Self Answers to questions are good
Across Stack Exchange, there's always been a stigma against self-answered questions due to the perception that this is intended to function as a kind of Reputation Farming. I don't agree with that perception, both from a theoretical perspective, and from the practical perspective of observing that Self-Answered questions often do worse, in terms of overall Reputation issued, than other questions (because of the stigma). So that is an open issue in the community.
However, the official stance of the network, and of this site specifically, is that it is okay, and even encouraged, to try to provide answers to your own questions, and I believe that is the correct stance to take. The purpose of sites like this is to try to help people find answers to questions they might have, and if people provide self-answers to their own questions, it only means that future visitors who encounter the same problem will have a resource to look to to resolve their problem. That's a good thing.
I will say, from personal experience, to observe a few important recommendations; though these aren't rules, and you're not obligated (formally or informally) to follow them:
- Self-Answered posts usually accrue a few downvotes in their first appearance. If the post (and answer!) are good, these will usually get balanced out quickly. So don't get defensive; this is just the existing stigma against these questions, and you can't really fight that, other than by making the merit of your post as obvious as possible
- Try to focus on making the question + answer as good-looking as possible. Since you know that whatever answer you're providing is a solution to the problem you're facing, you have an opportunity to tailor them both to make sure the problem is well defined and the answer is a comprehensive response to it
Again: not rules, just suggestions based on my experience providing answers to my own questions.
