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We're considering asking that the trigger for this be lowered from 30 on IPS to something else, which is shown to be possible in the post that introduces it. There is some concern regarding some of the text on the popup:

"This question has more than 30 answers already. Did you read through all the existing answers first to make sure your answer will be contributing something new? Also, please note that you can click the edit link on any of these answers to improve them."

Specifically, the last sentence:

Also, please note that you can click the edit link on any of these answers to improve them.

This is absolutely true on Stack Exchange and editing to improve answers is certainly something that everyone should be willing to do... but on sites like Interpersonal Skills where answers tend to be very personal, it can feel intrusive to have people add information to an answer.

If we decide to change the quantity of answers that trigger this popup, is it possible to remove this?

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Quick note on this threshold: while the default is 30, it can be lowered all the way to 0 if desired (which would generate this warning if at least one answer had already been posted).

Note that this setting controls one other feature: for questions that exceed the threshold, all comments are hidden by default unless they score 1 or more; there's currently no way to separate these two bits of functionality, so if you opt to reduce the answer threshold you'll have to accept fewer comments shown by default as well. Oh, such a shame, I know, I know...

As for the bit about editing: the message isn't configurable at all. Editing is a fundamental part of how these sites are designed to be used; while it's true that some topics (and some communities) do tend to be more possessive of their work than others, the rationale for allowing editing remains valid across all sites: these posts are intended to outlast their authors, and allowing them to be improved and maintained is critical to this end. The last thing any question needs is dozens of answers each existing solely to provide a small correction to a previous answer; if IPS (or any other site) is headed in that direction, we might as well shutter it and direct folks to a PHPBB forum (and the year 2006).

As always, respect the original author - but if an author asserts that their work should never be edited, gently suggest to them that they may be happier somewhere else on the Internet.

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  • Oh no... I accepted an answer on meta! hides
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jan 11 '18 at 0:41
  • I told ya... Support questions are just Q&A.
    – Shog9
    Jan 11 '18 at 0:46
  • So, setting the threshold to 0 is the same as setting it to 1 (effectively)?
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jan 11 '18 at 0:49
  • No, setting it to 1 would warn once there were 2 answers already posted. The threshold is the limit - once it is exceeded then warnings are shown and comments are hidden. I guess it's possible we could set it to -1, but that would be silly - can you imagine seeing, "This question has more than -1 answers already"?
    – Shog9
    Jan 11 '18 at 0:58
  • Oh, I was thinking about it backwards... I thought that if N<=current answer count, the threshold was reached... but it's actually N<current answers count.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jan 11 '18 at 1:01
  • Yes. Well, the test is literally question.AnswerCount > AnswerThreshold, but it means the same thing backwards if you also reverse the > to <.
    – Shog9
    Jan 11 '18 at 1:02
  • I guess that explains why the warning box says "more than {n}"... which makes that correct.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Jan 11 '18 at 1:07
  • You should mention that technically, this is an abuse of the old auto-CW threshold, because per a comment here, that is the case. While the CW conversion no longer happens, the other side effects do. In other words, had the auto-CW feature still existed, changing this threshold would also change the number of answers needed to automatically wikify the question.
    – Sonic the Anti-New Variant-hog
    Jan 11 '18 at 2:51
  • 3
    The Workplace would love it if the answer warning and the comments thing weren't joined at the hip, but because we came at it from the other side: we wanted to reduce visibility of big comment piles, so our threshold is 2. That answer warning is a little goofy that far down, but we'll pay that price for the comment fix. I presume that IPS will have no problem at all with comments being less visible on these questions. :-)
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 11 '18 at 3:00
  • Slightly more accurate to say that both of the functions I describe here originally piggybacked on the same setting that controlled auto-CW, @Sonic. The comment thing never really had any connection to auto-CW at all, beyond perhaps both being "this question is getting noisy - let's calm it down a bit". The answer-prompt has at least the editing connection: while suggested edits existed (a few months) prior to its introduction, Community Wiki was probably still the most common way to allow new users to edit at the time, and a strong hint that they should edit.
    – Shog9
    Jan 11 '18 at 4:44

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