Should an answer be literally what OP asks for?

Question

N.B. Be sure this post is not about points. Seriously, the 2 points from downvote is the last thing I'd worry about. It is about what an answer should be (or not).

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The situation: user asks for a solution to start his application without having to type a complicated command each and every time.
He obviously isn't familiar with existing possibilites, and so he says. He even makes clear he is looking for options: "something like a bat-script or .lnk in windows" we read. Looking at the issue, a much better fit to his problem is available than what he literally asks for, and after posting, OP confirms that's indeed the solution he was looking for.

Then, the answer gets downvoted by someone, because although it solves OP's issue, it is not what OP himself had in mind for his problem.

from the comment:

You're probably right, but this is not the correct answer to the question. I see this as a problem (not the suggestion itself, but this post being the accepted answer), as some scripts may be longer and the actual answer to "how do I make a sequence of commands a script" is another one. Also note that your .desktop file does not do the same as the commands in the question, when MyDirectory does not exist.

Seriously? We answer questions to provide solutions. Nothing more, nothing less.

This has happened to me a few times lately. Again, it is not about the points. It is about what an answer should be (or not).

Please don't downvote an answer because it solves issues in another way than OP initially had in mind.
It is like insisting on selling someone a €100,- screwdriver because he doesn't know where the cheaper ones are in the store.

Answer 1

Of course you should provide the best answer you can, even if it isn't the one the OP was thinking of. And of course people are free to downvote you for that. Personally, I would upvote you instead, but everyone is free to vote as they like.

There's nothing new here. We've been doing this (providing better solutions than the OP asked for) for years and have been getting the occasional downvote for years. No matter what we do, people will downvote. I'm sure at some point I will get a downvote for not having enough cowbell.

That said, this particular case is not quite as simple as you make out. The comment (which I have edited your answer to quote in its entirety) gives specific reasons why the poster doesn't think yours is the best approach. And it isn't simply because "the OP asked for something slightly different". So reducing that comment to just "I was downvoted for not giving the exact solution the OP asked for" seems unfair.

A user has objections to your answer, and expressed them in the best possible way: a downvote and an explanatory comment. Yay! The site is working exactly as it should!

Answer 2

I suppose the ideal answer would have been a combination of the two answers in this case. Present the script, then explain there is a better - more elegant - way to solve the problem, and then let the OP choose.

But I agree, downvoting any answer that actually solves the OP's problem is ridiculous, especially if the OP has already accepted that answer!

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For what it's worth, I upvoted both answers in this case. As far as I'm concerned the only criteria should be whether or not the answer is useful - which is exactly what it says on the tooltip:

Answer 3

Short answer: it depends on the question and OP's requirements. In cases of scripting or making small applications, like in the question you've linked, we have some room for interpretation, and often there are better or more practical ways to approach a problem. For instance, OP may want to make a shell script to parse a text file, but an awk or grep solution that needs just one line of code or less may be more practical, faster, and portable.

But there are cases where we absolutely have to do things a certain way. Consider a question "How do I compile a kernel module against 2.6 kernel ?" We cannot suggest compiling against 4.19 kernel because OP's organization/development environment relies heavily on 2.6 kernel. Or consider a case where OP is writing a Gtk application in C - we can't suggest "just use Python". There are many cases where we have to keep in mind dependencies, and no matter how elegant or short, clever or fast solution we provide - if it doesn't take into consideration critical parts of OP's question, it won't do any good.

Remember also that OP chooses answers that work best for their situation. We can suggest alternatives and better/practical ways, and OP can be rigid in their requirements and disregard our suggestions however good they may be. That doesn't make an answer less valid, but it also doesn't mean it has to be chosen as "the best" by OP.

In general, the person answering has to use their discretion and knowledge to decide whether or not OP needs exact solution or whether there is even a room for alternatives, and OP has their free choice to stick with their own requirements or embrace alternatives. Provide an alternative where possible, but ultimately RTFQ.

Answer 4

If you helped the OP pinpoint their problem more specifically than they had before, it would probably be best to leave your answer as stands (since it does answer the real question), but also to edit the original question to clarify the actual issue.

Though I wasn't following the exact post, this seems like a nice hybrid; the answer answers both the real question and the answer posed.

I can see where the downvoter was coming from; someone in the future with the question posed by the OP could come to the post thinking that they will find the solution, only to be disappointed to see that the accepted answer does not actually answer the question posed, and that the OP was not actually clear on what they really wanted.

Consequently, it would probably be best to edit (or encourage the OP to edit) to explain what the real problem was.

After all, this is basically what happens (with the timeline slightly different) when a question is put on hold as unclear what you're asking, is edited to clarify, and answered. Obviously, it can get a bit messy and require some case-by-case evaluation when there are other answers on the post; this is why it's a good idea to vote to close the question temporarily if it's unclear until the OP has time to clear it up.