This is 100% [meta-tag:status-bydesign]. In fact, **[it's a core part of how Stack Exchange works][1]**. The sort of questions you're seeing are what we call "canonical answers." It's an effort to build a knowledge base of information that's likely to be useful for many different people. [Self-answering is encouraged][2]. If you figure out something cool that other people might benefit from, you _should_ write up a self-answer blog-type post. If you take a look at the [FAQ][3] and [About][4] pages, you'll see this highlighted there, too.  On Super User, we've taken this to the next level with [tag:community-faq] questions. We specifically encourage users to write questions and answers to address common problems. We don't want 15 different "halp i got a virus what i do?" questions. We want a single starting point that's a good reference for what to do if you get a virus. We don't need 20 "can i do this with my win7 license?" questions. We want a single good overview of all the licensing options. [1]: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/05/encyclopedia-stack-exchange/ [2]: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/17463/can-i-answer-my-own-questions-even-those-where-i-knew-the-answer-before-asking [3]: http://superuser.com/faq [4]: http://superuser.com/about