Timeline for Should an answer be literally what OP asks for?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
28 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 6, 2019 at 18:26 | comment | added | Fabian Röling | Well, of course you shouldn't quite answer literally every time. Once I had a bad day and some kid asked a really bad question that literally asked "is this possible", so I wrote an answer saying "yes". As you can expect, it got downvoted and I deleted it shortly after. | |
| Apr 5, 2019 at 12:40 | comment | added | Velkan | @terdon, for the future I'll just hope that in the fields I'm good at people do it one way; and in the fields where I'm bad - the opposite way. | |
| Apr 5, 2019 at 11:57 | comment | added | terdon Mod | @Velkan I mean that when you edit, you should be thinking primarily about how to improve the question for the site. So it shouldn't always be a case of making it "reflect the logic of the one who asks". For example, if I ask "how can I make my prompt red" and an answer gives solutions for all colors, then changing the question to ask "how can I set the prompt's color" is a good edit. | |
| Apr 5, 2019 at 11:50 | comment | added | Velkan | @terdon, I don't understand the point about thinking about the OP. The OP doesn't care about how you call him or his question (as long as you've understood him and given a workable answer). Keeping or editing the question is entirely about the other people. | |
| Apr 5, 2019 at 10:06 | comment | added | terdon Mod | @Velkan that's kinda my point: when thinking about edits, think more about the site and future visitors than about the OP. Of course, you shouldn't ignore the OP, but the objective of this site is to amass a collection of useful questions and answers that can help multiple people, not just one. | |
| Apr 5, 2019 at 9:50 | comment | added | Velkan | @terdon, "we answer for the thousands or even millions of visitors the site gets" who are more likely to have the logic of the one who asks. The "good and clear" is relative: it's normal for a community to converge to some standards, but it's important to not get out of touch with the wider society. There is no actionable advice I can formulate here, just "think harder about edits". | |
| Apr 5, 2019 at 9:06 | comment | added | terdon Mod | @Velkan The question should reflect the logic of the one who asks, not the one who answers.: not really, no. The question should be as good and clear as we can make it. We do not answer for the person asking, we answer for the thousands or even millions of visitors the site gets. So changing the question is absolutely fine. And don't attach much importance to which answer is accepted, that's the only thing that is indeed about the asked and the asker only. That just means "this is the answer I preferred", it doesn't imply that the accepted answer is better or more correct than the others. | |
| Apr 4, 2019 at 12:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/AskUbuntu/status/1113773407139708928 | ||
| Apr 3, 2019 at 15:29 | answer | added | anonymous2 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 13:42 | comment | added | Jacob Vlijm | @Velkan I kind of agree, but that is mostly the task dupes should fullfill. We should have at least one Q with the correct naming and such. Not sure we are still talking about this question though :). | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 13:29 | comment | added | Velkan | @JacobVlijm, multiple wrong questions cast a wide net to catch all these users with different backgrounds and levels of language skills who are searching wrong. There isn't much space for the "right" question to do that because the variations are limited, "Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths." | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 13:08 | comment | added | Jacob Vlijm | @Velkan not sure what you are suggesting. Use incorrect title/body keywords? How would "script to open an application" be a good search definition to anyone looking for an advanced launcher? | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 12:57 | comment | added | Velkan | @JacobVlijm, exactly no. The ones who search for the answer are also inexperienced. So due to being inexperienced they type the same keywords as that guy. That's the fundamental mechanism of how StackOverflow system works. | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 9:59 | comment | added | Jacob Vlijm | @Velkan ...unless OP was actually looking for a solution to issue X, but due to being inexperienced, made the question more specific than it should be. Editing the question + title is then the good thing to do unless it makes one or more answers look silly. Don't think that is the case here. | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 9:16 | comment | added | Velkan | @Arronical, bad for searching though. The question should reflect the logic of the one who asks, not the one who answers. Back to the original discussion: there is nothing more infuriating than an accepted non-exact answer when the exact answer is not present among the answers. | |
| Apr 2, 2019 at 9:34 | answer | added | terdonMod | timeline score: 22 | |
| Apr 2, 2019 at 9:30 | history | edited | terdonMod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Included entire comment since that gives considerably more context.
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| Apr 2, 2019 at 8:41 | comment | added | Jacob Vlijm | @Arronical Excellen suggestion! | |
| Apr 2, 2019 at 8:32 | comment | added | Arronical | Is this a good candidate for editing the question or question title? If the title was something like 'How do I automate starting my app?' there would be no ambiguity as they're no longer explicitly asking for a script. | |
| Apr 2, 2019 at 4:13 | answer | added | Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy | timeline score: 6 | |
| Apr 2, 2019 at 0:53 | answer | added | sempaiscuba | timeline score: 10 | |
| Apr 1, 2019 at 21:58 | history | edited | Jacob Vlijm | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 14 characters in body
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| Apr 1, 2019 at 21:48 | history | edited | Jacob Vlijm | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Apr 1, 2019 at 21:41 | history | edited | Jacob Vlijm | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 11 characters in body
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| Apr 1, 2019 at 18:19 | comment | added | Jacob Vlijm | @LeonidMew Thanks! probably good to mention that IMO there is absolutely nothing wrong with the other answer. This post is just about downvoting answers that do solve the issue, but in another way than OP imagined. | |
| Apr 1, 2019 at 18:15 | comment | added | LeonidMew | I think the correct answer accepted, as it more elegant solution then my answer. For other users, who will search for similar - there are two answers to choose from. Btw, I upvoted you | |
| Apr 1, 2019 at 17:34 | history | edited | Jacob Vlijm | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 96 characters in body
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| Apr 1, 2019 at 16:21 | history | asked | Jacob Vlijm | CC BY-SA 4.0 |