Questions tagged [answers]
This tag is for questions about answers: how to answer, whether specific answers are appropriate, and so forth.
2,516
questions
9
votes
1answer
55 views
The “How do I write a good answer?” help page needs a tidy-up
If you go to the page "How do I write a good answer?" in the Help Centre, the first two points are:
Pay it forward
Saying “thanks” is appreciated, but it doesn’t answer the question. ...
9
votes
0answers
53 views
The Help Center implies that it's OK to answer duplicate questions if there aren't many duplicates; is this correct?
The Help Center article on how to write a good answer contains the following section:
Not all questions can or should be answered here. Save yourself some
frustration and avoid trying to answer ...
2
votes
0answers
61 views
Should I award bounty to a helpful, but incomplete, answer? [duplicate]
I raised a bounty of 100 rep on a fundamental yet non-trivial question on the mathematics Stack Exhange site. One genius guy answered the question; however, the answer was incomplete. Using those ...
-8
votes
0answers
84 views
Has a mechanism been proposed and rejected for dealing with old questions with high votes on an answer but none accepted? [duplicate]
There are quite a number of questions that are very old and have lots of answers, specifically an answer with a high number of upvotes. Sometimes the asker has not been on the site for a long time, ...
6
votes
1answer
103 views
What is a good way to respond or comment to a boomerang answer? [duplicate]
What is a good way to respond to a boomerang answer, an answer that basically responds with "You don't want to do that, do this other thing"? Maybe I do want to use my cat as a mop for my ...
8
votes
0answers
116 views
A simple way to make new answers more discoverable
In my opinion, one shortcoming of Stack Exchange is the discoverability of new answers on questions.
This simple feature proposal would make it more enticing for users to discover new answers, while ...
-2
votes
1answer
114 views
Allow changing your vote if a new answer is posted?
This isn't Allow changing votes on answers if the question is edited
Sometimes I vote on an answer because at the time it is correct (upvote), or they do not explain very well and it looks wrong (...
14
votes
0answers
85 views
Show the answer author in suggested edit reviews
Today, I was going through a suggested edit and found that it was shortening the code (something that we don't allow on our site (Code Golf)). However, when I tried to reject it, it had already been ...
3
votes
1answer
137 views
What happens with “Does this answer your question?” - Yes [duplicate]
Question
When one/more users suggest another post answers your question (and there is a banner at the top of the page asking if question title answers your question? Yes/No), what physically happens ...
3
votes
1answer
59 views
How can I quickly jump to a specific answer when I've posted multiple answers to the same question?
It's easy to find a question of mine in my user profile by reading the titles of the questions in the Questions tab. It's similar for answers when I've only posted one answer to a question. I can find ...
1
vote
1answer
60 views
Button to show the version of the question as of when answer was posted / last edited?
Sometimes when reading an answer it doesn't seem to correspond entirely to the question asked, and if I want to find out why the procedure then becomes:
Scroll up to the question again
Check if it ...
2
votes
0answers
42 views
Best practice about average time to accept an answer and accept answer decision [duplicate]
What is the common sense for the time to accept a user answer?
For example, I usually think that I need to wait, for example, 1 week or more, because some questions have more than one answer and I ...
-2
votes
1answer
183 views
No check mark – How do I mark an answer as accepted? [duplicate]
I recently asked a question and would like to mark one of the answers as accepted. The problem is that I do not see a way to do so. On the left-hand side of the answer I can either vote up/down or ...
6
votes
3answers
156 views
Is there a certain amount of time after which a new question is unlikely to get any answers?
Can anyone else confirm my suspicions here? I have found that whenever I post a new question, if it is going to receive any answers at all, it will happen within the first few hours of posting. After ...
-18
votes
1answer
102 views
The “working on it” proposal [duplicate]
It bothers me a lot when I'm spending some time and effort trying to answer a question only to learn it got closed for any reason. It's just a lot of time wasted. So I have come up with a solution for ...
8
votes
1answer
300 views
If a user is banned from posting answers, state so before they start writing the answer
Answer-banned users aren't informed they can't post an answer before they try to post an answer (which typically happens after they write an answer). They're only notified when they've finished their ...
11
votes
0answers
110 views
Add the share button to (other) answers in review queues
When reviewing an answer in one of the Low Quality Posts, First Posts, or Late Answers queues, there is the option to watch the Other answers of the question. This gives a more "naked" view ...
-15
votes
1answer
105 views
Automatic following of answers to your question [duplicate]
There should be an option so when you are the OP of a question and it gets answered, the OP is notified of any comments to that answer without having to manually follow each answer. It would be ...
-16
votes
1answer
81 views
Low-quality answer auto-comments sound a little hard to new users
When reviewing low quality posts, I came across this post and recommended its deletion. The system automatically left a comment saying,
If you have a new question, please ask it by clicking the Ask ...
2
votes
1answer
69 views
Can I answer my own question without accepting it?
I recently posed a question on stack exchange biology about how viruses persist outside the body, and HPV in particular.
The question received some upvotes initially but no answers. After putting a ...
1
vote
2answers
214 views
Is it typical for self-answered questions to be downvoted? [duplicate]
As a habit, I have always tried to answer my own questions on Stack Overflow and other sites if no one provided an answer, and I later found the answer myself. I consider this to be essential to ...
5
votes
1answer
59 views
Is the question asker notified of updates to answers without explicitly “following” that answer?
This certainly never used to be a thing, but I'm wondering if this behaviour has changed with the "increased notifications" - without the OP having to explicitly "follow" that ...
2
votes
2answers
101 views
Is it a good approach to report a bug with an answer to a similar question, rather than asking a new question?
Is it a good approach to report a bug with an answer to a similar question, rather than asking a new question?
I see something like this happening here:
Stack Overflow for Teams is now free for up to ...
9
votes
0answers
79 views
Can clicking on a negatively-received post remove the graying-out on both the content *and* the comments?
This post was marked status-completed - and it is, to a degree. But clicking on a post with a score of -3 (or -7) or lower doesn't remove the grayness on the comments underneath the post, only the ...
-7
votes
1answer
59 views
There is any option to unsubcribe/unfollow already subscribed community [closed]
There is any option to unsubscribe/unfollow already subscribed community in stack overflow (Is this logout is an option for unsubscribing/unfollowing)
-4
votes
2answers
101 views
Why isn't there a counter for answers (like there is for questions) saying “viewed ## times”?
I noticed that for questions there is a header saying "Viewed n times", but why isn't there a corresponding header for answers?
12
votes
4answers
198 views
What should one do when a question's answers don't take its tags into account?
Both the title and question body of Stack Overflow question "How to download a video from an M3U8 file" ask how to download a M3U8 video based on a local file.
How to download a video from ...
-18
votes
3answers
108 views
Why not upvote the answer that is used to mark another question as duplicate?
A lot of questions get marked as a duplicate on a daily basis, which means the answers on some other question is being helpful for the OP, which means it deserves an upvote, right? So why not just ...
0
votes
1answer
50 views
Can I answer my own question by citing a comment? [duplicate]
The best answer on one of my questions is in the comment section.
I don't want to bother the commenter by asking for a formal answer so that I can give it the love (upvote and accept) that it deserves....
1
vote
1answer
69 views
Is it possible to be notified about new answers to and comments on bookmarked questions? [duplicate]
I get notified by email about new answers to and comments on questions posted by me, as well as about comments on my answers.
Is it possible for me to be notified by email about new answers to and ...
0
votes
1answer
178 views
Is the chatroom to be used for topic related chatting or not? [duplicate]
I found a chat section in Stack Overflow. Is it to be used for simply chatting or a particular topic?
For example, if Android is the name of the chat room, is there only Android-related chat allowed?
33
votes
5answers
433 views
Outdated Answers project kicking off on Stack Overflow
As we announced on Meta Stack Overflow, we are kicking off a project to begin tackling the issue of outdated answers. That post goes into detail on the initiative and our approach.
We are focusing our ...
3
votes
1answer
70 views
Setting a benchmark on negative marking on question/answer for auto delete
Just a thought: Shouldn't there be a way, if a benchmark is been set for vote-down and on basis of that, the particular post should be hidden/deleted/disappear from the list and looks clean with no ...
8
votes
0answers
87 views
How did the system not catch these two <30 character answers?
A few days ago, I saw this answer, and thought nothing of the fact that it had <30 characters (including zero-width spaces and HTML tags and other Unicode characters). But then I saw this answer, ...
-10
votes
1answer
123 views
Notification for specific user's answers [duplicate]
I know that if I follow a question, I am notified if the question receives an answer. I am also notified for every single comment, edit, close, etc.
I see some users who are actually good contributors....
10
votes
2answers
123 views
What should be done with answers that promote a particular religion?
I was reading the question How do I help my 3 year old daughter who is terrified of what I believe is a ghost? just now, and I noticed that one of the answers consists mostly of a promotion of ...
9
votes
3answers
240 views
Is it appropriate to answer a question with a gif?
It is a lot easier (for me, in some situations) to create a gif showing how to implement a solution (instead of writing it up in a list, like: 1. do this, 2. do this, ... 14. do this).
Consider the ...
15
votes
1answer
219 views
Answer links from search pages do not load the page at the linked answer
This appears to have started breaking in the last four hours or so.
To reproduce:
Do a search for answers on a Stack Exchange site. For the sake of a demonstration I'll use is:a on Meta Stack ...
3
votes
1answer
96 views
Does a low rep user see a question has answers, if the answer is voted -3 or lower?
I can't think of a way to test this for myself.
As I'm high enough rep to be able to see what is actually a spam answer that just hasn't had enough flags yet, I can also see on the main page that this ...
-12
votes
1answer
85 views
Why can't I post answers to questions on Stack Overflow? [duplicate]
I was trying to post an answer to a question on Stack Overflow but for some reason the frontend (yes, frontend lol) had disabled the button. The button was disabled, so for posting it I had to go to ...
2
votes
1answer
30 views
Cannot see an answer to my own question for which I received a notification
On December 20th I started a bounty (the very first bounty I have ever started) on my own question at this link and then I went on holidays.
During the bounty period I would swear I received a ...
5
votes
0answers
71 views
Hottest answers of all time on a specifc tag not right
When I looked at the hottest answers for the discussion tag, I realized that some answers were missing from the list, like this one.
An even bigger example is the python tag on Stack Overflow, it ...
1
vote
1answer
140 views
How can I automatically edit all my answers and questions so that no quotes are broken down?
The CommonMark migration messed up the formatting of many of my posts. Specifically, one common issue is that my quotes are now broken down, e.g.:
instead of
Screenshots taken from https://stats....
4
votes
2answers
92 views
Dealing with a question you've answered, but have partially / completely misunderstood?
I'm pretty sure this happens to someone out there now and then:
You've read a question, done the work with writing a pretty decent answer, at least you think you have, then you find some detail in the ...
-17
votes
2answers
222 views
Is it a good practice to write an answer to respond to another answer, rather than actually answer the question?
Let's say there is a question:
What can a rainbow unicorn do?
And there's an answer:
It can live in the 5th dimension
Is it a problem if I post an answer starting with "I don't know the ...
4
votes
2answers
165 views
Winter Bash Rep Hunter hat not delivering
I was checking my answers and I counted that I have ten answers with positive score, but I wonder why I am not getting the Rep Hunter hat? Isn't the trigger to have 10 answers all upvoted in one day?
...
1
vote
2answers
124 views
Should questions of the form “How can I do A without using X or Y for some reason that I don't understand?” be answered?
Here's the question that prompted me to post this Meta question:
Creating a list of instances(objects) of a class in Python without explicit list comprehension or for loops
My question is how we ...
-7
votes
1answer
97 views
Complete versus complex answers [closed]
In this question, the OP asks "How could I create a randomly-variable-length list of instances (objects) of this class Teacher without using any list comprehension (maybe from vectorization or ...
3
votes
0answers
95 views
“Add an answer” button is sometimes missing
The "Add an answer" button is sometimes missing. Screenshot from New Feature: Table Support:
though most of the time I do see the "Add an answer" button (using the same computer + ...
4
votes
0answers
25 views
Keyboard shortcut to answer a question doesn't work if you have already posted an answer
Found this out here, where I've posted quite a few answers. If you've already posted an answer to a question, you cannot use the A key to answer it again; you have to use the "Add another answer&...
