84
votes
How do you tell an answerer that you think their answer needs work?
See here's the thing about that... It wasn't a bad answer, or a wrong answer, it was just an answer that you happened to personally disagree with. That's about it. Your disagreement doesn't make the ...
- 54.9k
28
votes
How do you tell an answerer that you think their answer needs work?
Don't argue in the comments on the main site.
You can read more about this here.
This isn't a discussion site. It is a question and answer site. The only reason the main site has comments is to ...
- 8,434
27
votes
What is the difference between not answering a question and posting a frame challenge?
Here is what I see necessary for a good frame challenge on IPS:
A clear explanation of why the author disagrees with the frame of the question.
A presentation of an alternate frame
An explanation of ...
- 9,052
26
votes
Should IPS allow answers that suggest threatening or harassing someone?
I'm going to be completely honest here and say that trying to have a definitive "yes or no" policy on this is probably not going to work out. The real answer is "maybe sometimes".
There are plenty of ...
- 106
22
votes
How do you tell an answerer that you think their answer needs work?
Comments are great for nit-picking. "You stated that nutria were released into the wild in the 1940s, but in fact this was first done in the 1930s..." - that kind of thing.
When the entire answer is ...
- 97
18
votes
Can we stop suggesting "just say no" please?
I disagree.
Sometimes, not often, but sometimes the best thing to do is to give someone a flat "No"
Part of developing interpersonal skills is realizing that you don't have to be everyone's friend ...
- 54.9k
17
votes
Can we let adequate explanation be an alternative to "Backing it up"?
Let's have conflicting answers for extra fun, shall we? I'm going to say yes, with caveats.
Take my answer to How to talk to a girl who's sitting next to me but wearing headphones? as an example.
...
- 2,507
16
votes
Do we want references in our answers?
I think I'm agreeing with most of the answers here but I would like to add some more detail to flesh this out a bit.
Personal experience is great. It's very helpful to share those experiences and note ...
- 14.3k
16
votes
Can answers be off topic? - How to deal with answers that address legal issues
It's not common to refer to an answer as "off-topic", but certainly one of the cardinal sins when answering amounts to the same thing: failing to answer the question.
Heck, the most commonly-...
- 97
16
votes
Accepted
Should we allow non-conventional approach in IPS? (i.e passive-aggresive)
I downvoted that answer. It is not, in my opinion, a good approach, and I would feel the same even if I hadn't been the one to ask the question. In fact, I've downvoted a couple of other answers ...
- 6,381
15
votes
Should we be deleting old answers that don't meet our new standards?
People trying to understand site rules look at the material that's currently available. They don't go to meta to look up when policies changed to figure out if they should be evaluating things ...
- 17.2k
15
votes
Accepted
Why do we lose reputation when down-voting inappropriate answers?
This rule is implemented so nobody goes downvoting every answer they don't like. If you lose reputation for down-voting, you will think about it before casting it. This was also put in place so users ...
A JMod
- 7,732
15
votes
Should IPS allow answers that suggest threatening or harassing someone?
Harassment is never ok. The answer that suggests threatening the dog-feeder (as if she should fear for her safety) is very much Not Acceptable. Stuff like that should be downvoted and deleted.
...
- 17.2k
15
votes
Accepted
How can I add backup for an "obvious" answer?
This is an excellent question.
To answer how you'd add backup for something "obvious," I'd like to walk you through my writing process when answering a question on IPS. It usually looks like:
Read ...
- 15.2k
14
votes
Should we be more strict about one-line answers?
Delete them.
We don't want users, especially new users, think that one-liner is tolerated here.
Just like putting a question on-hold allows some time for the owner to improve their question, ...
- 8,478
14
votes
We get a lot of answers here... should we implement some system changes that will encourage users to review existing answers before adding their own?
1. Raise the autoflag threshold to 15.
We have issues on Worldbuilding with questions that get lots of answers. The HNQ effect means that many get 10 or more, and our record is at least 30 or 40, I ...
- 9,005
14
votes
How do you tell an answerer that you think their answer needs work?
I think the point here is that there is a clear divide in how the community thinks this situation should be approached. The fact is though; this site operates on community consensus; not what you ...
- 701
14
votes
Accepted
Would it be appropriate to ask for answers from people with specific backgrounds?
I think there are two sides to this proposal:
Asking for answers from members of Group X
Asking people not in Group X to refrain from answering
For the first one, I say yes! Full steam ahead. If you ...
- 9,005
13
votes
What to do with answers that aren't related to interpersonal skills?
Those answers are probably responding to "or can you suggest an alternative approach" while missing "to pass the offender the message". (When I wrote this answer, the original question was more ...
- 17.2k
13
votes
Could we benefit from the "Too many answers already" warning the workplace uses to prevent outright duplicate answers?
That notice was actually an unintended consequence of another site setting, so if IPS does this it'll need to take both. The main goal on Workplace was to make big piles of comments less prominent. ...
- 17.2k
12
votes
Accepted
Should we be more strict about one-line answers?
Yes, we definitely need be. I think we even need to be a little more strict on the quality of answers in general, not only the one-liners. An answer of 4 or 5 lines can be just as bad.
Take a look ...
- 33.9k
12
votes
Accepted
Coming to terms with "Frame Challenges" vs. "Respecting the Question"
It seems like in the first case, it's argued that saying "This thing you're asking how to do? Yea, don't do it" is "not respecting the premise of the question," while in the second case, doing the ...
- 33.9k
11
votes
Do we want references in our answers?
Personal experience is cool here.
I highly doubt people will be able to cite references (references about culture could also not be accurate, since so much of this depends on the people, and can also ...
- 954
11
votes
Can we stop suggesting "just say no" please?
"No" is sometimes the right answer, if accompanied by an explanation and advice on the followup issues. Without that, it's just useless noise.
A one-liner "just say no" isn't helpful on this site. ...
- 17.2k
11
votes
The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication - where do we draw the line?
I hate to say it, but "screw them" is likely to always be a possible answer. Even when a question specifically asks for a polite answer, there's an outside chance that being polite isn't an option or ...
- 54.9k
11
votes
Should we be more strict about one-line answers?
As an alternative to @vylix's answer, I'd offer that education through commenting is a better teacher than a simple vote for deletion. This very thing happened to me - no comment was offered. Just a ...
- 234
11
votes
Accepted
What are the citation expectations of answers on IPS Stack Exchange?
Stack Exchange is a rigorous Q&A community with a mission to build up a reliable knowledge base for future readers. It's sort of like Wikipedia in that regard. To accomplish this mission we need ...
11
votes
Why was this video considered inappropriate for an answer?
UPDATE: As the problems mentioned weren't addressed by the latest edit, which changed the question substantially and the comment implied an even different question, the moderator team has decided to ...
- 33.9k
10
votes
PSA: Please avoid writing duplicate answers
That MSE answer differentiates between pile-on answers posted a few minutes later and late answers tacked onto old questions... Comments and downvotes are pretty effective for the former.
For the ...
- 97
10
votes
What is the difference between not answering a question and posting a frame challenge?
I think a good frame challenge answer has two key components:
Thoroughly explains why the proposed action isn't a good one
You need to explain to the OP why you are not going to be giving them an ...
- 22.7k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible