I think rules about answers should be the same for all sites

Question

It is already impratical to follow rules for posting good questions, I think that adding rules to how answers should be make, specific to a SE site is just overkill and creating overall a bad user experience.

Basically the following model is broken in many of the SE sites:

• User ask a question
• Another user answer

That because what is technically a good answer (At least according to Original Poster) that address the question (according to what "answer and questions" mean on the vocabulary), it is no longer a correct answer according to site rules, that really vary across SE sites.

There are just too many SE sites and it is already a full time job reading good questions' rules without the need for Answers' rules too.

When joining a community there should be at least a big warning:

Hei this community has different rules for answers.

To my opinion it is much more natural to restrict only questions to site's specific rules and too avoid rules on answers (of course, some common good-sense rules should still be kept).

The next step will be, hey "The answer for this question should be exactly this one".

• In example: In this site we accept only "short" or "yes/no" answers with explaination (oh geez, seems that is already a reality XD).

• The field of the answer shuld be limited only by the question, otherwise it is technically possible to create questions with no possible answers (because the only acceptable answer do not follown answer's rules from a pure philosophical point of view).

Please take my considerations seriously, I'm not joking, If I were a developer here at SE I would consider that seriously (I'm not saying make that a reality. Just consider it). It is a user-experience primary goal to me.

The usual flow should be:

• Check if I can ask this question
• Ask the question
• Post answer

Now it is more likely to be (at least on 50% of SE sites)

• Check if I can ask this question
• Ask the question
• Check if answer fits SE site specific rules
• Post answer

It is no longer a Q&A webiste to me, at least in many of the new variants. Be sure to read twice to get what I'm saying. Now it is more a Q&ARRBPA (Question and read rules before posting an answer) site.

Since now SE sites are cross-linked to clickbait users it is just a fraction of seconds to go in bad waters without almost not noticing it.

Answer 1

rules about answers should be the same for all sites

This may seem like a simple and ideal solution, but when you look at the wide range of sites, the need for different rules becomes apparent.

For example, we have a site called World Building which by very nature allows answers that are almost completely made-up. On the other side of the spectrum, we have Skeptics, with very specific requirements for fact-based answers (otherwise, what's the point?).

To my opinion it is much more natural to restrict only questions to site's specific rules and too avoid rules on answers (of course, some common good-sense rules should still be kept).

For the most-part, this is actually what we have. You will see the answer-flagging dialog is the same across different sites. Mainly only what is not-an-answer varies by site, generally dictated by the needs of the topic.

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I'm guessing this answer is the one that prompted this Meta post (screenshot because I expect it will be deleted).

On Skeptics, there are very specific requirements for fact-based answers, based on sources.

Setting that aside though, this answer still is not-an-answer. The question isn't asking for ideas on how to determine if voting fraud was committed, it's asking if it was committed. At best, it's a critique of the question, which is what comments are for.