Hot answers tagged

33 votes
Accepted

Two long answers disagreeing with each other - how to canonicalize?

Optimally, voting is how the correct answer is recognized. In practice, though, sometimes people vote up answers that are long just because they look thorough. I notice that, in this case, neither ...
Ben N's user avatar
  • 40.9k
30 votes

User tries to do something forbidden by license. Is explaining why it's illegal an answer?

As pointed out in a comment to this answer, a software license is a contract, as opposed to a law. The contract is, or isn't, enforceable, depending on the law(s) that apply where the user who asked ...
7heo.tk's user avatar
  • 299
30 votes
Accepted

Old questions - system discourages answering them?

I skimmed through your answering history, and I noticed that many of your answers that still have zero votes are in response to questions that are either already answered or posted by very-low-rep ...
Ben N's user avatar
  • 40.9k
20 votes
Accepted

Promotional text in answer

Some spammers are getting into the habit of posting almost useful answers in order to disguise their spam. This is a difficult call though. 99% of the time these types of answer are spam but ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 92.6k
20 votes
Accepted

Should answers suggesting a tool that is no longer available be flagged?

Leave a comment under the answer That would be enough to inform future reader who is interested in the tool that it is no longer available. That would be enough to inform the community to downvote ...
Vylix's user avatar
  • 1,734
18 votes
Accepted

Can someone write another answer for our canonical malware question?

The new ransomware answer I just hammered out the above answer, which overviews how ransomware works, what to do, and how to avoid it in the future. Most importantly, I linked to this Google Doc (...
Ben N's user avatar
  • 40.9k
14 votes
Accepted

Can an answer be backed up only by personal experience?

It depends. If the answer is nothing but personal experience, but results in it completely solving the original problem then it is definitely an answer. I've seen this before. When I last used ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 92.6k
13 votes
Accepted

Do Mods get Rep for Deleting Downvoted Answers?

No. Moderators get no reputation bonus for their actions in any way. The only way moderators get rep is the same ways that normal users get rep, by getting upvotes on questions and answers, deleting ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 92.6k
12 votes

User tries to do something forbidden by license. Is explaining why it's illegal an answer?

The replies here just discuss whether to give actual information on a question if that might be illegal. Regardless of that debate - I don't believe that saying you shouldn't do this is an answer, ...
Alok's user avatar
  • 456
12 votes
Accepted

Is this refusal to accept an answer aligned with community standards?

To quote the help center (bolding added for emphasis): Accepting an answer is not meant to be a definitive and final statement indicating that the question has now been answered perfectly. It simply ...
Mureinik's user avatar
  • 4,024
11 votes

Link-only answer - but already self-explanatory

If the answer is software or drivers published by a reputable source (manufacturer, OEM, etc) with an established web presence then telling people what they need and how to get them and then providing ...
music2myear's user avatar
  • 41.6k
11 votes
Accepted

Answer copied and filled up with spam

The timeline of the answer suggests that this didn't happen in the review queue. Apart from that, it's pretty obvious that this is spam, so it shouldn't have been edited out, even if the answer weren'...
Glorfindel's user avatar
  • 4,099
10 votes
Accepted

Undelete an answer on a closed post that was deleted before it was closed

I'm fairly confident that the ability to delete and undelete answers is independent of the question's closure status, so the strategy you describe could work. But doing this knowingly (i.e. with ...
Ben N's user avatar
  • 40.9k
9 votes
Accepted

Question in close queue is marked as duplicate, but the duplicate is terrible!

As comments have noted, the criteria I would use when judging which of two otherwise duplicate questions to be marked duplicate is based on quality, not time. If one of the questions is very recent ...
music2myear's user avatar
  • 41.6k
9 votes

Show your Excel results

Users who ask questions that require complex scripts/formulae should have included some example input and the desired output. I find it highly likely that a user who went to the trouble of writing a ...
Ben N's user avatar
  • 40.9k
8 votes

User tries to do something forbidden by license. Is explaining why it's illegal an answer?

I'm just going to put an answer in here regarding legal vs possible. Take for instance travel.stackexchange.com: Leaving Thailand after months long overstay - not once does an answer point out that ...
Raystafarian's user avatar
  • 21.7k
8 votes

Same answer from different users on different questions

As far as I know, excerpts of already posted answers are ok as long as they respect original authorship, e.g. including a link to the original answer. If the newer answers are blatant copies (which ...
nKn's user avatar
  • 5,647
8 votes
Accepted

My answer keeps getting suggested edits from spambots

Spammers work in mysterious ways - I guess your answer has certain keywords their bots love and it keeps attempting to edit. Frustratingly enough - there's not much to do - just let our lovely ...
Journeyman Geek's user avatar
  • 129k
8 votes

How can I post an answer to this question on SuperUser?

The question you're referred to has been protected due lot of drive-by "answers" which doesn't really answer the question but are some sort of "I have this too" or "this is ...
Sathyajith Bhat's user avatar
  • 61.8k
7 votes
Accepted

Why was my comment mod flag declined?

Your flag detail stated This should really be converted to an answer as it solved the asker's problem. There was a couple of reasons here. The first is that Moderators cannot convert comments to ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 92.6k
7 votes
Accepted

Should every answer involving registry edits contain a warning to back up the registry?

No, I don't think this should be enforced. There are several reasons: "The registry" isn't some mythical beast, and any changes there are really no more dangerous than changing arbitrary (system?) ...
Bob's user avatar
  • 61.6k
7 votes

Undelete an answer on a closed post that was deleted before it was closed

There's another option. If someone is going to put in the effort to create a good answer, why associate it with a bad question? Create a new, high quality question that doesn't suffer from the ...
fixer1234's user avatar
  • 27.4k
6 votes

Old questions - system discourages answering them?

What is written in BenN's answer is completely true, just an additional aspect: Compared to the other SE sites, it seems that people are much less likely to upvote an answer they see and find ...
Máté Juhász's user avatar
6 votes
Accepted

How long should we wait to flag Low-Quality on barely acceptable answer?

Immediately. Waiting makes no sense, especially when the quality of the answer isn't that great as is Mods can always comment, delete, and undelete once the post is edited to completion.
Journeyman Geek's user avatar
  • 129k
6 votes

How to deal with answers I cannot check anymore?

As someone who's asked a question on the site, you have a few options as to what you can do with each answer: Upvote it and accept the answer Upvote it but don't accept the answer Don't vote on it ...
allquixotic's user avatar
  • 34.6k
5 votes
Accepted

How should I deal with link-only answers where the information in the link can't be copied?

Some link only answers can be okay if they are specifically telling us what exactly is at the link and showing why it cannot be copied. While we prefer a step by step solution here there isn't really ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 92.6k
5 votes
Accepted

Who can technically view saved drafts for questions and answers

Only the OP. I can't view those drafts - and while devs might be able to, in theory, I'm doubtful it's a function that would be used.
Journeyman Geek's user avatar
  • 129k
5 votes

Do Mods get Rep for Deleting Downvoted Answers?

To add to @Mokubai's answer - it's not only mods who don't get rep for this. High rep users can also cast delete votes (through the VLQ review queue at 2K reputation and directly at 20K), and do not ...
Mureinik's user avatar
  • 4,024
5 votes
Accepted

Is it okay to point readers to the edit history of an answer for old, (mostly) out-of-date information?

Thanks to @DavidPostill and @KamilMaciorowski for the feedback in the comments. I've reverted from Option #3 to #2 based on their advice. For the particular answer I mentioned above, I've: Rolled-...
NotTheDr01ds's user avatar
  • 21.5k
4 votes

Randomise order of 'Answered questions' responses for Election events

I am pleased to inform you that when the election voting begins, the order will be randomized. That applies to both the primary (if we end up having one) and the final election. Source: this MSE FAQ. ...
Ben N's user avatar
  • 40.9k

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible