1

I'm not much of an answerer, but lots of the questions have only one answer - I'd imagine that a stack of answers have been written by a handful of people.

I'm not sure about the reasoning behind this, but apparently 2.5 answers per question (I guess 2-3 answers for each question?) is a healthy target - I'd think it'd have something to do with answer quality or something.

I think legal questions more often than not will lend themselves to multiple answers which may be as valid as the last.

Any thoughts on this single-answer phenomenon? I'd be interested in thoughts on the answer-to-question ratio, too. The rest of the stats I kinda understand - you need questions to answer; you need those questions to be answered; you need users to question and answer and; you want to bring in new traffic which converts to new questions and answers. But I'm not 100% on the reason for encouraging multiple answers.

4
  • 1
    The "2.5 answers" thing is a relic that's never been fixed. Most of those stats aren't too useful anymore.
    – HDE 226868
    Jun 18, 2015 at 16:49
  • 2
    If you look at the stats for graduated sites, an answer ratio of around 1.5 is typical. A question with a large number of answers is generally a bad thing -- it usually indicates that the question is too broad, or too opinion-based, or (and I've seen this often on worldbuilding.se) that the Dunning-Kruger Effect is in play and a large number of people falsely think they have the expertise needed to answer.
    – Mark
    Jun 18, 2015 at 21:23
  • 2
    @HDE226868 is right about the answer ratio stat on Area 51 being a relic. It might be fun to look at sometimes but isn't particularly useful, at the very least from a graduation evaluation standpoint. Tangentially related: Graduation, site closure and a clearer outlook on the health of SE sites
    – Pops
    Jun 22, 2015 at 20:30
  • @Pops: Thanks, an interesting read. Also the methodology was interesting for determining graduation criteria (if that's all that was considered), ie: We are graduating these sites and they all have this in common, so we'll use this as the criteria for graduating sites ;)
    – jimsug
    Jun 22, 2015 at 21:27

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

From my experience on other sites, I would say the following:

  • When I see a question that I can answer I first check to see if the question already has an answer. If the question has an answer I ask myself if my answer will be essentially the same answer. Can I add anything useful? Does the other answer address all the aspects of the question or was something left out? If I feel that I can provide something useful for the OP besides what has already been given, then I just do this even if my answer will overlap the other answer. Sometimes an answer addresses all the aspects of the question, but I might feel that I can say things differently. Maybe I can add some some references or some details or historical background that the already existing answer doesn't. In those cases I just post an answer.

  • If no answer exists and I have an answer, then I will post one. If another answer is posted as I am tying my answer I just keep typing. I don't see the hurt in having two answers that basically say the same thing and if I have already spent some time researching and typing an answer, then I will just post what I have.

  • I usually approach the Stack Exchange model not as a competition about points, but with an honest desire to try and help the OP.

  • I don't think that we should push having multiple answers to each question, but I think that it naturally will happen. So I think we shouldn't worry about it and just focus on providing quality answers.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .