After reading other's opinions (I do that sometimes), I find I'm definitely on the side of not boycotting 'homework' questions. I was on the fence before - my initial post here was couched in terms of devil advocacy.

On another forum not at all like BAUT, I have worked hard to contain drive-by, thread-creating newbie posts. They always get spliced to existing threads whenever possible. The goal is to keep the forum readable and searchable. Some have complained that they don't want to work at participating in the forum (work in that case meaning doing a competent search first before creating a thread).

Similar thing here - it's suggested that newbies should do their own homework before coming to BAUT to ask questions. But the relevant differences between the two situations I'm comparing are twofold. First, we have a section - Q&A - specifically designed for these questions. Second, BAUT moderators and admins make no attempt to organize threads beyond the forum structure (i.e., moving threads from one section to another, as appropriate to their content). So, if a newbie does a search here on a topic, it will likely result in a daunting number of hits. Too many to be managed, I think. Hence, a question pops up in a new thread.

As to asking newbies to go elsewhere to find the answers, I reject that easily. I want people to come to BAUT when they think of a science-related question. Even homework questions.

As stated innumerable times already, you can choose to answer the "why is the sky blue" questions or not. I avoid entire sections of BAUT because of the content.

As to the aside being discussed, I often shorten members names - Nev, Mugs, CC, Jim (oh, wait) - and find that mine gets shortened as well - geo, mostly. It's a familiarity and it's a good thing.