence. You should include what you have tried in the question itself, thus showing where you are stuck. If you'd done that, you might not have even clicked the post button and you'd have solved it before even posting the question.

Furthermore, a question it's so easily googlable.. e.g. google how to match 1 or more of a character or 2 or more of a character. And google how to match space.. Or google how to match >=1 or >=2 space characters

And when you posted your answer and realized you wanted {1,} rather than {2,} then you should've clarified by editing your question but you didn't. And even if your question had been clear, it's not that useful for anybodys documentation if it's so easily googleable.

You write

"This question was intended for documentation purpose. "

I don't know who is going to look at a question that mixes up space and whitespace, and say "ah great for my documentation"

And you write in comment "I don't think a question should be downvoted, supposedly, for lack of research when also an answer is provided" <-- Actually that's why the Question and Answer are separate. A Question can be downvoted and an answer upvoted.

Answer 2

Your original question wasn't clear. You also admit "I had not read carefully" which is an indication you did not prepare to ask the best question possible. So lets put the fact you didn't prepare to ask the best question possible, a question should be helpful today and tomorrow to any reader with the same question as you.

You indicated that a question showing a "A lack of research" isn't a valid reason to downvote a question. You might want to hover over the down arrow on any question to understand why your viewpoint does NOT match the communities.

The fact you self-answer isn't relevant to the reason your question was downvoted. The community still expects a well researched clear question even if you are going to self-answer. Other people might also have an answer to the question, perhaps even a better answer, so the question has to be clear in order to do that.

If you want your questions and answers to be well received by the community you need to work on their quality and the clarity of the content itself.