13

Recently I see that some clearly-wrong answers are taken to the "Low Quality posts" review queue. Most of them are ended "Looks OK".

But, in my opinion, such answers are wrong so clearly that they should not be posted or they should be edited right away to a different answer. In other words, such answers deserve deletion in my opinion.

What do you think? Am I too rude? What to be done here?

Yes, I know that we can wait for the answerer to have some replies to the feedbacks. However, in the meantime, the clearly-wrong answers may cause confusion to many users, especially LaTeX newcomers (I was sometimes confused in that way). And some users, as you know, are only online few times a month, or even a year. It may take very long to receive replies from them.

| |
  • 13
    We should downvote more – CarLaTeX May 7 '19 at 19:37
  • 6
    This is indeed a problem. However, as implicitly said by @CarLaTeX (at least this is how I read it), you can use your vote to indicate what you think about an answer. And you can leave a comment which explains why you think it does not work, this will help others to gauge whether or not their inability to use the solution is their fault. – user121799 May 8 '19 at 0:30
  • 3
    The voting system is designed to leave the worst answers at the bottom, where no casual reader will ever end up. If an answer gets enough downvotes, it will get deleted automagically. But, we have the one downvote is enough unwritten nettiquette policy. – Johannes_B May 8 '19 at 4:59
  • 6
    I also thought that down-voting (and adding a comment with the down-vote reason) was made for this and is the correct thing. But in past the reaction of some authors of such answers signed that down-votes are often are misinterpreted as aggression. Telling someone, that the answer is wrong and should be changed, is often not successful and not really seldom misinterpreted as aggression. I have the impression that some regulars are very stressed so that they have a problem with such things. And maybe my English is not sensible enough to write such comments. So I usually avoid down-votes. – Schweinebacke May 8 '19 at 7:21
  • @Schweinebacke Many site users' English is not the yellow from the egg :) You shouldn't have to refrain from downvoting and explaining what's wrong because you're afraid not to be able to put it in perfect English (and therefore not explaining it the way you would in your mother tongue). – Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz May 8 '19 at 8:33
  • 1
    @Johannes_B I just want to clarify that compared to questions (and the Roomba), answers are never automatically deleted due to downvote/score (as can be seen from the search results). – Andrew T. May 8 '19 at 8:45
  • 1
    @Skillmon This is one side of the medal. Theoretically you are absolutely right. But I'm not able to ignore that some users seem to think down-voting or explaining what is wrong and asking for improving or deleting a wrong answer in my English is an unfriendly intervention against themselves. – Schweinebacke May 8 '19 at 10:45
  • 1
    @Schweinebacke if some users take the comment in the wrong way this is collateral damage, protecting OP and future visitors from using wrong stuff should have a higher priority, imho. – Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz May 8 '19 at 10:47
  • 1
    @Schweinebacke but that's not your fault. It is the user who can't take criticism the right way. (I've upvoted the answers, to restore balance :) – Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz May 9 '19 at 8:36
  • 1
    @Skillmon This is a potential problem of this site. If you point out an error or just disclose the source from which the OP "borrowed" "their" answer because they "forgot" to do so, some of them can get furious. Apart from downvoting some of your posts they can, whenever they see your answer, always upvote the other answer, which is less easy to tract. This is why I, even though I 100% agree with Joule V that it would be great to get rid of wrong posts, tend to just ignore them. – user121799 May 10 '19 at 21:06
  • 1
    @marmot I understand why you resign, but the ideal situation is different and I think we should try to become more ideal. If I stated something wrong it'd be great to be corrected, else I couldn't learn. Sadly not everybody has this approach to neutral criticism :( – Skillmon likes topanswers.xyz May 10 '19 at 21:49
  • @Skillmon Yes. The question is what is best for everyone. IMHO one needs to judge on post-to-post or user-to-user basis what to do. Very often the special users are those who are really just seeking attention, and by ignoring them you deny them this attention. (At least this thought has helped me when dealing with them. ;-) – user121799 May 10 '19 at 22:10

You must log in to answer this question.