Questions tagged [answers]
For questions about answers: how to answer, whether specific answers are appropriate, and so forth.
2,672
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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 ...
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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 ...
494
votes
7
answers
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How can I link to a specific answer?
Is there a permalink I can use for answers/comments?
302
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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How do we encourage edits to obsolete/out of date answers?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 result in a once great answer becoming out-of-date, obsolete, or somewhat ...
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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 ...
251
votes
15
answers
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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 ...
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answers
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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 ...
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249
votes
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answers
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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 ...
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26
answers
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Version labels for answers
We’d like to introduce version labels (official name and verbiage pending) for answers, a new product feature idea as part of the larger Outdated Answers project. We hope that this feature will help ...
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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 ...
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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" ...
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172
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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?
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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. ...
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Sites can now request to enable a banner to warn about their policy on AI-generated content
February 22, 2024 Update
The help center articles have been rolled out network-wide. See revision 15 of the February 7th post for more details.
If you're interested in enabling one of these banners on ...
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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 ...
132
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What is the official etiquette on answering a question twice?
When is it okay to post two answers to one question?
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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 ...
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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. ...
- 5,493
110
votes
2
answers
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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: ...
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votes
2
answers
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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 ...
108
votes
9
answers
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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.
...
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104
votes
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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 ...
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14
answers
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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 ...
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101
votes
8
answers
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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 ...
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answers
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Competing with ChatGPT Answers: An Expert's Perspective
Although I'm a moderator on two network sites who has had to deal with GenAI answers, I'm writing this from the perspective of a lower (<2k reputation, with limited access to moderation tools) user ...
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Do you ever not upvote a question that you answer? [duplicate]
Whenever I submit an answer (a real answer, not some @someone comment) I upvote the question. I generally do this because if the question is good enough to take time to answer it, it's good enough to ...
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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 ...
84
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answers
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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answer
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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 ...
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votes
12
answers
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Do you delete your own answer when it's a duplicate?
When I post an answer to a brand new question I usually find that someone else has submitted that same answer just moments before. (Matt Hamilton, usually ;-) )
What I've started to do lately is (I ...
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answers
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Is It Time for a Duel System on Stack Overflow?
I was thinking over the weekend if there was a way to "correct" answers that were hastily marked as correct, or otherwise just plain wrong. It then occurred to me that time can also invalidate "...
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I feel that lately the answers to my questions on Stack Exchange are low quality
I started using Stack Overflow1 a few years ago when I was learning c-sharp. I remember that when I was asking something, I was either getting a link to an existing question (duplicate or similar ...
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Is there a way to follow a user on Stack Overflow? [duplicate]
Is there a way to follow the questions and answers posted by a developer on Stack Overflow?
Arun
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votes
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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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answers
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Changes to answer sorting menu: moving menu, "Newest" sort option, renaming sort options [duplicate]
Update (Feb. 8, 2022):
I appreciate all the thoughtful feedback on this post. Your input caused us to rethink some of what we originally proposed. Rather than update this post with all the changes, I ...
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votes
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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 ...
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votes
7
answers
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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 ...
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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
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3
answers
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Is there any benefit to allowing code-only answers while blocking code-only questions? [closed]
There have been several discussions regarding code-only answers (answers that contain only code blocks with no textual explanation whatsoever):
Down Vote "code only" answers?
Explaining ...
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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 ...
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answers
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Is accepting an answer discouraging more answers?
Sometimes I read a question that has an accepted answer, and I feel I won't add any value if I answer.
Should one wait to accept an answer in order not to discourage a potentially better answer?
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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 ...
- 83.5k
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answers
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Why do some people only post answers, and not questions?
Why do some people not ask questions on SO? If it is only for reputation (which basically boosts their CV), they could instead do some investigations in spheres that interest them. So what's the point ...
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Bring back the 'oldest' sort order for answers
Please bring back the oldest sort order for answers, I think we can deal with four different types of sort order.
It's helpful if you don't want to have to tool-tip every post to see which got posted ...
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11
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Questions with lots of "Thank you" answers
"Thank you" answers are generally not very useful, especially if they appear in masses. Some questions are attracting especially many of them and should probably be cleaned up by a moderator....
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Does Stack Exchange allow for answers which question the validity or stance of the original question?
One thing I keep running into on this site is that some questions are merely asked so that a persons opinion can be validated. I don't ever say I'm right and you're wrong when I reply to a question, ...
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Answer or comment: what's the etiquette?
I very often see comments about a question posted as answers, e.g., "format it this way" or "why don't you post it over here". I think this practice clogs up the answers and the comment feature is ...
56
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answers
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Can I flag an answer as a duplicate?
When flagging an answer there doesn't seem to be an option for identifying apparent duplicates. Is there an etiquette or something in place for this? Can I suggest a flag as duplicate option. It seems ...
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