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As the site matures and the community becomes more involved, we may run into (we already have a few) questions that are very project or system specific. For these questions, since it is possible that they are very technical, the OP may decide to include a portion of their raw code or a section of their input file in the description of the question.

One scenario I can think of is to ask for appropriate values for an integration grid to model a system. Another, may be very specific to certain pseudopotentials (types and versions) used in plane-wave DFT codes. Questions about optimization such as this one. Here, the OP included a figure. I can only think that it would be more helpful if we saw their POSCAR and INCAR files,so we could analyze them and detect an error, i.e. troubleshoot with the user.

Is the inclusion of these raw figures and data permitted, encouraged, or discouraged on our site?

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I believe such questions should be on topic, but I agree that they would be much better if they included the POSCAR and INCAR files.

There is a reason why there is an option to include code.
As I am doing here. 
There is a reason why on the main site this also has syntax coloring, 
which works for POSCAR and INCAR files.

This particular question had lots of people asking for clarification in the comments before it finally got answers (thanks to me posting on the VASP Facebook group, bumping it up with constructive edits, and it being posted on Twitter). Even the answer written very recently, says "There is not enough information on the setup here, but I will give two thoughts anyway"

So in this particular case, the user was in fact encouraged to include more information, and eventually it got 2 answers. If it went longer without answers, and the user blatantly ignores the multitude of requests to include more information, then it could be put on hold or voted closed, but this has never yet happened to us on this site.

I can also imagine cases where an input or output file might be ridiculously long for the style of this site, and in those cases we might(?) not want such questions to stay, but it hasn't happened yet, so we don't have concrete examples to discuss yet.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks Nike. I have included code in some of my questions and answers, but it has been pretty generic, limited to being package-specific rather than system-specific. However, you're right. We might have to evaluate these Qs as they come. $\endgroup$
    – epalos
    Jun 15, 2020 at 19:46

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