Questions tagged [answers]
For questions about answers: how to answer, whether specific answers are appropriate, and so forth.
884
questions
289
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answer
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What can I do when getting "We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"?
If you are reading this, you may have been affected by one of our post quality bans. If so, it is important that you read the following information to understand what has happened and how to regain ...
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votes
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answer
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How does accepting an answer work?
What does it mean to accept an answer?
How do I accept an answer, and what are the rules?
Can I accept my own self-answer?
What are the reputation benefits?
Which answer should I accept?
Should I ...
1528
votes
51
answers
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views
Fastest Gun in the West Problem
I feel like there's a problem with Stack Overflow, as the number of people prowling it increases.
Each question's answers are sorted by descending score and then by descending time of posting. This ...
156
votes
12
answers
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Is "Don't do it" a valid answer?
If someone asks how to do XYZ, and you think doing XYZ at all is a Bad Idea™, is it valid to post an answer saying so? You aren't answering the question, but instead, arguing the question's validity. ...
- 1,715
149
votes
14
answers
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Limits for self-promotion in answers
It's been covered before that posting links to your own website is ok, but should there be a line drawn? There were several spam flags today for Ira Baxter's recent posts, presumably because they all ...
75
votes
8
answers
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How to deal with obsolete answers?
I was thinking about this issue from time to time but I didn't know whether it really exists or just an speculation on my side until today when I woke up [!], I saw a very old answer of mine which was ...
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108
votes
2
answers
6k
views
How do I properly use the "Not an Answer" flag?
What is the "Not an Answer" flag and what is its purpose?
When should I use this flag?
When should I not use this flag?
But I'm still not sure if I'm using the flag correctly...
An answer is ...
123
votes
2
answers
4k
views
How was this answer posted after this question was closed?
Question: lot of .exe folders are created on my windows7
Answer: try that...
The question was closed at 11:57:57 (according to the hover-over-"x-mins-ago" bar) and the answer was posted at 12:16:35. ...
- 5,463
82
votes
1
answer
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views
What is an acceptable answer?
I answered a question and my answer was: (pick one)
Deleted
Converted to a comment
Added to my question as an edit
Why was this? Why was my answer not acceptable?
What is the definition of an ...
166
votes
10
answers
9k
views
Why do some people answer in comments?
Why do some people post comments that are actually answers to the question? Wouldn't posting an answer be better?
- 4,820
108
votes
2
answers
5k
views
What should be done with questions that have been resolved as a comment instead of an answer?
I'm trying to go through and provide answers to every unanswered question (search "closed:0 answers:0"), somewhat following the spirit that was blogged about at The Horror of No Answer: ...
- 1,407
108
votes
9
answers
3k
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Is there any way to favorite/bookmark an answer?
Lots of questions are very generic, "share an experience" kinds of questions.
In these cases, I am quite often interested in specific answers that may not have gotten that many upvotes.
...
- 1,321
131
votes
6
answers
5k
views
What is the official etiquette on answering a question twice?
When is it okay to post two answers to one question?
- 3,148
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votes
10
answers
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views
Moderators accepting answers on user's behalf after a certain time period
I think it would be cool if a question would eventually open up to moderators to accept answers on the user's behalf, once a time period has passed. The asking user would get the rep score for the ...
- 1,020
66
votes
4
answers
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Should I flag answers which contain only a link as "not an answer"? [duplicate]
More than often I get a lot of itch when I see an answer which contains only a link. For example this one.
Check this link, it will solve your query..
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wasinfo/...
user138231
84
votes
5
answers
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views
How do I write a good answer to a question?
Are there guidelines for what constitutes a good answer? Let's discuss. Perhaps, we can come up with some ideas for the FAQ.
Building off Should the official FAQ include information on how to ...
250
votes
9
answers
6k
views
Mark answer as favorite/star [duplicate]
Often times I am not interested in the question so much as I am the answer. Unfortunately, the only site option for bookmarking an optimal answer is to bookmark the question. This leaves you having to ...
- 8,801
187
votes
5
answers
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Subscribing to questions and comments that don't belong to you
There has been some discussion about getting notified on comments to questions or answers that don't belong to you, and the long-standing wish to be able to keep track of new answers or developments ...
- 114k
127
votes
17
answers
4k
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Closing Etiquette: Why Do Some Answer *and* Close?
I've noticed quite a few cases where people not only vote to close a question, but then also answer said question. At best this is just silly, and at worst it is totally hypocritical and seems almost ...
- 32.1k
252
votes
15
answers
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views
Ban ChatGPT network-wide
Use of ChatGPT generated text for posts on Stack Overflow is temporarily banned.
However, the reasons for the ban really apply to much or all of the network, and certainly for sites that are similar ...
- 11.3k
68
votes
7
answers
3k
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Accept Multiple Answers or Split Bounty among Several Users
Often more than one person contributes to the community coming up with the final accepted answer to a question. However, it is only possible to accept a single answer. Restricting to one final answer ...
- 831
248
votes
39
answers
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views
Unpinning the accepted answer from the top of the list of answers
Today we changed the way we sort answers on Stack Overflow. We no longer pin the accepted answer (with the green checkmark) to the top of the list of answers. By default, we now sort strictly by votes ...
- 7,843
101
votes
8
answers
840
views
Notify us when the question has been edited after posting an answer
Consider this situation. I post a legitimate and correct answer to a question and receive a few upvotes. Then the OP realizes that's not what they wanted to ask, and significantly rewrites the ...
- 4,884
67
votes
4
answers
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Should moderators be able to convert answers into comments?
Example of where it would be useful
Another example
Clearly, that was the result of an inexperienced user.
If a question gets a bunch of replies, then the "comment" could easily get lost in the ...
- 40.7k
55
votes
11
answers
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views
How do I mention my own products in answers? [duplicate]
Twice now I've seen questions on Stack Overflow where one of my company's products might provide an answer to the question.
One was a slightly vague connection about object-relational mapping, but ...
175
votes
21
answers
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Accepting an answer should automatically upvote it as well
Is there ever a case where you would want to accept an answer, but not upvote it?
I can't think of a single situation where this would be the case.. So would it not make sense to have the "Accept" ...
- 23.1k
84
votes
8
answers
4k
views
Life isn't fair [duplicate]
Recently I answered two questions on SO:
The first is a completely trivial answer to a really basic question (kind of "read the manual and follow the one liner example there").
On the other hand, my ...
- 5,724
104
votes
14
answers
4k
views
Is it okay to copy-paste answers from other questions?
This one leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, but I defer to others as to whether it is appropriate or not. In this question, I wrote an answer to a question based on my experiences; it was upvoted ...
- 1,141
83
votes
7
answers
3k
views
Should one downvote answers to off-topic questions?
It annoys me when people post answers to obviously off-topic questions like this one, especially after those questions have already received several close votes. Migrations seem to happen rather ...
- 10.4k
22
votes
3
answers
860
views
Accepted answer appearing below top voted [duplicate]
On Add year to question and answer dates, sorted by votes, the accepted answer is #3 in order of votes. It appears as number 3 in the list as well.
Is this new behavior intended?
- 8,591
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votes
8
answers
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How should helpful answers that are just links be handled? [duplicate]
There has been a "movement" of sorts on Stack Overflow. Users are flagging questions that are just a link or little more than a link, like:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/4737028/396458
https://...
- 25.3k
491
votes
7
answers
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views
How can I link to a specific answer?
Is there a permalink I can use for answers/comments?
89
votes
1
answer
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Is there a list of ChatGPT or other AI-related discussions and policies for our sites?
Lately, the use of ChatGPT on the network has become controversial, with Stack Overflow completely banning using generated text for content and several other sites considering bans.
Could we get a ...
- 32.7k
35
votes
6
answers
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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 ...
- 7,901
104
votes
6
answers
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Allow author of accepted answer to delete it in certain circumstances
I made a mistake today.
I answered a question incorrectly. (A C# question, no less. My head is truly hanging in shame.) Unfortunately, by the time this was pointed out, the answer had already been ...
- 93.7k
11
votes
8
answers
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Wouldn't it make sense to have more than one answer acceptable?
Or at least have maybe the ability to set some other answers as assisted answer. I find myself finding an acceptable answer unusable while other answers underneath it might be more suitable.
Would it ...
6
votes
8
answers
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When answering, could we be informed that "the following people are already answering this question"?
When a question is open, it would be nice to see that there are X people (or preferrably a list of the X people) who are in the process of writing an answer.
For simple questions, usually once I'm ...
- 471
54
votes
4
answers
709
views
Notification when my answer is unaccepted?
I just lost some reputation, presumably because someone changed their selected answer from mine to someone else's. Can these losses of reputation be noted on my reputation page similar to the other ...
- 1,991
303
votes
38
answers
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How do we encourage edits to obsolete/out of date answers?
As the network ages and we have answers that are 7+ years old, we run into situations where changes in technology, etc. result in a once great answer becoming out-of-date, obsolete, or somewhat ...
- 51.5k
90
votes
6
answers
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Display the original question beneath the answer edit form
Often when I edit one of my answers, it's because I want to better address the original question. The only problem is that I can't see the original question while I'm editing my answer!
I'd love to ...
40
votes
8
answers
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Promoting comments to answers
This has been mentioned before, but a long time ago, and got closed for a rather confusing reason (converting comments to answers is not an "exact duplicate" of converting answers to comments), so I'm ...
- 65.7k
33
votes
5
answers
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Should there be policy about 'One-Link-Only-Answers'? [duplicate]
See also: Are answers that just contain links elsewhere really "good answers"? | Is it okay to answer a Stack Overflow question with a link? | Why is linking bad?
Related: How do I properly ...
- 27.2k
31
votes
5
answers
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views
Shouldn't the answer with more votes be above the accepted answer? [duplicate]
After reviewing this question...
I'd like to make an argument for answers that have attained more votes than an accepted answer always be ranked above when answers are being sorted by votes (the ...
- 869
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votes
6
answers
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views
Please take care when flagging answers as "low quality."
When flagging an answer as "low quality" you see some explanatory text that reads:
This answer has serious formatting or content issues and might not be salvageable.
An effort should be made to ...
- 132k
51
votes
16
answers
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How can we give some boost to some really good answers that arrive late?
It happens sometimes to receive or see a very good answer that arrives very late and that would deserve more upvotes.
What can be done to give a boost to them? I would happily spend some of my ...
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4
answers
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Cannot retract downvote if post has been edited within first 5 minutes of posting
Please do not close this as a duplicate unless you can remove the “status-completed” tag from the original report (because it’s obviously not been completed).
Steps to reproduce:
Have someone post ...
- 3,200
18
votes
6
answers
3k
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Preventing users from downvoting good answers to bad questions
I posted an answer to a question that was voted closed as too localized, which it very much could have been. However, I did get 2 upvotes for that answer. As I browsed SO, I noticed that my rep went ...
- 43.8k
20
votes
23
answers
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What is the proper way refer to your blog when answering? [duplicate]
I know that putting a link to your blog in a signature is frowned upon and rightly so.
Is it okay to link to your blog in an answer if that blog post answers the question? Are there other situations ...
- 132k
71
votes
11
answers
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views
Revisiting changes to answer sorting menu: better use of space, moving menu into a dropdown, ascending/descending sort options, clearer descriptions
Update (Mar 21, 2022): The dropdown menu for the answer-sorting options is now live.
Update (Feb 9, 2022): I've added an additional question in the Feedback section below.
Last week, I posted ...
- 7,901
63
votes
4
answers
825
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Allow high rep users to migrate answers from one question to another
I'm adding this feature request to have high-rep users (15k?) to be able to migrate answers from one question to another, so that questions for duplicate answers can be consolidated.
Of course, there ...
- 83.4k