Questions tagged [answers]
This tag is for questions about answers: how to answer, whether specific answers are appropriate, and so forth.
42
questions
2
votes
1
answer
89
views
Which answer should be accepted if the first one (chronologically) takes the most important step, but the second is more complete?
Link to my puzzle.
The answer written by gsomani is in my opinion more important. The puzzle only has a single step pattern to discover, which they found, but fell short at the last step because they ...
- 2,166
14
votes
3
answers
648
views
Do we want to keep the accepted answer pinned to the top?
Staff announced on Meta Stack Exchange that they're considering unpinning accepted answers - either on a per-site, opt-in basis, or network-wide with the ability to opt out. If such a thing went ...
- 10.1k
7
votes
1
answer
161
views
Is it compulsory to hide all answers in spoiler blocks?
There seems to be a policy of the site that the important part of answers should be hidden in spoiler blocks. However, I still see answers that are not hidden in spoiler blocks.
Most of the answers ...
- 879
9
votes
1
answer
366
views
What can I do in this pressuring situation?
I posted a well-received puzzle the other day where users needed to find out what word goes into the blank spaces in a few sentences, and the first user to post an answer got it right.
I didn't want ...
- 13k
5
votes
1
answer
188
views
When are "many" answers "too many"?
I know this kind of question is asked before but answers were not clear.
Recently, like yesterday, a nice question, got 18 (and counting) answers! Many interesting, some out there. While I have seen ...
- 39.2k
5
votes
1
answer
185
views
Attention on bountied question
I have provided bounty on a question but it has not received much attention as expected. How do I draw attention apart from this??
The question is not mine but I desparately want to see an answer to ...
- 167
14
votes
2
answers
201
views
Should my answer be deleted if there is a similar/identical answer?
I am new to puzzling and I really like it.
I have a question:
I posted my first answer to everyday you make cry, and El-Guest beat me by 3 minutes ;-)!
Shall I delete my answer then?
- 1,137
4
votes
1
answer
71
views
How to choose the answer to accept in a multi-question puzzle?
Similar question but not extremely useful because this time is about multi-question puzzles rather than the answers quality.
I recently posted this puzzle which was composed of multiple questions of ...
- 5,112
1
vote
1
answer
140
views
I just joined Puzzling, but can't post an answer
I saw a question that I wanted to post an answer to, so I joined Puzzling.
My reputation on other sites allowed me to immediately get the +100 bonus... which should allow me to answer the question. ...
- 101
1
vote
1
answer
67
views
What happens with the questions with no accepted answer?
There are many questions in PSE with a few answers (or sometimes no answers at all) which do not yet have any accepted answer with tick mark even though many weeks or months have passed. Shouldn't the ...
- 732
8
votes
3
answers
305
views
Enigmatic Puzzle - Eliminate Wrong Paths
I'm solving an enigmatic-puzzle, in particular, this. If I found routes that ended up in a dead-end, but which I am sure that was deliberately added in by the puzzle creator, should I post them as an ...
- 21.6k
16
votes
3
answers
512
views
About NON-open-ended puzzles with multiple answers working towards an optimum
A while ago, consensus was reached that open-ended puzzles are no longer welcome on our site. That means, if a question has no absolute "best possible" answer, so that any answer could conceivably be ...
- 116k
20
votes
2
answers
757
views
Partial Answers and "List-of-Clues" puzzles
Puzzling is unique across the SE network for allowing "partial answers" -- that is, answers that aren't full answers to the questions, but just make some progress towards answering it. But recently, I'...
DeusoviMod
- 145k
3
votes
2
answers
87
views
Is there a way to generate interest in old questions?
I'm new to Puzzling Stack Exchange and have found I can learn a lot by reading old puzzles and seeing how they were solved. I took an interest in one and posted an answer which was different to the ...
- 182
6
votes
1
answer
167
views
Is it acceptable for one user to have multiple answers to a question? [duplicate]
When I answer a puzzle and am told that I've given an incorrect answer, I usually edit my answer if I want to try again.
However, I saw a comment recently (can't remember where) that suggested that ...
- 9,297
2
votes
1
answer
73
views
What's the benefit of this edit? (Added 2 spaces)
Someone edited an answer just to add two spaces.
Link: https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/revisions/58762/3
Why would someone do that and is this allowed?
- 331
10
votes
6
answers
270
views
Is it good for Puzzling to post a solution without appreciating the puzzle?
Time and again we have puzzles with
no upvotes — or
with downvotes — that have answers with upvotes.
This seems to paradoxically imply:
Solvers do not ...
- 21.8k
3
votes
2
answers
126
views
Is a handful of solutions that don't work considered a partial answer?
I've seen our stance on partial answers (where some, but not all, of the puzzle is solved), and I agree with our philosophy that they're basically a good thing for this site. How far, though, does ...
- 2,551
9
votes
1
answer
240
views
Edit ruined my puzzle!
Unfortunately, I can't explain what happened without spoiling the puzzle, so only read on if you want a puzzle ruined for you.
- 2,767
2
votes
1
answer
81
views
May a user edit another's non-CW answer to add pertinent info?
Suppose one person posts a partial answer to a question. (Perhaps the question had many parts and the answerer didn't answer every part.) And that answer is not CW. May another user edit that answer ...
- 8,299
4
votes
1
answer
80
views
Is it poor form to post multiple possibilities in an answer?
Let's say there is a riddle, and I am unsure of the answer but have narrowed it down to, say, 2 possibilities.
Would it be in poor form to post a single answer that says "Either it's A, or it's B"?
...
- 240
10
votes
1
answer
181
views
Should we upvote good answers for puzzles we've downvoted for being not good?
I'm repeatedly coming accross puzzles which I deem down-vote-worthy, because they lack quality. (They are on-topic though, so I don't VTC.)
These are "puzzles" which are either far too easy ...
- 18.1k
9
votes
2
answers
308
views
Should we delete very late duplicate answers?
Yup. Duplicate answers. We have seen some of them in last few days. Like this, this, this, this and possibly many more which I didn't mention. They aren't exact duplicates but they still have the same ...
- 6,284
5
votes
3
answers
305
views
Can the answer be a photo taken of a written paper?
While answering the math, geometry, pattern and some other puzzling, in case if I faced some difficulty to explain my answer by typing, can I write/draw the answer in the paper, taking that as a photo ...
- 641
3
votes
0
answers
162
views
Is it okay to have too many answers?
Questions such as this have way too many answers. Isn't that a problem? One could justify that each answer explains thing a bit differently, but I can't imagine the answer to a simple question being ...
- 6,936
-4
votes
2
answers
209
views
Put on hold as "too many possible answers"
I submitted a puzzle of my own making:
If the world were flat, would I always be able to see Mount Everest (the tallest structure) off in the distance?
In my mind, there is only one "correct" ...
- 714
19
votes
3
answers
730
views
My puzzle was answered credibly: correctly but not as intended
I posted a puzzle for answerers to solve, about finding a pattern across several lists of words.
My effort to remove patterns other than the one I used to construct the lists apparently wasn't ...
- 1,041
6
votes
3
answers
361
views
Why choose this as accepted answer?
In this question, there are multiple well-received answers.
The owner of the post chose the answer with -21 votes as the accepted answer.
The community seems to disagree.
What should be done?
- 1,906
3
votes
1
answer
105
views
Introduce a check-box for partial answers
A lot of puzzles end up getting quite a few partial answers, hints, etc. before the actual puzzle is solved. If this is unhelpful, it eventually gets down-voted. However, often this content is, in ...
- 6,936
4
votes
1
answer
268
views
Deletion of correct answers?
Recently I've noticed a lot of answers which are correct - in some cases, I believe, even accepted - being deleted by the moderators (which means normal users can't vote to undelete them), simply ...
- 116k
1
vote
1
answer
134
views
How is a day 30 hours?
I had posted a rebus puzzle and users solved it. After all of them were solved, I posted a CW answer with all the answers of the puzzle.
I tried to accept my answer after I posted it and a popup came ...
- 1,813
10
votes
3
answers
248
views
Where to put puzzle feedback?
I've been writing feedback for puzzles and wondering I should put it. I've been doing this in the comments (like on this question), as that's what feedback is: commentary on the puzzle, rather than an ...
- 26.3k
12
votes
4
answers
674
views
Spoiler markup: ____________________
What? You don't find my title helpful? You had no idea what you were going to read before you opened the question...I see.
This site is getting on the Stack Exchange Hot List a lot lately! I've been ...
- 1,041
9
votes
4
answers
568
views
Content on site slowly becoming more and more like Y! Answers
We're treading down a wrong path here, there needs to be some quality control in terms of answers. Just treating everything as "it's creative, don't hate" is such a bad way to regulate question and ...
- 147
3
votes
3
answers
577
views
My question was answered with "creative" answers
A recent question of mine has gotten tons of answers, many if them probably think that they were being creative and thinking outside the box, however I consider them loop holes.
For example:
Someone ...
- 14.4k
5
votes
2
answers
118
views
Can I upvote incorrect answers?
Should only correct answers be up-voted, or is it ok to upvote incorrect answers where an attempt has been made and well explained, despite it being wrong.
If only correct answers can be upvoted, ...
- 3,369
5
votes
2
answers
115
views
Hide the answers
I think all the answers should be hidden until the user clicks something, like a "Show answers" button. With a short question with short answers like this:
https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/...
- 105
23
votes
1
answer
1k
views
"The oracle was lying!", "Just stab them instead!" and other... 'creatively' unhelpful answers
It seems to me like we have developed a problem with a particular type of answer: the answer that ignores the puzzle completely and thinks of a "creative" workaround.
What I'm talking about are two ...
user20
20
votes
4
answers
971
views
Standard Loopholes
It has been mentioned before that a set of "standard loopholes" (similar to those used on CodeGolf.SE) could be useful for restricting the number of "silly" answers to questions which were funny the ...
- 5,755
16
votes
5
answers
578
views
Answers not in the spirit of the question
I'm sure you've all seen answers like this. For example, with the question "go through the centers of all of the circles with six lines," you can do it in one!
Yeah... no. This answer is clearly not ...
- 4,597
4
votes
3
answers
192
views
Is it appropriate to work out a solution in an answer when the solution isn't complete yet?
I started looking at one of the rather complicated questions and began formulating answers based on compartmentalizing the problem into smaller, simpler problems. I need a place to write down the ...
- 251
5
votes
2
answers
105
views
update v second answer
Let's say, I've posted a solution to a puzzle and it's been accepted. Later, I think of an alternate solution, distinctly different than the first but (hopefully) meriting mention.
Is it better to ...
- 258