Questions tagged [answers]

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6 votes
1 answer
260 views

What should I do when someones posts an almost exact copy of (part of) my answer to the same question?

This happens to me from time to time... I write an answer including different solutions and post it as a single answer, then after some minutes someone comes and posts a new answer, almost an exact ...
Ravexina's user avatar
  • 55.6k
20 votes
2 answers
367 views

Editor wars aside, can we use sudo nano when talking to non-experts?

TL;DR: when posting a solution could you please standardize any editors to something that firstly comes with vanilla Ubuntu, and secondly, is simple to use, regardless of your personal preferences. I ...
Cuchul's user avatar
  • 1
3 votes
3 answers
117 views

I would like a moderator to remove the acceptance from one of my answers and give it to another one

Is that even possible? Question here with my answer the accepted one and the one below that a better one! Yeah, I've looked here already but I'm not going to plagiarise the better one; that would ...
Fabby's user avatar
  • 34.2k
-7 votes
5 answers
215 views

Why is it that perfectly good answers get deleted?

Why is it that certain perfectly good answers get deleted by a few, because they point out Ubuntu's problems? One answer that was deleted is even given in Ubuntu's manual. Another that was deleted was ...
ravery's user avatar
  • 6,864
10 votes
1 answer
238 views

What to do with copy-pasted answers by a new user?

Just now I've opened the main page of the site, and see that a new user has copy-pasted effectively the same text to 3 posts (last two of which are apparently duplicates of each other, since the ...
Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
193 views

Can we fix these posts with missing images essential to the answer?

I've had a really long https image cleanup hangover, but today I am finally closing this tab. However, there were two things that nobody managed to fix - highly upvoted answers with missing images ...
Zanna's user avatar
  • 70.4k
8 votes
1 answer
506 views

What should we do with answers that include contact details for relevant support services?

I have no idea what to do about this answer I came across while reviewing. How do I fix the APT error "The following packages have unmet dependencies"?. Editor's note: The post in ...
fosslinux's user avatar
  • 3,811
23 votes
3 answers
519 views

What should I do when I find an answer that damages my system but I don't have enough reputation to comment on it?

I found an answer that not only didn't work for me, but it also removed a whole bunch of unrelated stuff that now I now need to find a way to reinstall. I just want to add a comment under the ...
Paparazio's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
105 views

Is it bad practice to ask for an improved answer by asking a new question?

How to set folder icons of multiple folders automatically? In the question above I asked for a little improvement to the answer on an existing question: How to set the first picture of every folder ...
Sumeet Deshmukh's user avatar
11 votes
3 answers
409 views

Ask Ubuntu isn't Code Golf. . . or is it?

There's something that has been bothering me for some time about the response to some answers here on Ask Ubuntu, and came to my attention again on this post. My answer, while working and achieving ...
Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
3k views

What is a Work in Progress Answer?

I've posted a Question about thumbnailers and even found a half baked answer, the answer that doesn't work, and then I updated my question with the half baked answer that I found asking to fix the ...
Sumeet Deshmukh's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
159 views

On what basis is the position of an answer decided?

Consider a situation where there are multiple answers on a single question. By how much do these factors weigh in when deciding the position of an answer in top to bottom order? Number of up votes ...
Sumeet Deshmukh's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
95 views

Selecting one answer among many when all answer the question [duplicate]

In this question How can I organize files based on their filename first letter into A-Z folders almost all the answers are correct. Is there any criteria in place in selecting one of them when all ...
Parto's user avatar
  • 15.3k
5 votes
4 answers
219 views

Can a workaround count as an answer?

Some time ago I wrote this post HP Color LaserJet MFP M277dw: previews and prints in colour instead of grayscale. Today I came back to the topic after a while and made some new research. I haven't ...
XavierStuvw's user avatar
  • 1,441
7 votes
0 answers
58 views

Add a feature for similarity comparison

It'd be nice if answers which are an exact copy of an existing (possibly upvoted) answer or contain large substring of such an answer and few own text - which should be a comment on the copied answer -...
Kalle Richter's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
129 views

Please consider leaving feedback on votes for new users [duplicate]

I came across this question where two new users had answered and both of them got downvoted. Now I get why not everyone comments on their votes but I really think if you are dealing with rep 1 users ...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.5k
15 votes
2 answers
260 views

Answering a question using an answer from another post

It occurs to me that I find an answer to one question among the answers to another question, sometimes in the way of hidden gems. I believe that creating the linkage between the two questions is ...
XavierStuvw's user avatar
  • 1,441
7 votes
2 answers
401 views

Accepted Netflix answer is incorrect

IMO we should remove the accepted answer, from How can I use Netflix on Ubuntu?. The 2nd most-voted answer is clearly more correct and supported by Google/Netflix. Right now the only supported way ...
Jorge Castro's user avatar
  • 71.7k
11 votes
1 answer
337 views

Two answers on one question by the same user

What is the correct thing to do when someone posts two different answers to the same question? Here is my example, I am not trying to say "This user did this wrong!", we have only had a couple of ...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.5k
12 votes
3 answers
222 views

What should I (or we) do about answers that obviously miss the point of the question entirely?

I came across this answer to “Adobe PDF for Ubuntu 64 bit 15.10” recently. The question is about installing Adobe Reader on recent Ubuntu releases. The answer explains the whole story with the ...
David Foerster's user avatar
7 votes
4 answers
285 views

Is it okay to ask the OP inside your answer to accept and upvote it?

Title says it all. See this answer. I have bolded the questionable part of the quote. Burn Ubuntu to a DVD and you won't have any trouble booting it... glad that worked for you. Please rate and ...
You'reAGitForNotUsingGit's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
80 views

Users strange behaviour

I noticed something about this user, almost all questions they ask are answered for them in comments or by other users and they take this information and create there own answers with it and accept it,...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.5k
15 votes
3 answers
236 views

What should I do if someone makes a bad edit to my post?

I've been searching to see if this was already asked; sorry if it's a duplicate, couldn't find an answer. I've been wondering what I should do if someone bad edits my post? For example, I explain ...
kek's user avatar
  • 490
8 votes
3 answers
193 views

Delete own answer if somebody posts a more thorough answer later?

Lets say I answer a question and a few minutes or hours later I notice that somebody else also answered it after me. That other answer includes all the information given in mine plus additional ways ...
Byte Commander's user avatar
  • 107k
13 votes
3 answers
312 views

Is it ok to comment and see if it works before answer?

Is it ok to comment an answer to the OP because you can't test it, and then you answer if it works? Or should you just answer?
fosslinux's user avatar
  • 3,811
20 votes
1 answer
358 views

Are we being too generous to (incorrect) answers?

For quite sometime now, I am seeing a very alarming trend here. Wrong/incorrect answers are being upvoted, quite a lot. I have seen some answers lately, that deserve downvotes without any doubt, but ...
heemayl's user avatar
  • 91.6k
9 votes
2 answers
187 views

Accepted answer that you don't agree with during review audit

As I was going through and reviewing posts, I saw this one. I downvoted it and then got this message: STOP! Look and Listen. This was an audit, designed to see if you were paying attention. ...
Delorean's user avatar
  • 10.9k
13 votes
2 answers
361 views

Another "why was my answer deleted" looking for advice to be better

I am new to posting questions and answers on SE, although not new to using the various SE resources. I also get the need for questions and answers to be concise and accurate, we all need answers and ...
Jools's user avatar
  • 31
18 votes
6 answers
326 views

When do comments become answers?

I find myself solving someone's problem step by step through the comments. When I finally find the solution, should I move the final solution to an answer and delete the comment or leave the comment ...
AlwaysTalkingAboutMyDog's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
132 views

Revealing bug report considered answer?

I've seen this a few times, where an answer is given, and all it says is "This is a bug, see this link...", etc. This post is an example (at least one of the answers is, it came up in a review). Is ...
AlwaysTalkingAboutMyDog's user avatar
29 votes
1 answer
6k views

Please do not use links as entire answers!

I have recently noticed a trend going around, and to be perfectly honest it's pissing me off. What new users (and some experience users,) do nowadays is go to the main page, find a question that's ...
David's user avatar
  • 3,367
-6 votes
2 answers
163 views

How far an explanation should go / does it legitimate double posts / answers?

Often questions are very easy to answer if the asker would search a few minutes in the internet and has the right search terms handy. The latter one is the key, the askers often didn't know what to ...
cmks's user avatar
  • 1,894
5 votes
1 answer
136 views

Best method to deal with one user copy/pasting/plagiarising another's answers

I found a user is copying an answer given to them (I mean word for word copy/paste, no changes or anything!) by another user as their own answer on two question less than ten minuets apart and I bet ...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.5k
15 votes
3 answers
298 views

Comments in the answer section from new users

This addresses all the new users out there: Every day here I see new users commenting in the answer section and saying things like I don't have the rep to comment but.... It seems redundant that ...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.5k
0 votes
0 answers
48 views

Retract a flag? [duplicate]

Is there any way to retract a flag on an answer? Here is an example of why I would like to retract flags. I flagged this answer as "not an answer" because in its original state it was just a request ...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.5k
9 votes
1 answer
179 views

Can you just point someone in the right direction and how vague are you allowed to be with this?

I recently asked this question, and this was one of the answers I got: I'm running Ubuntu 14.04.03, so YMMV. Investigate some of these packages: $ apt-cache search ssh | grep multiple byobu - ...
user avatar
11 votes
3 answers
503 views

How to deal with users that won't mark duplicate but instead copy-paste their answers agan and again

I have found some users are just copy-pasting same answers again and again instead of marking them duplicates. Is this allowed on Ask Ubuntu? If not, how to deal with such users?
Alex Jones's user avatar
  • 7,980
2 votes
2 answers
98 views

What to do with potentially dangerous answers?

I was just wondering, what should one do with potentially dangerous answers? I mean I have read before on Meta that I should just flag them up, however when I did so for this one I just got this: ...
user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
37 views

Should an answer which no longer answers the question, but may help others, be kept or deleted?

I recently asked this question Why is my system suddenly not allowing upper case letters?, but I changed a lot when I figured out part of the problem, however someone had already given an answer which ...
user avatar
5 votes
4 answers
308 views

What to do with stolen answers?

I sometimes see people answering a question in the comments and then being asked to convert their comment into an answer, however in some of those cases someone comes along and sees that answer and in ...
user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
124 views

How different is the answer's OS allowed to be?

I sometimes see Windows answers which are removed because they are not helpful to Ubuntu users, even Mac answers, but what about answers that explain how to do something on Mint (and it is clear that ...
user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
66 views

A user wrongly accepted my answer, what can I do?

On this question today I was helping a user and after multiple attempts they fixed it there self and my answers did not work, however the user (I guess just to say thanks for helping me) accepted a ...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.5k
7 votes
1 answer
219 views

Should almost identical answers be deleted?

Today I asked a question, and I got this answer, however in a few minutes another answer was posted: Now this answer is almost identical to the first: Except for the fact that it does not give an ...
user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
135 views

What to do with this specific answer variation in the question?

The following question has an accepted answer and open bounty that will be awarded to it as soon as the delay is over. Bind Alt+Tab to a Logitech mouse button on Kubuntu Now the OP decided to edit ...
Byte Commander's user avatar
  • 107k
0 votes
1 answer
76 views

Is there a rule which states that all questions and answers have to be in English on this site? [duplicate]

I know that people often tell others that it is a rule here, but I am have never actually seen it written anywhere, so is it a rule that all questions and answers on this site have to be written in ...
user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
98 views

How to deal with potentioaly illigal / hacking software reccomendations?

I was checking out this answer today, when I clicked the link given, Firefox reported an untrusted site, so I left the OP a comment "Firefox says the link you provided is untrusted" and the OP replied ...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.5k
1 vote
0 answers
49 views

Is this answer an answer or comment?

I was just presented with this as a Late Answers review. Screenshot in case it is removed: It this a valid answer, or is it someone commenting? They're offering a solution (format first) but seem to ...
Tim's user avatar
  • 32.8k
7 votes
0 answers
201 views

User spoils his answers

I just noticed that a user Mudit Kapil is spoiling good answers. Just look at edit history. https://askubuntu.com/a/576229/167850 and others. You can just search his last edits. Not removing them, ...
Pilot6's user avatar
  • 90k
23 votes
2 answers
428 views

Sorting out SOLVED for good

I came across this question whilst rapidly browsing earlier - the OP added "SOLVED: " to the title, but did add vaguely how they got the answer but did not accept it. Searching for other people doing ...
Wilf's user avatar
  • 30.2k
4 votes
5 answers
132 views

What to do with answers that should be comments, but get deleted?

As the reputation requirement to comment is pretty high (50), many new users who want to contribute to the site use answers to leave a comment on questions, e.g. to request additional information ...
Byte Commander's user avatar
  • 107k