41

These 2 questions have clearly wrong answers with upvotes. And they're still getting votes.

The log file one especially could be tried out, it would fail, but someone still voted it up. A downvote and comment has no effect.

Like we have "vote to close", what about a "vote to delete" for answers. I'd suggest a fairly high rep limit. Or badge ownership realting to the question tags (eg SQL Server)

Best way to move a log file in SQL Server 2005 (SF)

What is an MDF file (SO)

Could be similar to this meta question: Question with wrong answer upvoted

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6
  • 2
    Looks like posting these candidates here on MSO is a good way to solve this problem ;-)
    – Ladybug Killer
    Commented Jul 24, 2009 at 7:34
  • 19
    Someone is wrong on the internet!
    – Andrew Grimm
    Commented Mar 24, 2010 at 1:56
  • 1
    To add a point, certain answer like stackoverflow.com/questions/12675978/… sound correct but actually aren't. Therefore people say "oh yeah, that sounds right, vote it up". My own vote up threshold is probably something like I'm 98% sure the answer is correct. Before I'm going to click on a vote delete/wrong button I'm going to make darn sure that I'm 99.9999999999999% sure that the post is factually wrong.
    – CrazyCasta
    Commented Oct 3, 2012 at 4:21
  • @CrazyCasta, I'm not sure that editing the post to completely change its meaning is the right way to deal with that kind of situation...it seems to me that downvoting and leaving your own answer would be more appropriate. Thoughts?
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 4:36
  • @KyleStrand So you're denying that this is a problem? Your conclusion is completely counter to the opinion stated here (I don't have a problem with that, just pointing it out). I think most of the people that have voted on this page seem to agree that down-voting and providing a correct answer isn't sufficient.
    – CrazyCasta
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 13:48
  • Nnnnnnnno.... I'm just not sure your solution is optimal. (Nor is my proposed solution below optimal.)
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 14:21

8 Answers 8

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28

As others said before me, you should use the options SO already provides to you:

  • Leave a comment
  • Downvote the wrong answer
  • Provide or upvote a correct answer
  • If it is really, really wrong (as in dangerously wrong, like 'delete C:\NTLDR in order to improve computer performance'), flag it for moderator attention.

I am opposed to any vote for deletion feature. The voting system works well enough, in my opinion. Given enough time, the wrong answers tend to sink to the bottom. No need to add more features that are not really needed.

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7
  • 4
    All of the above done... except flag to mod
    – gbn
    Commented Jul 24, 2009 at 8:49
  • Also see red x answer
    – bobobobo
    Commented Oct 18, 2009 at 14:36
  • 45
    Have you actually used StackOverflow? The wrong answers do not tend to sink to the bottom (especially not when they’re accepted by the asker). Even less do the right answers float up when there are more than a few because nobody reads them.
    – Timwi
    Commented Aug 18, 2010 at 12:34
  • 9
    @Timwi: Yes I have used it, thanks for asking. I stand by my answer: The system works. There may be a few exceptions, but in the vast majority of the questions, the good answers float to the top.
    – Treb
    Commented Aug 26, 2010 at 19:23
  • 1
    Flags aren't for this AFAIK. There's even a special flag decline reason: declined - flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer
    – ɥʇǝS
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 4:29
  • 2
    I've done all these suggestions on stackoverflow.com/questions/3601515/… to no effect. The silly upvotes keep coming and if I were on the business end of that top answer, deleting my crappy accepted answer would cost me a thousand points of rep. Those 20 downvotes, who could care less?
    – Jens
    Commented Apr 10, 2014 at 18:27
  • @Jens: I don't think there is really a problem. You don't even need to scroll down to see that the next answer hat a higher reputation than the accepted one. Which should make anybody with half a working brain curious enough to start reading the comments on those answers. About the reputation gained by that answer - as of today, that user has almos 30 k rep. I don't think loosing a thousand points would bother him...
    – Treb
    Commented Apr 18, 2014 at 10:44
8

I think the three things you can do are:

  1. Vote
  2. Flag it for moderator attention
  3. Leave a constructive comment

Keep in mind, votes are a measure of popularity NOT correctness, both usually correlate but not always.

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2
  • 5
    1 and 3: done. 2: overkill probably.
    – gbn
    Commented Jul 24, 2009 at 6:52
  • 3
    Votes must be indication of anybody, but not popularity. Because SE have to provide correct answer, not nice
    – Lazy Badger
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 0:40
7

Downvote and comment on it, explaining that and why the answer is wrong. If you have a correct answer, give it. If the question already has a correct answer, point to it in the comment and upvote it.

And yes, a vote for deletion option would be great. I would give the author the possibility to react on your comment. So I propose, as it has been done before, a "please edit this post" option that alerts the user through "recent action" to do something with the answer (delete or edit). After a threshold of maybe 48 hours, the votes to delete kick in, if the user did not edit the answer.

Maybe the voters are alerted about the edit and would be able to withdraw the vote to delete.

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2
  • 3
    I downvoted and added comment, but the question still got an upvote afterwards...
    – gbn
    Commented Jul 24, 2009 at 6:50
  • 3
    I like the idea of "flag to poster" too
    – gbn
    Commented Jul 24, 2009 at 6:52
6

How about up-voting correct answers? Who cares about some up-votes for wrong answers when the other answers are at the top of the list?

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5

Explain why they are wrong with a clear, constructive comment. Link to the valid answer(s).

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2
  • 1
    Watch the futility of that for stackoverflow.com/questions/3601515/…
    – Jens
    Commented Apr 10, 2014 at 18:29
  • @Jens That is not a futile example, but the opposite. Without knowing anything about the subject, I read the question. I read the comments. After reading them, I knew that there were two answers which were correct and were not the most voted one. Hence, I was informed. Hence, the actions done by SO users to point to the actually correct answer(s) were not futile. q.e.d.
    – Daniel Daranas
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 7:59
4

"Vote to delete" - how many votes need to mark answer as a wrong? - I think, for this reason, here is downvote

Some time you see wrong answer, but this wrong answer can help to solve problem. (not at this two questions)

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1
  • 1. I'd say 5 votes liek "closing" 2. I agree that wrong answers can help. In these case, they don't
    – gbn
    Commented Jul 24, 2009 at 6:51
0

Some days ago there was a question which had a lot of downvotes without any reason and a wrong answer with a lot of upvotes (about 10) and what I did was downvote and comment it and wait for an answer from the user. Then when I saw that the answer was still there without any edit I flagged it and I posted the right answer and pointed out that the other answer was completely wrong by saying the reasons.

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-3

What if we added a banner for answers similar to the "possible duplicate" banner for questions indicating that the answer has been flagged by a moderator (or by someone with a lot of rep in relevant tags) as probably wrong and/or potentially dangerous? That way, we don't need to delete suspicious-looking answers that might actually be correct, but we still warn people against following the answer blindly and/or voting it up without checking it.

EDIT: On second thought, this suggestion wouldn't actually be that helpful. In any case, the "possible duplicate" banner only shows up for the OP until the question is actually closed.

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8
  • Downvoters: what don't you like about this suggestion?
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 1:30
  • 2
    Regardless of whether or not I downvoted, why would you allow one person alone to both add clutter to a page, and cast doubt on the rest of the community's voting?
    – user206222
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 4:07
  • @Knights Doesn't the "possible duplicate" banner already do that? Granted, "this question is a duplicate" is somewhat less subjective than "this answer is potentially dangerous," so even if this suggestion were implemented it should probably require much higher rep than marking as duplicate and/or multiple mods to mark it. Also, "probably wrong" is a lot weaker than what I'm really thinking here; this banner should only be applied (if at all) to answers that appear to be right but might have damaging results. (Granted, I'm not sure whether this happens often or at all.)
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 4:39
  • 1
    "This question is a duplicate" has a completely different meaning than "This answer may be incorrect or may be harmful." Also, I sincerely doubt any harmful answer will have accrued upvotes.
    – user206222
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 4:44
  • @Knights I didn't mean they had the same meaning, I just meant that the duplicate banner already "allow[s] one person alone to both add clutter to a page, and cast doubt on the rest of the community's voting."
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 4:49
  • Only the OP sees possible duplicate banners, at least until the question is closed. They're automatic, and not added by just one person.
    – user206222
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 4:50
  • @Knights Really? I didn't realize that. My mistake.
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 4:53
  • No worries. It's less known. Ref: this question.
    – user206222
    Commented May 1, 2013 at 4:56

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