Meta Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [answers]

Ask Question

This tag is for questions about answers: how to answer, whether specific answers are appropriate, and so forth.

2,381 questions
Newest
Active
Bounties
0
Unanswered
Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
-10
votes
1answer
71 views

The descriptions on the vote buttons for answers should be updated to be as helpful as those for questions [on hold]

The criteria for voting for questions is relatively clear, with the upvote and downvote buttons displaying: This question shows research effort; it is useful and clear. This question does not show ...
0
votes
0answers
23 views

How does sorting for answers work? [duplicate]

I understand that the accepted answer is shown at the top and other answers in the order of number of votes. But how does sorting for answers with same score works? I sometimes see that the ordering ...
1
vote
0answers
26 views

Should we always accept a better answer, or also reward response speed? [duplicate]

Case in point here. Akrun gave a great answer in ~2 minutes. Grada's answer is slightly better (because it's simpler and more generalizable), but came in a little later (but still before Akrun's ...
2
votes
1answer
49 views

Can a bounty be awarded to a non-accepted answer? [duplicate]

I have a problem one of the users who asked awhile ago about something related to SQL injection. I provided an answer for his problem, and some solutions, but he did not accept my answer nor did he ...
7
votes
0answers
34 views

Answer draft is lost if you click to sign up

When writing an answer on a site where you don't have an account or are not logged in, below the answer entry textbox are options to create an account or continue as guest by providing a nickname and ...
4
votes
1answer
41 views

Copying other answers

I've noticed a trend where some users post an answer as early as possible that's not very good but gets some up-votes. Then when better answers are posted, they simply copy/paste the contents of those ...
3
votes
2answers
78 views

What should I do when answers contradict each other, but both sides seem correct?

I recently asked a question on the Politics Stack Exchange site, which I thought was a "Yes or No only" question and the first three answers where clearly stating no. I was about to accept an ...
1
vote
0answers
58 views

Getting attention for answers that have aways been incorrect [duplicate]

There's a question about what to do about outdated answers, but what if the answer is not outdated but was always incorrect and gave simply wrong information, or more seriously information that might ...
-1
votes
1answer
93 views

Repeated downvotes on my posts [duplicate]

Yesterday someone started downvoting my answers. I ignored the downvotes knowing that the system will reverse them, and the system did reverse some of those downvotes. Today I flagged one of my ...
-2
votes
3answers
114 views

Is it ok to give two different answers to a question? [duplicate]

A moderator has deleted one of my answers in two different cases. If a person comes up with two substantially different answers that are based on substantially different viewpoints, is it not ...
1
vote
0answers
37 views

Drag down the question indefinitely when editing answer

How to reproduce the bug: Answer a question/go to a question that you have answered. Click "Edit" Drag the slider down. I think this is a bug because it doesn't make sense to be able to drag this ...
-12
votes
2answers
103 views

Allow short questions if the Answer My Question box is checked [duplicate]

I wrote up a pretty short and succinct question on the Mechanics site, and wrote up a very long answer using the Answer Your Question checkbox. When I tried to post the q/a, it told me that I needed ...
4
votes
3answers
398 views

Is it OK to be facetious?

Although I searched for it, I did not find a question that directly address this topic (not for a specific case but) in general. And I am genuinely asking to know the answer to make my own behavior ...
-8
votes
1answer
96 views

Using spoiler to have better answers [closed]

I recently asked this question. That was a homework problem; the response people gave was very nice, but in one answer they basically solved it for me. That was the most useful answer. I think there ...
2
votes
1answer
146 views

Can there be too many answers to a question?

Sometimes there are many answers to a single question, for example this question on Stack Overflow, with 60+ answers. I find it to be too many. Is there a procedure to maybe close such questions, or ...
7
votes
0answers
71 views

Redesign “lots of answers” JS confirm dialog to use Stacks stylized popups instead

Currently, when attempting to answer questions with lots of answers (usually 30 but configurable per site), users are shown the following generic JS confirmation prompt (from one's browser, in this ...
4
votes
0answers
22 views

Clicking on answer item from the achivements dialog doesn't close the dialog

Achivements dialog can contains items linked to the answers (e.g. when your answers got votes or you accept an answer for your question). In that case if you already had opened a page via that link, ...
1
vote
1answer
99 views

Valuable responses to my question are spread over numerous answers. As the asker, how can I make them more visible?

In my recent question on Travel Stack Exchange I attracted a lot of attention (not least in part because it was a hot network question) and I got a lot of answers. Frustratingly, early answers drove ...
1
vote
1answer
77 views

Reward someone who edited their answer as obsolete to point to mine

I've been active on SO since 2009, and have seen many old questions get new answers as technology changes. Sometimes the accepted answer becomes suboptimal, and the OP is no longer active to mark ...
-12
votes
2answers
87 views

Are link based answers ok if they link to other Stack Exchange Answers?

Is it ever ok to provide an answer to a question that's essentially a link only answer to another Stack Exchange question or answer? Often I do this when The answers of the other question could be ...
1
vote
0answers
31 views

Converting an answer to a comment makes the comment a reply to a comment posted after the converted comment

On the site where I am moderator, I closed a question using a custom reason, and then converted the answer in a comment. Even though the answer was posted the day before, and the comment is shown ...
-4
votes
1answer
94 views

Shall I accept an answer that answers part of my question?

So I bet you all met into a scenario, where someone wrote a good, detailed answer which answers part (or most, or the core) of your question. Then should you mark it as accepted? Or should you just ...
7
votes
0answers
83 views

Difficult to lose the “converted to a comment” status message

If an answer is converted to a comment and then subsequently undeleted, and then deleted again (without being converted to a comment), the message beneath the post still reads: If the answer is then ...
-11
votes
1answer
75 views

Writing how the advice turned out

There are some SE sites, where an answer is obviously either correct or wrong (like math) and then there are some where there isnt a correct answer in principle (like codegolf) and some where the ...
-21
votes
2answers
217 views

Why shouldn't existing answers that don't match the typical pattern of good answers be skimmed only?

I understand generally one should read existing answers before giving another one. This can avoid duplicated answer, add more votes to them, and even when the existing answers miss your point, they ...
4
votes
1answer
87 views

How do I answer a bug report?

I regularly see bug reports on Meta, occasionally with heavily upvoted answers. When is it appropriate to answer a bug report? How would I write a good answer to a bug report? How could I write an ...
2
votes
1answer
32 views

Contriving questions to fit answers [duplicate]

There have been a couple of questions here on meta asking about changing questions to fit existing answers. However, this presupposes the existence of a question for which there exists a question/...
5
votes
1answer
80 views

Stats about askers and answerers in Stack Exchange

How can I get the statistics data of how many people ask questions and how many answer here? I'm curious about the distributions and seeing if more people ask than answer.
2
votes
2answers
79 views

Is it possible to find answers by ID?

It's possible to find questions by ID by going to <site>/questions/<id> (which automatically redirects to <site>/questions/<id><question name>), but I don't know how to ...
0
votes
1answer
49 views

How do I link the Stack Exchange data together? [duplicate]

I was trying to link the Stack Exchange data together from the archive.org data dump as my college database subject project, but I can't understand how to link the Post and its answer. I tried to link ...
5
votes
0answers
64 views

Italic on heavily downvoted answer is not gray [duplicate]

https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/55322/14341 Is this a bug?
3
votes
1answer
105 views

Is copy-pasting your own answer between Stack Exchange sites appropriate?

I recently posted a question and self-answer on Stack Overflow. Because (in my opinion), it's the best contribution I have made to the site thus far, I would like to post it on other topic-appropriate ...
2
votes
3answers
115 views

Can mods see answer drafts from other users? [duplicate]

Yesterday I posted this answer, about 5 minutes after I clicked on the "Post Your Answer" button I got some comments from a mod. In one of them he said I had edited my answer in the first 5 minutes ...
13
votes
3answers
176 views

Are old, link-only answers not-an-answer?

Yesterday I stumbled upon this answer due to the question being bumped. It is, by the official definition, considered not an answer: If you strip the markup (link), you are left with NO useful ...
1
vote
0answers
26 views

What is the correct way to handle “answer plagiarism”? [duplicate]

Example: User A gives a not-great but working answer User A gets upvotes User A gets accepted answer User B gives the quantifiably best possible answer User B gets more upvotes User A edits answer to ...
-8
votes
1answer
165 views

Add a button to scroll me to my answer if I view a question which I have previously answered

If I open a question that I have already answered, it would be nice if there was an icon or link telling me something along the lines of "You have posted an answer to this question." This would scroll ...
-13
votes
1answer
72 views

How to ask for further clarification when I can’t comment [duplicate]

How to ask further clarification, or to point out that the answer shown, even if once correct, is not correct anymore? I can’t comment as I don’t have 50 reputation.
-18
votes
1answer
100 views

Do we have liberty or limitation to answer in Stack Overflow? [closed]

Today I got into a situation while answering a question on Stack Overflow and choose to answer with all the etiquette I know. Simultaneously I got a comment on my answer saying "it's the same answer", ...
20
votes
1answer
156 views

Can we flesh out /help/someone-answers a bit more?

I recently encountered a case where someone - a new user who didn't know any better - serially upvoted the answers of a user who'd answered their question. After they mentioned this in chat, they were ...
-10
votes
1answer
56 views

Answer Box Not Showing [duplicate]

Why is it that whenever I decide to answer some question on Stack, some of the questions do not pop answer box for me to contribute in the solution? Do I need reputations even to answer a question!!
-14
votes
1answer
68 views

Special acknowledgement and collection of extraordinary answers

I have just read an answer on Earth Science which left me with the feeling that we all have had on occasion: I wish I could upvote this more than once. It would be nice if there was a mechanism to ...
6
votes
1answer
82 views

Someone answered my question and then deleted it, but I need his/her answer

I asked a question here, a while ago. Someone answered my question and actually his/her answer was helpful and I was studying it, but then she/he deleted the answer! How can I figure out who answered? ...
2
votes
0answers
26 views

Top of answer covered by sticky top bar after clicking direct link… if it's a short answer just near enough to the bottom of the page

I thought this was resolved after my other question was status-completed, but I just saw it again. This is the first time that I've seen it since then, so it only happens in very specific ...
5
votes
1answer
52 views

How to choose between several incomplete answers?

If I asked a question (namely this one), and the solution I end up using is a combination of some of the answers, and another answer explains why it is correct, How to choose the answer to accept? ...
14
votes
1answer
270 views

2018: a year in asking and answering

After 2018: a year in closing and 2018: a year in spam it seems natural to look at the questions and answers. What trends do we find there?
0
votes
1answer
64 views

Question protection should block low-rep users with existing answers on the thread

On Physics SE, I just came across a surprising case which looked like a user with 1 rep posting an answer a year after the question was protected. Upon some investigation, I found that they'd posted ...
-12
votes
3answers
122 views

What about the possibility of answering and closing a question just afterward?

I have just seen someone who answered a question, closed it just afterward and got +10/+15 of rep (at the moment). What is the problem? No problem with the fact of being in the position of judge ...
-16
votes
1answer
82 views

Second question at top

Is there any way we can do or add the feature where we can choose what order our second (or more) answers appear in? I recently posted a second answer to a question but was annoyed when it drifted to ...
-23
votes
1answer
97 views

The answer box should not be at the bottom

The answer box is at the bottom of all answers. If someone has to answer a question he/she has to browse through all the previously written answers. If someone is interested to see others' answers ...
0
votes
1answer
86 views

Highly upvoted but has 1 rep? [duplicate]

I searched for an answer using the title of this question on Meta.Workplace and on Meta.SE but nothing came up. This answer has been upvoted a lot. But the person that wrote the initial answer only ...

1 2 3 4 5 … 48