Questions tagged [answers]
The answers tag has no usage guidance.
49
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How to handle "it's impossible" answers?
The question "Java to C++ converter" has attracted some answers, which IMHO are not answers.
This answer and this answer basically say "it's not possible".
I am a software ...
- 9,507
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0
answers
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Answers with broken links to software that is no longer available
Six years ago I asked a question for recommendations for Firefox extensions: Firefox extension to copy the title and URL of the page to the clipboard. Since then, Firefox completely changed the way ...
1
vote
1
answer
51
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Why is this site having such a low answered rate? [duplicate]
Since many off-topic questions on other SE sites are suggested to migrate to this site (At least 2/3 of my off-topic questions are), I suppose this site should have a big answer rate.
But the fact is ...
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2
votes
1
answer
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How to handle one line answers vs comments
When someone posts a comment such as "I haven't tried software XYZ, but it looks like it might meet you requirements", we keep it (unless it's spam). Why? Because it is helpful and is better than ...
- 6,146
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If answer applies to the question but is from someone spamming, do we leave it or kill it [duplicate]
Just saw this in the first posts review queue:
https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/37870
... and even while looking at it the downvotes kicked in (from -1 to -3), so it will ...
user416
6
votes
1
answer
50
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Are self-written applications welcomed here?
How well does this community receive answers which basically suggest a program that was created by the answerer solely for the poster's requirements?
I'm toying with the idea of increasing my skill-...
- 123
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Are there any guidelines for answering with your own software?
Somebody asked a question which seems to be solved with a software I authored¹. Is there anything special I have to consider when posting an answer about this that goes beyond the general SE standards?...
- 362
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Should we have higher standards for what consitutes appropriate disclosure than the rest of the network?
In response to this answer question
I commented that:
When you work for the company that makes the product, it is normal practice to explicitly include a disclosure at the beginning or the end of ...
- 2,910
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answer
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Leaving an invalid answer "just in case it helps someone"
Situation:
Asker asks a question
Answerer writes a long and detailed answer
Answerer realizes that their answer is not correct (for instance they misread a requirement, or the asker added a new ...
- 18.8k
2
votes
2
answers
26
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Can I post a recommendation as an answer that was already stated in a comment?
I've come across a few questions where comments answer the question. I was wondering, if an actual answer does not exist for that comment, can I then answer that question assuming I've had experience ...
- 7,504
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4
answers
78
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Random inappropriate necro-deletion of decent, helpful, upvoted answer
I posted a quick answer to a question a while ago. I wasn't super detailed and it certainly wasn't a model answer, but I provided a service to the community by being the only one to recommend a ...
- 236
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Do we consider "beta invites by email" valid answers?
Today I found an answer with a beta invite by email – i.e. the software is not yet available, but one can ask for an invite by writing a mail to user@domain.tld. The answer per se is not quite off-...
IzzyMod
- 18.5k
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2
answers
146
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Good question was never answered
I found this really good question about Remastersys that was never answered. Looking for a free, usable alternative for remastersys Does anyone know anything about this?
10
votes
1
answer
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Is suggesting built-in software acceptable?
There are some questions asking for a small set of features that can actually be done with software most users already have installed on their systems.
For instance, one user asked for a tool to ...
- 1,625
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Is source code an acceptable answer?
Please see my exchange of comments with @Bruno Lowagie on this question.
Bruno as provided some source code as an answer. While I, as a fellow programmer, might welcome such an answer, I think I ...
7
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1
answer
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What should we do with wrong answers?
Occasionally we get answers recommending a product that doesn't fit all the requirements of the answer:
A question asking for a video solution, an answer with a photo solution
A question asking for a ...
- 4,235
0
votes
0
answers
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Is "there is no such software" a viable answer? [duplicate]
I recently saw an answer that says that "there is no such software" to do this thing. In this case, it properly describes why there can't be such software. in cases where it doesn't do that, should we ...
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Are "this is a bad idea" answers permitted?
Regarding this answer:
I think you should reconsider the idea of several people live-editing a single code file. That may be great when teaching or pair-programming (ie, working on the same thing), ...
- 4,235
11
votes
2
answers
203
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How to behave while trying out recommendations
What's the proper way to update a question while testing out suggestions? For example, I asked for Podcast app suggestions. Now I'm trying out a couple of the suggested apps and a few that I found on ...
- 141
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answer
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When should I delete my own question?
I asked this question recently.
Now, an answerer has, practically, said that what I want is not possible because the OS doesn't allow it.
I understand this, but I'm unsure whether I should delete ...
- 6,690
8
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1
answer
207
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Are how-to's on-topic?
There are users who ask for an alternative to a software because it is missing some features they need. The problem is that the software they are using currently has that features but they are not ...
- 4,720
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2
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Should I stop answering my own questions?
The website is new and I tend to ask questions and answer on my own question so that it helps the questions getting indexed as the site is in Beta stage, so will help getting good traffic from Google.
...
- 1,566
14
votes
6
answers
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Impossible/impractical requests?
Program to search EULA contracts for problems asks for something that appears to me to be well beyond the state of the art. (If not, you can supply an answer).
I think it reasonable to "require" ...
- 1,140
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135
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Overzealous deletion of answers
I recently answered https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/q/1721/263 with an admittedly too short answer. I received a couple of downvotes and some comments asking me to improve on the answer.
So I ...
- 101
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What shall we do with answer recommending the same application than a previous answer?
I saw that this answer (since deleted, screenshot below) is recommending the same application than a previous answer. Should I flag answers recommending the same product as another answer?
- 36.8k
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answers
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Using a sledgehammer to crack a nut?
Is it ever inappropriate to recommend software which, while it technically fulfils all the requirements, actually bundles a huge bunch of irrelevant stuff with it as well?
I ask because I gave the ...
- 101
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Should we allow minimal (link-only) 'responses' to questions?
Related discussions:
What is required for an answer to be high quality?
How are we going to moderate answers?
The listed related discussions show that answers should contain more than a link to the ...
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Can I post as many answers as I want?
It seems obvious to me that users should be allowed to post several answers to the same question.
But some might not agree, so I thought I would ask here, just to make sure.
Let's say UserA has ...
- 18.8k
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votes
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answer
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Review these link-lacking answers!
I downloaded all of our posts through the API, and I noticed something disturbing: 28 of our answers don't contain links.
Almost all answers here should have a link of some sort - why else would you ...
- 4,235
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How should we treat answers that don't fit all requirements?
On the question proposed by @juergen d where he asks about XML inspection tool, the only answer (so far) is one answer that doesn't fit 100% of the requirements, but provides good information and may ...
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Asking for software, get libraries in answers
Is it acceptable to answer questions asking for software with libraries that will do most of what the OP is looking for, but would require some code to be written to utilize?
The OP can of course ...
- 181
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Is it ok to write a better answer with the same recommendation? [duplicate]
In this question I asked for a simple video annotation tool and got an answer by JBaruch with a good recommendation, the program does the trick, but in a not so good answer (at least in my opinion, ...
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What is required for an answer to be high quality?
This is the answer edition of What is required for a question to contain "enough information"?
As a continuation of the above, the second key problem that I see Software Recommendations ...
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Should we add a second answer with the same recommendation if the first answer is very low quality?
I have just seen this answer Password manager for Linux with just working in-browser autotype Using the tool myself I'm sure I could write a better answer (more detailed, with screenshot...).
So ...
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How important is personal experience?
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 ...
15
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4
answers
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How are we going to moderate answers?
Everyone has already agreed if this site is going to work we need to have really high quality questions and answers (especially the answers).
This leads to the question, how are we going to ...
- 2,514
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Can I answer with website/webapp?
When someone asks a valid question, and I know there's website/webapp that fulfills all or at least majority of the requirements, should I answer with that? On the other words, is it forbidden to ...
- 6,525
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What to do about recommendations containing potentially harmful adware?
So, I'm rather surprised this hasn't been discussed already (it hasn't been as far as I can tell). What do we do if an answer to a question recommends a piece of software that, for example, contains ...
- 1,428
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3
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How should I accept answers?
The choice of the best software which fits my needs is quite subjective.
So when I ask for a software recommendation, the best answer for the asker (= my elected software) isn't necessarily the best ...
- 1,905
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100
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We should not answer with "Anti-recommendations"
When I saw this question, I was tempted to answer with answer along the lines of
Don't use GIMP, this would be the wrong tool for the job.
No one mentioned GIMP but, I felt a urge to encourage ...
- 2,910
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votes
2
answers
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Should we be transparent when recommending our own software?
A large part of our community may also be members of StackOverflow, Programmers, or just happen to be software developers.
If I answer a question and recommend software that I, personally, am somehow ...
- 1,979
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votes
5
answers
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What are the rules for self-answering your question?
On SE sites, it's encouraged to self-answer your question. But on Software Recommendations, an answer to your own answer will probably look like spam. So, is it allowed to post an answer to your own ...
- 1,441
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Are answers which provide a complete script acceptable?
Olli has this excellent question which asks for a file integrity checker. I'm sure many of us could write up a quick shell script and cron entry that will do exactly what he needs.
We seem to have ...
- 1,979
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How should we flag answers?
Let's prefix this with this: I'm quite new to all of this. I've been on mSO for almost a year now, and I know the normal ropes, but this site is a brand new category for SE. We have some work to do.
...
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Is it OK to recommend in comments?
We should only recommend software we actually used ourselfs to make sure we know what we are talking about.
It is ok to recommend a tool we did not use in a comment like here or even recommend a ...
- 1,031
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Should we encourage screenshots?
Answers need to be way more than just a link to a product. Also see this meta discussion.
Should we encourage people to add screenshots of the software they recommend to explain the usage of the task ...
- 1,031
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Is offerring to write a program for someone spam?
(Related to and inspired by this question)
In the post that I linked above it seems pretty well established that "There is no currently existing software that fulfills your request", possibly ...
27
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answers
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What to do when an answer contains several suggestions?
The answer to this question (since deleted) gives 4 suggestions as a single answer: (click for full-sized version)
I think suggestion4 is great and suggestion1 is crap, but I can't express it by ...
- 18.8k
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Is "let someone develop that for you" an acceptable answer
If someone comes along with a set of so specific requirements that there is currently no software fulfilling that needs, is it acceptable to answer
Currently no software fulfills that needs. If you ...
- 1,031