Over 5% of deleted answers posted are actually questions.

Some raw figures:

Shog provided some data on answers deleted with the canned review comment:

'This does not really answer the question. If you have a different question%'

In the past 30 days: 5.3%
1,736 answers were deleted with that comment.
There's been a total of 32,734 answers deleted in the past 30 days
From 8th December 2018..

For the past year (2018): 5.2%
22,065 answers were deleted with that comment.
There's been a total of 426,079 answers deleted this year
As at the time of writing this post..

This doesn't provide a breakdown of which posts are self-deleted and it doesn't account for questions, posted as answers that are deleted without comment (or at least the canned comment).

There are a few reasons about why this happens.

Users are post banned, low rep and cannot comment, or use the site like a forum. The latter occurs regularly. So there's a lot of misunderstanding about how to use the site.

What can we do to educate new users not to post questions as answers?

  • 8
    probably detect the question mark ? and pop a message to say something like you seems to be asking a question within the answer section, are you sure? you can consider the comment section or ask a new question – Temani Afif Dec 7 '18 at 21:10
  • 21
    @TemaniAfif I'd like to see a huge red dialog for first time answerers "Is this an answer? DO NOT POST QUESTIONS" – Yvette Colomb Dec 7 '18 at 21:12
  • 1
    These are moderated quite fast, normally. I know there are a lot of these, I'd like to see how many remain after correcting for answers by people that are question-banned. Probably, no amount of guidance will help those cases. – Erik A Dec 7 '18 at 21:15
  • 1
    or like they made the new contributor indicator for us (old users) we can add indicators to new users to prevent them from missusing the site: when commeting, when answering, etc A bit annoying but they cannot say later that they don't know they shouldn't have done it. – Temani Afif Dec 7 '18 at 21:15
  • 2
    Of the users who have done this, I'm curious to know what proportion of them have successfully asked a question beforehand. I'm going to guess that the "helpability" of user will vary drastically depending on whether they have successfully posted a question before. – Mysticial Dec 7 '18 at 21:15
  • 1
    @Mysticial I need Shog for these queries. Me no access to the SEDE queries on deleted content. – Yvette Colomb Dec 7 '18 at 21:17
  • 15
    Please also consider: Educating new users not to answer their question in the question itself. – honk Dec 7 '18 at 22:30
  • 12
    @Braiam do you know that exclamation marks like that come across as rude? I'm asking sincerely, as I see a lot of people do it and wonder if they don't realise how it comes across. – Yvette Colomb Dec 7 '18 at 23:01
  • 2
    @Braiam ?! is officially unwelcoming... although I think that one is fine. – user202729 Dec 8 '18 at 4:02
  • 24
    @user202729 I find it rude. It's like the person is demanding to know an answer. It causes my hackles to rise and I instantly don't want to help them. It then takes a conscious effort to remain polite. That's pretty commonplace for a lot of people. It's hard, because often the people who are regularly abrasive won't be flexible. Their response is "grow up!" and a thousand other responses we see every day. I think some people need to: Grow and learn! – Yvette Colomb Dec 8 '18 at 4:06
  • 5
    As someone who uses this '?!' frequently (not on SO though... I wonder if the prevalence of non native speakers prevent me from doing so subconsciously), I always mean it more as incredulity than 'GIMME MY ANSWER NAO!', even if I can see why people see it that way. – Patrice Dec 8 '18 at 5:43
  • 4
    @Patrice it common on social media. It's not professional discourse. How we relate off the site can be very different. – Yvette Colomb Dec 8 '18 at 9:12
  • 21
    I think the word “answer” itself may be misunderstood and taken in the meaning of ”response”. If you replaced it with, or better described it with ”solution”, that may reduce this misunderstanding. – deceze Dec 8 '18 at 9:50
  • 3
    You might wanna read this meta.stackexchange.com/a/285924/311398 – Bhargav Rao Dec 8 '18 at 20:23
  • 2
    Did Shog break down how many of the deleted answer-questions belonged to new ones not having the comment priv @ 50 rep? They can no comment, they want to contribute, they try (wrongly) placing theire question into an answer. I regularily point them to the respective meta posts why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead – Patrick Artner Dec 9 '18 at 8:33

I think the word "answer" itself may be an issue:

1 her answer was swift and unequivocal: reply, response, rejoinder, return, reaction; acknowledgement; retort, riposte; informal comeback. ANTONYMS question, query.

So many users may read this:

Post Your Answer


Post Your Reply

If you have the expectation of Stack* being a forum, this makes perfect sense.

If the phrasing would be more along the lines of

Submit Your Solution to the Problem

this misunderstanding may be reduced.

  • 7
    I like this. I wish I could include this with Makato's answer or accept them both. There's definitely some misunderstanding going on. Which I suspect is linked to people being used to forum formats. – Yvette Colomb Dec 8 '18 at 13:29
  • 25
    Should that better read "Submit your solution to the problem that was asked in the question at the top of the page"? If you are having doubts on people's understanding of "Your Answer", best be totally clear 😀 – usr2564301 Dec 8 '18 at 14:04
  • 2
    @usr2564301 That argument is a slippery-slope fallacy. Considering many people aren't native English readers, it's possible to misinterpret the word "answer" as "reply" or "response", just as deceze showed. The suggested solution is a small change to combat it. There is of course no need to go to absurd length with the same lines of thought. However, the premise is based on a conjecture, so the solution might not solve anything. I think it sounds reasonable though. – Ted Klein Bergman Dec 8 '18 at 15:16
  • 1
    Same feature request as this one from 5 months ago. – user202729 Dec 9 '18 at 3:54
  • 13
    "Post your Solution" perhaps to keep it less verbose – Chris_Rands Dec 9 '18 at 17:12
  • 25
    I think this is a good track, but that the problematic word is actually "POST". "This site feels like a forum, I want to post, hey the button says POST." So Submit Your Solution makes a good double-speedbump to get people to see two words: I'm submitting something (for approval or disapproval) along with that something being a solution. Plus it couldn't hurt to have the yellow "hint box" off to the right have some content-sensitive warnings (hey, your phrasing sounds question-y, not answer-y). – HostileFork Dec 9 '18 at 18:42
  • Are really new users used to post in forums? Or more used to other sites like reddit or other social media sites, where this behavior is accepted/encouraged (to keep the communities)? – llrs Dec 10 '18 at 11:10
  • 3
    But some really good questions are not problems, they are just questions... But the people capable of tackling these would be probably click the button anyway... – gsamaras Dec 10 '18 at 13:22
  • 1
    @gsamaras Agreed, "Solution to Problem" is too specific, so some alternative phrasing would need to be found. – deceze Dec 10 '18 at 13:26
  • @deceze still not sure if changing the word answer would help. I mean I have never thought that "answer" as a synonym for a reply in that context. Questions and Answers love each other. This is a Q&A site.. I am afraid that there is going to be no ideal replacement of the word answer.. Still, good to explore this aspect as well.. – gsamaras Dec 10 '18 at 13:32
  • @gsamaras as a non-native speaker, I can certainly understand why some people would mix up "answer" and "reply". In some languages those words are one and the same (Portuguese has only "Resposta", for example, for those two cases), so this is something that can happen. – T. Sar - Reinstate Monica Dec 10 '18 at 15:12
  • In Greek it's the same @T.Sar, but it seems such a basic thing for me.. Maybe I am wrong, would be interesting to ask the experts.. – gsamaras Dec 10 '18 at 15:14
  • 1
    @gsamaras Not by asking the experts, but by implementing the feature and measure NAA rate. (with AB testing?) – user202729 Dec 10 '18 at 15:29
  • 2
    Maybe less passive wording that doesn't reference actually creating a post would be even better: e.g., "Answer the Question," or, "Explain Your Solution." – jpmc26 Dec 10 '18 at 16:51
  • @user202729 yes an experiment would be nice, but someone has to invest effort and time before implementing stuff, so choosing wisely the phrase is the key to this attempt.. – gsamaras Dec 10 '18 at 17:50

Two questions to answer:

  • Is the problem with questions in answers exacerbated by the fact that these users are question-banned?
  • Is the problem with questions in answers exacerbated by the fact that these users are new to the site?

For each given problem, there's a solution:

  • Accelerate the rate at which an answer ban is also applied to an account which has a question ban, under the specific circumstance that they have repeatedly (3 times or more) asked a question in an answer and it has been deleted.
  • Add a just-in-time pop-up for new accounts who go to post an answer explaining that the answer section really is just for answers. Those that agree and still continue to post questions in answers could fall into Scenario 1 and dealt with.
  • 3
    The current pop-up contains "Please be sure to answer the question." and "avoid asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.", so consider 2. already done. – user202729 Dec 8 '18 at 4:01
  • 3
    @user202729 it's not a pop up afaik – Yvette Colomb Dec 8 '18 at 4:36
  • 1
    @YvetteColomb Then this is a pop-up... – user202729 Dec 9 '18 at 3:50
  • 12
    @user202729 it clearly should be flashing and bright red, and provide electric shocks via the keyboard. – Yvette Colomb Dec 9 '18 at 3:52
  • This question now has so much attention. I've unaccepted to encourage more input and allow the community to decide. – Yvette Colomb Dec 10 '18 at 14:49
  • I agree with solution 2 and I believe if that takes place there will be less of scenario 1 to deal with. How many of these question-in-answer come from q-banned users? – Luciano Dec 10 '18 at 14:56
  • @Luciano You should ask the mods (or CM) about that, normal users don't have access to users' question ban status or searching deleted posts from a particular user. – user202729 Dec 10 '18 at 15:28
  • 1
    This answer contains two questions as an answer to a question about answers containing questions. – Micha Wiedenmann Dec 10 '18 at 15:56
  • 1
    @MichaWiedenmann: I could argue that this answer contains one answer from two specific facets. There are two possibilities (in my mind) that cause this problem, but the solution for both is the same - ban quicker. – Makoto Dec 10 '18 at 16:08

One thing that could help could be a simple regex that triggers a warning (Not a block on the answer, but an extra step of verification). Just check if the answer contains a question mark ?, and if it does, show a warning when they click the "Post Your Answer" box that says something in red like:

Is this really an answer to the question?

Comments or follow up questions posted as answers are not allowed. If your post does not answer the question, it will be reviewed and deleted. Repeated misuse of the answer feature will lead to a ban from answering.

Yes, this is an answer to the question. Cancel.

Obviously some answers can contain a question mark. My answer here has contained 2 so far, and rhetorical questions can also be useful in crafting a good explanation, so we don't want to block good answers that use a question mark. But this kind of a notice would make it clear that posting questions in the answer box is not permitted.

This could be shown on any answer containing a question mark until the user has x amount of rep, or until they have at least 1 upvoted or accepted answer. Since we're talking about more than 1,000 posts a month, this should be a reminder that won't be so invasive to the other thousands upon thousands of answers that get posted, but it should help alert users as to the fact that asking questions instead of answering is not permitted.

  • 27
    Good thinking about using heuristics. But... I feel like I'd piss off all the ternary operator fans that way. – Shog9 Dec 7 '18 at 22:17
  • 6
    this answer contains a question mark... – Jean-François Fabre Dec 7 '18 at 22:58
  • 3
    the heuristics could check for "thanks", or "@someuser" and "I have the same problem" if not already done. – Jean-François Fabre Dec 7 '18 at 22:59
  • 1
    Maybe not for meta – Yvette Colomb Dec 7 '18 at 23:03
  • 6
    For those users who scorn punctuation, you could also regex some common phrases that tend to get used there like "same problem" or "did you ever" – John Montgomery Dec 8 '18 at 0:01
  • 4
    As long as you don't search for question marks in code blocks and URLs it should work well. – Callum Watkins Dec 8 '18 at 14:38
  • 2
    @John "I had the same problem and solved it using XYZ. Did you ever think it would be that easy?" – user4639281 Dec 8 '18 at 15:46
  • 2
    let's hope the heuristics would be better than the ones telling you your question is going to be downvoted when asking a question. Every time I got this, my questions got upvotes. – Jean-François Fabre Dec 8 '18 at 20:39
  • 1
    @TinyGiant Of course. But it'd be at least as reliable as looking for question marks, I'd imagine. – John Montgomery Dec 8 '18 at 22:44
  • 2
    @JohnMontgomery I really have no quibble with letting a notice like this pop up on every user until they have at least 1 upvoted or accepted user, I just offered the question mark as an idea to impact fewer people than that. – Davy M went to fund Monica Dec 8 '18 at 22:49
  • 7
    I'd suggest it only look for the ? in text that's in neither code nor blockquote format. – Makyen Dec 9 '18 at 2:49
  • It would be interesting to check, among all answers that contain a question mark, how many were deleted with the above justification. If that proportion isn't high, then it's probably not worth implementing such a feature. – Didier L Dec 10 '18 at 16:32
  • I really like this idea - but I prefer that head line, or something like that do you answer with one more question? – Aristos Dec 10 '18 at 16:41

The site plasters "xxx is a new contributor" in answers to a new contributor question (Why is the "xxx is a new contributor" warning reminded in the answer box?)

So why not plaster

This box is reserved for answers to the problem, not for discussion

when those new contributors, with a registered account, see the answer box ?

(possibly adding a link or a tooltip explaining how to answer, no images of code, blah blah ...).

The advantage is that seasoned users, who know better, continue to see the site the same way.

Keep the NAA queue empty (coming from someone who's in the top NAA reviewers after less than 3 years on the site)!

  • 1
    Adding more text will not help. People posting a question-as-an-answer have already failed to read the text written on the button they clicked to provide an "answer". Why would they read one but not the other. – Raedwald Dec 8 '18 at 18:29
  • 3
    first you don't know that. It may work on some users. And second, it's not a big heuristic or 3D animated feature, just a changing text. Easy to implement. If it doesn't work, well, no big deal. – Jean-François Fabre Dec 8 '18 at 19:58
  • 9
    This is an excellent idea. Bother those new contributors with annoying blocks of info, instead of the established user base. They are the problem, after all. – usr2564301 Dec 8 '18 at 20:12
  • @Raedwald: As mentioned, non-native speakers might confuse the word "answer". In my native language, the literal translation for "answer" is a synonym for "reply", so people that don't speak English natively will assume this means reply. – Thomas Dec 10 '18 at 14:41

Do we actually need to do anything more? The buttons for asking questions and posting answers are clearly labelled. The answers-that-are-questions I vote to delete are always garbage questions. The posters have clearly not put much thought into what they are doing: they are not acting like professional or enthusiast programmers. These are not the kind of posters we need. Post banning them (which happens automatically) or, frankly, driving them away has no downside.

  • that's not very pragmatic. Users are out there, SO needs to adapt. – Jean-François Fabre Dec 8 '18 at 17:53
  • 5
    Obviously the downside is that we have to spend effort banning them... – user202729 Dec 9 '18 at 3:46
  • This raises an important point. The questions posted as answers are always (yes, 100%) lousy questions. At least over at "my" place, EE.SE. – pipe Dec 10 '18 at 16:08
  • @user202729 No effort expended because banning is automatic: meta.stackexchange.com/a/86998/170084 – Raedwald Dec 14 '18 at 14:08
  • The true downside is, let us be honest, more rants about Stack Overflow on Twitter and Reddit. ... Right? – E_net4 is sad Dec 14 '18 at 15:28

If this is real a problem - this should be solved through UX.

Stackoveflow uses "forum" style threads - answers are located on vertical line. This motivate users behave as on forums.

When "answers in two columns" or other rearrangement that "break vertical line style" would also stop "forum UX" behavioral template in users heads.

Anyway SO rule "answer is a unit of content" (not the whole thread as on forums) could be somehow supported in design.

  • 1
    not sure about the solution, but agree with the problem. It looks too much like a forum. – Jean-François Fabre Dec 8 '18 at 17:52
  • 3
    But... answers on two column is a terrible way to display answers. Limited screen width, especially on mobile devices. – user202729 Dec 9 '18 at 3:44
  • @user202729 yes terrible - that because it should be used. ideal SO answers are not answers - but short, smart, interesting stories on topic. mobile devices use different layouts - its normal. – Roman Pokrovskij Dec 9 '18 at 9:11

Let people with less than 50 reputation comment. How about 15?

  • That would pnly move the problem around and we'd need a new "Delete comment" reason: "This should be a new question". – usr2564301 Dec 14 '18 at 2:32

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