How important is personal experience?

Question

How important is my personal experience when I recommend a product?

In the answers I've posted so far, my experience ranges from “I've never used this application before but I'm familiar enough with the domain to know that it's good for this scenario” to “I've been using this application in depth for the best of two decades for this exact scenario among others”.

Does it, in the end, affect the quality of the answer? Should I systematically mention the depth of my experience in my answer? Or should I only mention it when I think it matters (e.g. to assert some more subjective requirements such as ease of use)?

Answer 1

Does it, in the end, affect the quality of the answer? If you think so (for a product you've never used yourself), you better should not place the answer. Of course, a product you use daily and know in depth, you can much better decide how it fits the questioner's criteria – and recommend it by heart. But if you're familiar enough with the domain to know that it's good for this scenario I don't see why that should make your answer "bad" just because of that.

Should I systematically mention the depth of my experience in my answer? Sure, it cannot hurt. And might be necessary here and there – especially when "your heart is in the product", or there's any reason for doubt in one direction ("this might sound difficult/dangerous/xxx, but having it used for years now...") or the other ("I have not used this personally, so there might be danger/difficulties/xxx concerning ..."; something I have to say about e.g. Android apps with extensive permission requests).

Answer 2

I sort of think that SR.SE is kind of unique here, in that things that would be 'wrong' elsewhere might be necessary to post good answers.

If a answer is well documented, and well, it works, personal experience may not matter. However, essentially, a lot of questions here have multiple good answers or at the very least answers that meet the criteria set by the question. You are not just focusing on "this is how I do it" but "You should try this bit of software over the other options because..." and "You might want to be weary of rampant grue adware but despite that"

In some cases the documentation may come from personal experience. In my view, the right amount of personal experience can lift an answer, but as long as your answer is detailed, and talks about the problem in question (IE, you arn't lazy, google it, and just post a link) it is optional.