Questions tagged [answers]
This tag is for questions about answers: how to answer, whether specific answers are appropriate, and so forth.
2,460
questions
-13
votes
0answers
68 views
Is a question not eligible for stack exchange if the answer might be found *somewhere* on the internet? [duplicate]
I noticed that over the years stack exchange sites have become more and more hostile and many questions are quickly down-voted for various reasons although they are legitimate questions in a lot of ...
3
votes
2answers
79 views
Should I delete my answer if it later turns out to only solve one aspect of the problem
If someone has a question with a piece of code and I "answer" by pointing out one problem with the code.
Later it turns out that there is a second problem with the code -- which i cannot ...
10
votes
2answers
126 views
Is there a way to find out if I've ever both voted to close a question and posted an answer to it?
I just noticed that someone voted to close a question and posted an excellent answer at the same time. I wanted to tell them that I thought it was unfair to do both with an argument involving ...
-8
votes
1answer
99 views
Limit unlocking old votes rather than preventing it entirely
I've read and re-read this: Why do votes get locked? I'm not at all against the concept of post locking to avoid anomalous (malicious) behaviour. My concern is that does adversely affect vote tallys ...
-5
votes
1answer
167 views
Do all Stack Exchange sites upvote a user's first question and/or answer?
I recently discovered that there are hundreds of Stack Exchange sites, and I joined the ones that I think I need. After posting my first question and/or answer in all sites, I realised that my post is ...
2
votes
1answer
81 views
How to foster proper use of comments, and deter comment-as-answers [duplicate]
Recently I've noticed a pattern of users answering questions by way of comments. Generally this is followed by downvoting the question itself and eventually the question gets closed.
Is that ...
6
votes
1answer
58 views
Should I re-answer a migrated question if my original answer is gone?
A question I'd answered got migrated to another site, and for some reason my answer seems to have gotten deleted in the process. Should I answer the question again on the new site? I don't know if it ...
-10
votes
1answer
93 views
Re: tech questions where correct answers change over time - is there a way to show only the votes after a certain date?
Note: In an act of triage, this question was retitled and edited to become a request for technical support instead of a feature request - yet still be a question to match the high quality answer that ...
10
votes
0answers
41 views
Timeline page should make it easy to go to specific answer
I was looking at the timeline of What can we do to encourage downvoting? on Meta.SO. This is a big question with lots of answers. In the timeline I saw an answer that I was interested in reading ...
-18
votes
1answer
160 views
Proposal: let authors close their own questions [duplicate]
Currently, an author of a question can delete his own question or "vote" for closing.
Sometimes it happens to me that I ask a question and then I realise I was doing some silly mistake.
When ...
8
votes
0answers
62 views
The voting tooltip for answers should be expanded to match the one on questions
When you hover over the question vote arrows, the tool tip that shows gives a short description why someone may vote that way
This question shows research effort; it is useful and clear.
This ...
11
votes
2answers
173 views
What happens to highly downvoted answers?
Does anything other than appearing lower on the page happen to downvoted answers?
I had thought that sufficiently downvoted answers get set to moderator review or get hidden altogether, but I haven’t ...
8
votes
1answer
420 views
Give site moderators the ability to disallow posts from guests
I recommend that SE give individual sites the option of permanently barring unregistered guest accounts from posting answers.
Granted there is a long-standing policy of allowing guests to post answers ...
-4
votes
1answer
161 views
Is it good practice, in the same post, to add the paraphrase of other answers to an answer?
I was observing the post Is it okay to keep a "Thank you" slide before references?.
The top-voted answer, https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/150198/73304, has recently added a paraphrase ...
2
votes
0answers
40 views
Is it acceptable to copy my own answer? [duplicate]
Is it generally accepted to copy my own answers across questions / exchange sites?
(assuming the questions are not duplicates and the answer solves both questions)
Should I link back to the original?
11
votes
1answer
195 views
Is there an etiquette for answering questions originally intended to be self-answered?
This question is inspired by Is there an etiquette for asking questions originally intended to be self-answered?.
A few times, I have encountered a self-answered question with a question that seems to ...
3
votes
1answer
62 views
Should an answer that builds on another answer to the same question contain the delta or be self-contained? [duplicate]
Suppose a question has a good answer, but I have a correction or further information to add - more than would work nicely in an edit or a comment. How should I add my incremental improvement answer? ...
2
votes
0answers
71 views
Dropping a question, and then just logging out and leaving [duplicate]
This is an etiquette and maybe even rules question.
I take the questions I ask seriously over at StackExchange. I form my question in an editor, I check for clarity and make edits, I take care to ...
-14
votes
1answer
85 views
“You always meet twice”-like badge? [duplicate]
I was wondering if stackoverflow had a badge when the following interactions happen between two users:
user A answered a question from user B,
user B answered a question from user A.
And if such a ...
-21
votes
4answers
153 views
Make it clearer that a question is self answered
I have noticed that when people are asking a question just to self answer it right away, they - for very obvious reasons - does not put to much effort into the actual question. Why would they? They ...
11
votes
3answers
93 views
How should I vote on heavily edited answers?
While the underlying policy for voting seems quite clear I am not sure how to judge answers that were initially not helpful but then went through a rewrite by an editor.
For example I was reading a ...
-5
votes
1answer
299 views
Why are quote-only answers not helpful?
There are many questions addressing link-only answers:
Are answers that just contain links elsewhere really "good answers"?
Why is linking bad?
Can I copy content from third party sources ...
1
vote
1answer
100 views
Can all “high activity” sites have the same score threshold for blurring of downvoted answers on their Metas?
In response to this old feature request to lower the score threshold at which answers are blurred here on Meta SE, @Shog9 replied (emphasis mine):
I've lowered the threshold to -8 for consistency ...
-12
votes
1answer
65 views
What are the different ways to mark the asked question as solved? [duplicate]
I want to know what are the ways to mark an asked question solved?
If someone has answered correctly and solved my doubt, then how do I mark it as my answer to question and also mark the whole ...
1
vote
3answers
82 views
What should we do when the top answer is out of date and the edit review queue is full? [duplicate]
Recently I came across a small, but meaningful JavaScript question: Is there any functions like Promise.all() but that runs all promises even after one fails?
It was closed as a duplicate, and that ...
-10
votes
1answer
97 views
Why can you not answer a question more than once? [closed]
When you have a question, and you have multiple suggestions, you have to put it in the same answer. Why can't SE sites allow you to answer a question more than once?
7
votes
2answers
101 views
What is the proper capitalization of “Question” and “Answer”?
Basically, I've been capitalizing Question and Answer when referring to Stack Exchange Questions and Answers - that is, the pieces of content on the site - to distinguish them from just questions and ...
2
votes
1answer
243 views
Let new-comers know what they should know
I would like to focus two things here:
Neither the Tour, nor Ask A Question, shows What the question poster should when someone answers their question? which most of the new comers often don't know ...
-6
votes
3answers
283 views
What is the opposite of the XY problem?
There is the XY problem, where a solution for X is wanted, but a question about Y is asked.
I think there's also the problem of the assumed XY problem, where a question about Y is asked, but X is ...
3
votes
1answer
63 views
How to get only accepted answer in return from the Stack Exchange API?
I found out that I could get only accepted questions from Stack Overflow using this API call.
But now I want only the accepted answer to be part of the returned object; I don't need other answers. I ...
3
votes
0answers
42 views
Answering questions that haven't been asked [duplicate]
I'm a frequent user of Math SE and I've been working to understand something for the past week that I really struggled with. What's more is that I wasn't able to find a good thread on Math SE on this ...
8
votes
0answers
66 views
Answered question displaying as modified [duplicate]
I answered a question this morning on bicycles.se, then went to make a small edit to my answer which I reconsidered and cancelled by pressing cancel. I have made no other edits or additions to the ...
3
votes
1answer
34 views
Showing Links to Answers
Is there a trick to showing links to answers? I notice that they all have a distinct id, so it’s 90% in place already. Sometimes it would be helpful link to an answer rather than a question.
I have a ...
2
votes
2answers
101 views
Can Community Moderators and StackOverflow employees post answers on closed questions?
Since this doesn't appear to have been asked before:
Can Community Moderators (and other Stack Overflow employees) post answers on Questions that have been closed? This would cover either manually ...
-18
votes
1answer
82 views
Active/Oldest/Votes showing with just one answer
This SO question:
Is this "elision failure" language-mandated?
currently has one answer (by @NicolBolas). But above that answer and to the right I see a selection box with three buttons: "...
1
vote
0answers
78 views
“An error occurred submitting the answer.” when I tried to answer my own question
I had a question in Unix and Linux Stackexchange:
Zorin OS boots into emergency mode
I was able to find out the problem after some time and decided to answer my own question. Here is the answer that ...
8
votes
0answers
90 views
No notification received for new answer
I posted a bug just now (Referenced topic isn't automatically shown in the Linked section on the ELL site?) and then I guess I encountered another one.
Usually, after someone else answered my ...
-8
votes
1answer
80 views
Why doesn't the active answer tab include upvotes activity?
For example, if we upvote this answer, it doesn't affect that.
It will be useful in some answers like this that got less attention because it is not shown at the top.
2
votes
1answer
71 views
Does question being closed prevent bounty being started on exemplary answer to it? [duplicate]
I wanted to award a bounty to this answer to Selecting the answer - I'm sure this must have been asked
The answer was posted three days ago and the question was closed two days ago, and yet the ...
8
votes
3answers
318 views
Why prefer to restrict questions instead of restricting answers?
I read a lot more SE sites than I'm a contributor to, but something I've slowly noticed is that there is a tendency to prefer making rules about questions rather than making rules about answers, even ...
0
votes
1answer
91 views
Selecting the answer - I'm sure this must have been asked [duplicate]
Quite soon, I'm going to select the answer to a question I've posted. I appreciate the way the current system works means I can only choose a single answer. What really struck me about this particular ...
11
votes
3answers
294 views
Is it okay to mark an answer as 'Accepted' when I can't test it?
I asked a technical question on dba.stackexchange.com. I got a very good answer, but because I made many technical changes to my environment before I read the answer, I'm no longer in a position where ...
2
votes
1answer
132 views
How multiple answers by one user on same question impact on People Reached
EDIT
We're working on a new stat to help convey the reach of your posts here discuss the
Big Question #1: Do you have any suggested tweaks to improve the calculation method?
Big Question #2: What's a ...
-11
votes
1answer
217 views
Can we trust the impartiality of answers on Stack Exchange anymore? [closed]
Stack Overflow Inc. has recently fired several high profile members and implemented policies that have caused many other high profile members to quit the network.
I am concerned that the quality of ...
0
votes
0answers
43 views
Should you post a probably correct answer as an answer or a comment? [duplicate]
Many people often post possibly correct answers as comments, because they're not sure if it's correct and don't want to receive downvotes. However, these comments often are correct and this causes ...
1
vote
0answers
58 views
Bug with comments and answer poster
I have recently came across a bug with the comments and the answer taking up the same space:
As you can see the comments is conflicting with the answer.
Can this be fixed?
Link to where I reproduced ...
-2
votes
1answer
104 views
Multiple versions of the same question?
Let's say I asked an unclear question, people in the comments said that the question is unclear and they talked about the unclear contents in my question, I edited the question making it clear and ...
3
votes
0answers
64 views
How does one cite an answer in MLA? [duplicate]
I used an answer from https://crypto.stackexchange.com and the links that were provided in the answer. Now, I am presenting the project for which I used the answer, and I would like to give proper ...
2
votes
1answer
49 views
Question edited after that answer was not matched [duplicate]
Suppose i answered some one's question and after some times OP was change the question body that my answer was not matched with the question. So, in future anyone else visited and found that ...
-15
votes
4answers
161 views
Is there a better way to easily understand information and differing sides in multiple-page Meta posts? [duplicate]
It can be difficult to navigate the magnitude of answers available on certain types of posts. These posts usually span multiple pages and by definition hide a lot of information.
While reading all ...
