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The question:

What should I do, if the "Open Call Hierarchy" is broken (empty for every method in a project)? It is very useful for code navigation, do not know, how to work without it!

The answer (now converted to a comment):

I have had the same issue. Closing and re-opening the project fixed this issue for me. You might want to give that a try.

The comment on the answer (before it was deleted):

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post

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15
  • @Servy: saw that after I commented and deleted my comment already. :P
    – Wooble
    Commented Aug 14, 2013 at 14:07
  • 3 upvotes and 2 downvotes. Maybe some explanation from downvoters - why do you think it should be a comment?
    – MikroDel
    Commented Aug 14, 2013 at 14:10
  • That isn't what voting means.
    – GEOCHET
    Commented Aug 14, 2013 at 14:10
  • @GEOCHET - Its mean agree (+) or not (-) or not? =)
    – MikroDel
    Commented Aug 14, 2013 at 14:11
  • 1
    Or it means "This is an unnecessary question". Do you consider this question useful?
    – GEOCHET
    Commented Aug 14, 2013 at 14:12
  • The votes on my answer are whether people agree with my answer or not.
    – GEOCHET
    Commented Aug 14, 2013 at 14:13
  • @GEOCHET ok - good )
    – MikroDel
    Commented Aug 14, 2013 at 14:19
  • 1
    Considering that the person who posted the answer doesn't even have enough rep to comment yet, why was this question even asked? Give the newbie some slack until he has sufficient rep to leave comments. And, if it really is an answer that should be a comment, then maybe a mod can covert it.
    – RobH
    Commented Aug 14, 2013 at 16:06
  • well it really doesn't answered the question neither telling why the problem solved it may possible that he made some changes and then on closing those automatically reverse
    – NullPoiиteя
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 7:54
  • 3
    I want to note that I agree with @gordon, however please people if you see a question where the accepted answer is: "restart the thing" also close and delete the question instead of just flagging the non answers.
    – PeeHaa
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 10:43
  • 1
    Looks like everyone here missed the fact the OP found the solution himself and posted it as a comment to the question.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 11:06
  • Yes, OP accepted an obvious debugging step as answer because it works for him, some users even upvote these answers. Kill the question with fire! /s
    – Old Checkmark
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 11:39
  • 1
    It wasn't really deleted and reposted. The answer was converted to a comment by a moderator, after it was flagged as "not an answer".
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 11:50
  • @CodyGray the same 2 step operation in 1 step
    – MikroDel
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 11:54
  • @CodyGray but I also didnt know moderators can convert answers
    – MikroDel
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 11:58

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

The answer provided is not a great answer, but it is an answer. It could potentially solve the problem described in the question.

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3
  • 3
    I read that answer as "Have you tried closing and reopening the project? It worked for me." ;-)
    – Jack
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 8:07
  • 2
    This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post - you can always comment on your own posts, and once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post.
    – James
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 10:39
  • 2
    Have you tried closing and reopening the question?
    – User1000547
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 13:00
13

If I had handled that flag, I would have certainly converted it to a comment.

Restarting an application is the first thing to do whenever something goes wrong. It's troubleshooting 101 and as an answer it is way too generic. It's the type of "answer" you can put below every problem with an application and it will never be "wrong", because it's the reasonable first thing to try.

In case of this particular question restarting worked for the OP giving the answer but it didn't work for the OP asking the question. This shows how generic that "solution" is because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And that's why it should be a comment only.

We expect answers to contain factual information about how to solve specific problems. If restarting makes the error go away, it's a magic fix. You are lucky then. But it offers no insight whatsoever into the problem or why the solution works.

Likewise, because "restart your application" is so basic and generic as a "solution" it offers no value whatsoever to future visitors. It's so obvious to try that it doesn't qualify as an answer.

As a rule of thumb: if you dont know what exactly solves a problem but want to make suggestions about what to try, provide them as a comment an if that then turns out to solve the problem, turn it into an answer.

To add some numbers to illustrate that answering "restart your application" is not considered an answer, consider the following 5 posts (you need 10k to view these):

That's five out of many more deleted posts suggesting to restart the application:

Deleted posts suggesting to restart an application

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7
  • 2
    You have created a monster now. There are hundreds of "restarting x fixed this for me" answers in the not-an-answer queue.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 9:15
  • @CodyGray yeah, but that's a good thing, isn't it?
    – Gordon
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 9:18
  • 1
    Sure, I suppose. I just haven't the magic buttons to deal with them all, and that saddens me :-(
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 9:18
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    +1 Basic debuggery is not an answer, it's a comment. It should be a "have you tried this?". "Have you tried turning it off and on again" is not an legitimate answer, unless you're from the IT Crowd.
    – James
    Commented Aug 15, 2013 at 10:40
  • 1
    @Gordon: It's a bit of a mess in the 10k queue right now: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/193570/…
    – Linuxios
    Commented Aug 16, 2013 at 14:58
  • @Jimbo Hah, "debuggery", I like it :)
    – AakashM
    Commented Aug 16, 2013 at 14:59
  • 1
    @Jimbo: Necessary XKCD: xkcd.com/806.
    – Linuxios
    Commented Aug 16, 2013 at 15:03

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