29
votes
Do answers with equations and formulas in them get more votes?
In short: I think that the bottom-line is that in terms of correlations, there is not a clear effect. It differs per user, and if we would scale the number of equations by the size of the post then ...
- 82.8k
27
votes
Why do people downvote old questions and answers?
When a person in 2017 is looking at an answer that may have been written in 2010 (say), it's not that person's responsibility to try to figure out if the answer might have been correct at some time ...
- 287k
24
votes
If someone answered my question outside CV, can I post the answer myself and accept?
Sure. Just quote them and give the source:
[email protected] answered my question in a private e-mail, I'm posting
his answer below:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur ...
- 140k
18
votes
Accepted
Why do people downvote old questions and answers?
Votes on this site are highly noisy and so over-analyzing one-offs like this is a waste of energy in my opinion (especially because the criteria for what deserves an up/downvote are completely ...
- 1,497
18
votes
Accepted
Should I upvote an elaborated answer which I do not fully understand?
Some users on this site feel compelled to provide input on things they don't understand and this sounds like a more nuanced version of that...Obviously you can vote however you want but, since you ...
- 1,497
18
votes
Is a quick-and-dirty answer better than no answer?
I come down strongly in favour of providing quick-and-dirty answers, given two conditions: i) the question is not a bad one (in which case, close and/or downvote), and ii) the alternative is giving no ...
- 19.8k
18
votes
Accepted
Mentioning commercial/freemium product that I developed in my answers
Welcome to the site! Expertise is always welcome here, and it's to be expected that many people with such expertise will also use it to develop commercial products.
However, it does violate a ...
- 19.8k
17
votes
If a complete answer is short, should it be a comment?
Like Richard Hardy (above), I think that attempts to answer the question should be done as "answers", not comments. This lets people up- (or down-)vote the proposed solution, provides a place for ...
- 21.3k
17
votes
If OP asks for a software referral, and a referral *doesn't* exist, may we answer with the code they asked for?
If code is the full answer to a question, then the question is off-topic. When the code illustrates or implements a statistical answer, such as a procedure or algorithm offered in response to a ...
whuberMod
- 330k
16
votes
Accepted
Do a few users answer lots of questions?
One problem with looking at the total number of answers to look at whether a few users answer most questions is it doesn't tell you whether someone is answering questions now. Someone may have a ...
- 287k
16
votes
Accepted
Why are short answers considered to be poor quality for this site?
As someone who knows little about statistics I try to contribute here on Meta to repay what I learn on the main site.
Looking only on your newest answer: I did not learn much from it. It is just ...
- 3,080
16
votes
Accepted
Is it OK to use suggestions by other people to answer a question with a bounty?
See Etiquette for answering old questions addressed in comments?. I don't think anything changes just because a bounty's at stake. (If someone's really keen to win that bounty they needn't give ...
- 31.2k
16
votes
What should we do with outdated answers?
While the canonical "StackExchange/StackOverflow" approach seems to be to allow downvotes, edits and new answers and hope the new good ones eventually float to the top, I think that in practice the ...
- 287k
16
votes
Is a quick-and-dirty answer better than no answer?
TL;DR - Sometimes, short answers are comprehensive answers.
I believe that if a question can be completely answered briefly, then a brief answer is fine.
I also believe that the purpose of stats.SE ...
SycoraxMod
- 92.6k
15
votes
Why are short answers considered to be poor quality for this site?
Note that answers should explain why they're correct; they should give the arguments in any references not simply offer a link or reference (even when a question is a request for a reference, it ...
- 287k
15
votes
What are some "best practices" for editing to improve a post?
Improve external references and add hyperlinks
CV.SE questions and answers should be self-contained, but often they will refer to external material such as academic papers, course notes, blog posts, ...
- 130k
14
votes
Accepted
Answering off-topic questions. Appropriate?
I sometimes answer questions and vote to close them at the same time. I don't see any problem with that. What I would do is leave a comment to the OP explaining that the question is off topic and ...
14
votes
Do a few users answer lots of questions?
I've generated graphs that more directly answer your question here.
That was over two years ago, but you could update with newer data if you want. Two years ago we were in the middle of the pack. The ...
- 16.3k
14
votes
Accepted
Distribution of question and answer votes on CV
Stackexchange/Stackoverflow provides archives of the database as well as a page that allows to write and execute SQL scripts that access the latest database dump. The webpage for the latter is data....
- 82.8k
13
votes
Should new users be allowed to provide questions similar to others?
Leaving aside the specific incidents you mention (though gave some of my reasoning on one of those in comments), I want to address the title question about whether new users should be able to ask ...
- 287k
13
votes
Mentioning commercial/freemium product that I developed in my answers
There are two issues here.
One pertains to self promotion; @mkt has done a good job with that. Let me add a small piece of complementary information. You mention that it is recommended to mention ...
12
votes
What to do when a question has an answer on Wikipedia?
Setting aside the specific thread on the main site that motivated this question, I think we can address the title question more generally.
Namely, I think we should be mostly indifferent to what is ...
12
votes
Is a quick-and-dirty answer better than no answer?
Yes. Embrace the twitter-style answer!
I am a firm believer in Pareto's principle, and a quick answer that is 80% correct is better than no answer that is 100% correct. I do not believe that ...
- 129k
12
votes
If OP asks for a software referral, and a referral *doesn't* exist, may we answer with the code they asked for?
A question asking for software referral is not on-topic, unless it needs some kind of statistical expertise. The same applies to questions about code. So, for example, a question asking about R ...
- 140k
11
votes
Accepted
A mod removed my answer (referencing the answer from comments) to my question saying it doesn't answer it
"See so-and-so's comment" doesn't meet the standard for an answer on our site. Answers should be complete in themselves; for example, if BruceET was to delete his comment, your answer would be useless....
- 287k
11
votes
What are some "best practices" for editing to improve a post?
Trim gratuitous content in questions (and make the question clear)
Questions on CV.SE may contain unnecessary content that distracts from the substance of the question. This excess content can make ...
- 130k
10
votes
Accepted
Should I answer this question or should I add an answer to these other "similar" questions?
Absolutely fine—in my opinion the best thing to do. Several threads have already been merged with Books for self-studying time series analysis? & doubtless more will be. Questions asking for ...
- 31.2k
10
votes
A beautiful answer to a question that changed
I want to agree with Glen_b here, but more emphatically. Once a question has been asked and has received an answer, it is not appropriate for the OP to change the question. That wastes the time of ...
- 130k
10
votes
Accepted
What to do when an answer is wrong, but a comment box is too small?
Just so that this question has an answer:
One method is to post your own answer to the question. In passing, it can demonstrate that an alternative strategy is not correct.
If the answer to the ...
SycoraxMod
- 92.6k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible