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I have posted an answer to a question that is advocated by the full manual entry itself for the particular situation. While my approach is perhaps not the most straightforward way of achieving the goal, it is in the end what the system ends up advocating in situations where a discovery of additional kernely systems is not required.

Clearly, two users who downvoted my answer were either not familiar with what the manual itself advocates, or that my answer - while still achieving the exact goal that was desired - was also meant to point out that it is important to realize that it is the configuration file in the /boot/grub folder that in the end gets changed and changing what others seem to recommend does not actually result in the effect desired.

I wonder if there is some particular way how one might request a look at the answer provided when there seems to be a disagreement between what is posted in the actual manual for the command and what other users who downvoted the original answer seem to recommend.

I do not care that much about the downvotes, as much as I care about having the answer or answers to questions either agree with the manual itself for the commands, or have such answers offer specific reasons why the manual entry should be edited. Is there some way an answer to a question can be elevated for a reevaluation similar to how a bounty can be attached to the original question itself?

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  • 5
    Thanks for addressing the issue in such a civilized manner!
    – dessert
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 20:52
  • Of course, my pleasure. The reason why I brought it up is because certain commands are fundamentally dangerous and I wish there was a way for a question - when it involves certain tags perhaps like grub.cfg, passwd, sudo - to perhaps have its answers hidden from the OP if they are a new contributor until 5 votes come in, or 24 hours pass, as going with the first possible answer can lead to boot/system failure or compromise system security in a fundamental way.
    – NetIceGear
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 21:12
  • Possible duplicate of Why aren't most questions answered with references to documentation or mention to RTFM?
    – Fabby
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 21:27
  • @BarBar1234 that’s a feature-request worth another meta question IMO
    – dessert
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 21:34
  • 3
    @Fabby I think my question is trying to address a different aspect than the above link. Namely, providing a full answer including the quoted manual that fundamentally agrees with documentation, but resulting in downvotes because it is perhaps not the most common answer to the original question. I am certainly against simply linking a manual entry as an answer because for myself at least answering the question is a good way to remind myself of how to work through a problem I might have not seen before or in a while, and going through the steps/working with the OP to fix it.
    – NetIceGear
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 21:37
  • It's just one opinion. You need 4 more to agree with me and 0 to disagree to actually make it a duplicate...
    – Fabby
    Commented Mar 7, 2019 at 21:53
  • 3
    I am one of the people who downvoted the answer. It's not because the answer was poorly written, but because I disagree with the solution.
    – Pilot6
    Commented Mar 9, 2019 at 12:35
  • 1
    @Pilot6 I am fine with people disagreeing with a solution posted by a contributor, but it is a completely different and unique situation when such solution is taken from the manual for a given package, and no one addressed that elephant in the room. If anyone can make a good case for why a manual for any package - especially one with long history - should be changed, that is way greater of a contribution to the whole Ubuntu/Linux stack than any single comment or vote can ever make. One thing I find unbelievable and irresponsible is saying that the manual is wrong or unimportant without proof.
    – NetIceGear
    Commented Mar 9, 2019 at 20:23
  • 3
    Not everything is about manuals. There are a lot of cases when manuals are not good enough.
    – Pilot6
    Commented Mar 9, 2019 at 20:53

1 Answer 1

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Actually, my joke comment above is pertinent to the problem. Frequently an answer, although good, can be too long or detailed to read. It can help alot to break it out in different ways to help the reader:

  1. Add a summary section at the top. e.g. "TL;DR .... You've edited the wrong file and it's getting replaced."

  2. Avoid bolding too much, particularly at the top, and bolding is really for headers and the occasional word. In the words of @muru, "an entire sentence bolded is unhelpful". Although I personally use bolding to draw the reader to the conclusion /question in much the same way as (1), so YMMV.

  3. Put edits at the bottom or better, add them to your answer, we can see all edits in the edit log anyway.

  4. Summarise your copying. e.g. Your quote could be reduced to the pertinent points or the pertinent points could be bolded. At a quick glance I don't see what you're referring to. Help the reader.

  5. If you do an edit to a question, there's no harm in adding a comment to the question to say you've updated your answer. This sends a signal to the questioner. You can't make them change their vote, but you can point out you have improved it.

Try to think about your answer from the perspective of someone who is time-poor, as all moderators are.

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    You get an upvote from me, because you offered good constructive criticism, and I especially liked the thing you ended with, although I disagree with it wholeheartedly. I try to think about my answer from the perspective of the OP and although a reputation rank can be misleading, if they are a new contributor I will try to provide an answer that in my opinion is the least likely to cause other unwanted behavior, not to mention a boot failure as might be the case when dealing with GRUB. Ultimately, what saddened me was the last comment that said "We do not care what the manual says..."
    – NetIceGear
    Commented Mar 8, 2019 at 3:10
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    Good answers get many upvotes because they affect many people, not just the OP. Unlike the OP, the others don't have as much time to invest, so you have to make it easy for them, too, as they're also trying to establish if the answer applies to them. Conversely, the OP only assigns 2 attributes - an "accepted answer" qualifier and one up (or down) vote. When you're talking about whether an answer gets many up or down votes, then you have to take into account every person who may come across your answer.
    – tudor -Reinstate Monica-
    Commented Mar 8, 2019 at 3:24
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    @BarBar1234 Certain users can be a bit harsh, and sadly with Stack Exchange network that happens. It's not a rule to ignore the manuals and certainly isn't a good use of "We" pronoun. Filter valid critique, extract valid points from comments, and try not to take things too personally, while also not letting users cross a line of reasonable communication. After all the comments did raise a few good points, especially the fact that updates on Ubuntu are more frequent than elsewhere and it's a valid consideration from user's point of view.
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Commented Mar 10, 2019 at 12:27
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    @Olorin I hope you are aware that high reputation uses can see deleted content, including answers and comments, so I can see exactly what you said. "We don't really care what the GRUB manual says, because this is how it works in Ubuntu." Fact is, intentions may have been good, but this type of comment comes across harsh, and using "we don't really care" here isn't representative of Ubuntu, AskUbuntu is community site, not Ubuntu developers or employees ( with exception of a few accounts who actually are Canonical employees). Now, what is in fact representative of Ubuntu is code of conduct
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Commented Mar 10, 2019 at 19:34
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    @Olorin As for "harsh" adjective, don't thank me and don't be too defensive. Stack Exchange sites are public space. So if it's OK to react and be defensive in place where you work/study, please remember SE is completely separate space from those. Again, your comment has validity - upstream and downstream often have different information flows. But you took my comment too personally and again misunderstood what people said. Nobody claims blindly sticking to upstream documentation, but depending on software it can be good enough.
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Commented Mar 10, 2019 at 19:47
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    I guess what I'm trying to say is that this situation could have been handled with much less friction that you guys ended up having in the comments.
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Commented Mar 10, 2019 at 19:47
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    @Olorin Oh, and I forgot to mention - I was saying "Certain users can be a bit harsh" in general and not about you specifically, so it's confusing as to why you latched onto that part of my comment. Like I said, don't take things too personally
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Commented Mar 10, 2019 at 20:11
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    @Olorin "which I don't ignore, unlike you" Again, Ad Hominems is not the best way to get around, alright ? Fact is, nobody has come around intentionally labeling you, that's how you came across in that comment, so try to reconsider how you approach commenting. I know it can be infuriating when answers/questions mention something incorrect or disagree with your views, but using the tone as in "We don't care..." neither convinces people, nor makes you look good. Again, good intention - bad execution.
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Commented Mar 11, 2019 at 1:44
  • 1
    @Olorin Feel free to bring up the discussion here to the mods or post separate question on meta, if you feel there's anything offensive about my or BarBar's comments. Again, the comment was public information and is available for viewing to high-rep users. It's not like we're talking about something you didn't say, but something you did and how you came across in that comment.
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Commented Mar 11, 2019 at 1:47
  • 1
    Ok. I've only just arrived back at this comment stream and it now makes 11/10ths of no sense. Can someone please clean it up? And, to those involved, pro-tip: the "flag as inappropriate" is your friend and avoids retaliatory comments. :-)
    – tudor -Reinstate Monica-
    Commented Mar 11, 2019 at 3:24
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    @tudor Mhahah, "11/10ths of no sense". That goes into my phase list immediately.
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Commented Mar 11, 2019 at 5:26
  • 2
    For the record, here are the most upvoted comments on the post in question including yours @Olorin - seems unfair that you can't see what's being discussed while others can
    – Zanna Mod
    Commented Mar 11, 2019 at 7:23

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