Updated original node just slightly. Although I'm not sure that your opposition changes anything. After all, we already get monks responding with bad and/or incorrect and/or incomplete responses. We get monks asking bad and/or incorrect and/or incomplete questions. (Incorrect questions? Sure. Think XY Problem.) Waiting for perfect questions and perfect answers is just not going to work. Sometimes that incomplete question needs answers requesting clarification. Sometimes incomplete answers provoke more complete answers that may not have come if it weren't for needing someone to correct.

How is a novice supposed to know who to believe as it is? We have nothing but the meaningless XP to gauge how helpful someone is/has been. Of course, by that alone, novices may already believe you over me (probably good), and either one of us over TimToady (probably not so good). If they ignore the XP, perhaps they'll look at the actual text and evaluate for themselves. Will they try a few wrong things? Sure. That's not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is probably having your thread completely ignored instead of resurrected by a wrong response.

Perhaps that's merely my take on the subject. I generally prefer answers that might lead me somewhere than silence. The answers might be rough, but perhaps someone else will come along and polish it into a fine diamond. Or maybe it'll remain a turd, but at least the Mythbusters have proven that you can, indeed, polish a turd.

In reply to Re^3: To Answer, Or Not To Answer.... by Tanktalus
in thread To Answer, Or Not To Answer.... by koolgirl

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