How helpful is it to add "Hope this is helpful!" to an ELL answer?

Question

Google tells me there are about 70 instances of Hope this is helpful on English Language Learners.

I don't like to come across as a grumpy ole git, but it seems to me this level of "chattiness" isn't really appropriate in ELL Answers. To me it's a bit like Thanks! [in advance] added to Question text (which I habitually edit out).

It's a straightforward question, so if you agree with me Upvote this post. If you don't, please Downvote it. If I'm massively outnumbered, I'll shut up.

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EDIT: I've only just realised from comments that some people assume I'm proposing that all "chatty" text should be unilaterally edited out of all Questions and Answers. I do usually remove Thanks [in advance] from Questions if I'm editing for some other reason anyway, but probably not if OP is an "established" user (in which case I assume they're aware of "SE site norms", and don't need my "guidance").

Note: Should 'Hi', 'thanks,' taglines, and salutations be removed from posts? is the ninth most popular question ever on SE.meta, and the top answer there has by far the most upvotes I've ever seen on SE. The top three answers there all say Yes, delete on sight!, but my vote went to the more "moderate" fourth answer saying only if other reasons justify an edit.

I'm not trying to define (definitely not enforce) any "rules" here. It's just a straw poll to see how ELL users in particular feel about the "avoid chattiness" principle endorsed by SE users in general.

Answer 1

StackExchange is set up to discourage chattiness at every turn, sometimes even at the cost of ordinary expressions of politeness and goodwill. This is one reason why so many answers on StackExchange are so useful: they stick to business. The phrase "Hope this is helpful", while certainly well-intended, sets a precedent that can trigger imitation by others, both by expressing similar sentiments and by being politely chatty in other ways, eroding the "stick to business" style.

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Replies to some of the comments

A conversational tone, where you write empathically and say "I" and "you", is not the kind of "chattiness" that SE discourages. A conversational tone, engaging style, and pointing out connections with other aspects of the topic are good things, which really do make answers more helpful. That's normal on SE. SE discourages back-and-forth conversation and repetitive clutter that doesn't explain anything about the topic.

Here's why that's such a good idea. I use the SE sites almost every day as a questioner, but I seldom even have to ask my question. Someone else already has, and someone has already written an excellent reply. I can just read it and I have the crucial information or technique or conceptual insight I was looking for. On most Q&A sites, the same information is buried in back-and-forth conversation, .sigs (repetitive, irrelevant "signatures" that appear in every post made by the same user), and polite and tangential chit-chat.

SE's software and social customs discourage those things, but they don't forbid them entirely. They keep them in check. Comments provide a forum for back-and-forth discussion. But the discussion is primarily about how to improve the answer. The answer is not a conversation. It's a single chunk of writing, like what a newspaper columnist might write in response to a reader's question. The conversation in the comments is only about how to make the answer better.

The occasional thank-you is fine; it's human nature to want to express gratitude when someone has been helpful. It's better, though, if it contains information specific to the topic, like saying specifically how the answer helped you. If you're appending the same polite nicety to the end of every message, that's a strong hint that it doesn't tell readers information about the topic. It's more like a .sig.

I hope we don't make a rule against "phatic expressions" and engage in thoughtless law-enforcement by deleting them everywhere they occur, no exceptions. I only ask that you please respect the good purpose that SE's custom of "cut the phat" serves. The custom is a little counterintuitive, but it has worked wonderfully to make SE sites the great sources of information we know and love. If you violate it (as I occasionally do), please do so only to address something specific or exceptional about the question or the topic.

Answer 2

My take on this is if I wrote my answer with the appropriate tone, there is no need to tack on an empty pleasantry at the end of it. Of course I hope my answer is helpful, otherwise I just wasted my time.

I cut new users a lot of slack when they add some sort of thanks at the end of their question because they're new to the community and writing in a foreign language. They aren't sure of the community standards and aren't sure of their register. Someone answering questions should be fluent enough to convey their thoughts without being too harsh though. Honestly, if the answer is so harsh that the asker is going to be put off by it, "Hope this helps!" isn't going to make everything OK.

I think that the overall tone of the answers is a completely different question. I do think there is a difference between "chattiness" and a friendly tone. I got many good suggestions for ways to change my language so that I wasn't perceived as picking on someone when I reviewed their contributions. Using less direct language, welcoming new users before critiquing them, and being less terse are the ones that I'm working on and I feel that it adds more than extra words to my posts.

"Hope this helps!" is just extra words. It doesn't convey information, it doesn't change the tone of the words I'm using to convey the information, and it doesn't put the reader in the correct mindset before they start reading my post. It's either a useless frill on the end of an already friendly post, or a jarring disconnect in tone that could be taken as sarcasm.

In my opinion, unless you're writing a letter with a standard signature or something similar, if what you're writing could be tacked onto the bottom of most of the things you've written of that type, it should be replaced with something that incorporates the context of what you've written. For example, instead of "Hope this helps!", I might say something like "Present perfect is a tough topic for most learners, so don't hesitate to ask for more clarification if something I've written is confusing." It might be too chatty, but in my opinion, it's more useful than saying you hope your answer was helpful.

Answer 3

70 instances? Yup. That's too much. But I see @Araucaria has a point. So, what's the answer to this IMO?

Chattiness is discouraged in a StackExchange community. I can tell you that, out of 70 of those "hope this helped!" or "hope I helped!" or such, 60 are unnecessary. And out of every 100 of those, at least 80 aren't useful.

But sometimes, the OP faces an answer that starts with "NO, you can't!!!" or "none of your sentences are grammatical." (Note that I'm not saying that such things are inappropriate, and since people are typing here, rather than speaking, the intonation of the sentences above could vary greatly between what the answerer intended and what the asker comprehended.)
At least in some of the cases, this will make the asker feel, say, "attacked". In the process of language learning, the asker and the answerer shouldn't feel any 'temperamental tensions'. (Sorry for the lack of a better term) In that way, adding either one of these could avoid misunderstandings:

• Some sense of humor (table salt) to the answer, either in the examples, description, or anything.

• Adding a little phrase to the end which would demonstrate a kind (or at least gentle) behavior.

• Directly making use of phrases like "no offence!" or "I don't mean to pick on you" or such.

• Commenting on own answer or the question (Not really suitable)

I haven't searched through those you claim to have contained "hope this helps.", but this is my insight to the problem:

The arbitrary rule for those is to get deleted, (as abiding the norm in SE), but for some, keeping is better than deleting, simply to avoid misinterpreted aggressive connotation of the answer and the answerer.

Answer 4

I've followed this discussion for a few days, and would like to offer my thoughts:

1. It's too bad the original question asked about "70 instances of Hope this is helpful", instead of "almost 300 instances of Hope this helps". (The former points to one member of the community, while the latter points to several. I believe this prompted one member of the community to feel like he was being singled out – understandably so – although I'm pretty confident that wasn't the O.P.'s intent. Still, there's a lesson to be learned there for future meta discussions.)

2. Yes, the Stack Exchange has a culture that discourages chatty comments which add little value to the conversation. (In fact, SE probably would prefer that I didn't use the word conversation – although I think discussion might be considered even worse.) Some appreciate this culture, because they like how it "differentiates" SE from other discussion board sites. Yet some resent that culture, because they think it adds to a "snobbishness" that pervades the SE network. One meta question isn't going to resolve this longstanding difference of opinion, but it might make that difference of opinion more pronounced for a short time.

3. As for those brief, cordial remarks appended to an answer, I agree that this particular SE site has some unique characteristics that could make these remarks less like chaff than they might otherwise be. Most people who ask questions here are asking about a language they don't understand well, in a language they don't understand well – that's probably more daunting than us native speakers might imagine. A classic SE response might be, "Nope, you're wrong; here's what to do instead," and it's natural for some contributors to want to soften the negativity of an answer like that. A friendly "Hope this helps!" might be an effective way to do so.

4. I appreciated what @ColleenV said; perhaps there's a better way to end an answer on a positive note than to use a hackneyed expression like, "I hope this helps" – I think I might use that advice in the future. However, I also think it would be counterproductive to start reprimanding contributors for ending with "I hope this helps," instead of just appreciating the rest of their useful answer.

5. I don't think there was anything wrong with FumbleFingers raising the question here. It has 10 upvotes as I write this, so there's at least some support for the concept at large. Maybe the community can't reach a consensus on this – but there's no way to know that for sure unless someone at least raises the issue and asks the question.

My recommendations would be:

• If you find yourself wanting to write something like, "Hope this helps!" at the end of your answer, ask yourself: "Will my answer be improved by adding this, or will it only distract from my about-to-be-exhibited brilliance?" Maybe you'll elect to leave it out, maybe not.

• If you find yourself reading a concluding remark like, "Hope this helps!" just let it go. Perhaps if I moderated a more technical Stack Exchange like Physics or ServerFault, I'd be more inclined to encourage the community to dele such remarks via an edit. Here, though, I feel there's too high a risk of stepping on toes, and too little reward for removing such niceties.

• Remember, any answer you leave here serves at least three audiences: the O.P. who asked the question, anyone who might later search for an answer to that same question, and the rest of community who are evaluating the question as well as its answer(s). Strive to write answers that will be helpful and appreciated by all three of these audiences.

Answer 5

Er, I'd think that there are much more significant things to be worried about than that.

ONE: For instance, how about getting members to back up their grammatical opinions with vetted grammar sources? There's too much nonsense and too much bad info being given in answer posts, and those answer posts are getting too many up votes and too many of them are getting accepted. Now that's a real problem. One that should be addressed. Seriously, that is a real problem.

TWO: Also, when an answer post is very long, and when it has lots of good and solid grammatical info in it, then, I really don't see a problem with one little tiny friendly line at the end that wishes well or something like that.

THREE: It's those really business-like answers that sound so authoritative, and yet are so wrong and full of bad info, that ought to be looked at and edited--especially when those answers are authored by members with a high reputation in points--because EFL members are often strongly influenced by answer posts of that kind, which is unfortunate.

CONCLUSION: Yeah, let's address the serious problems first.

Answer 6

This is my revised/updated/clarified/improved answer. To better provide focus, it's posted as a new answer.

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Process for Establishing Best Practices and Guidelines

I'm focused primarily on process, and this suggestion addresses that aspect of this (or any similar) issue. Please don't think of this as a suggestion on How To Do Things literally as stated. It's a rough draft of an idea. A starting point for consideration.

Let's assume that some of these posts can be clearly identified as having some trivialities removed. This could be active or old posts. They could be found either ad hoc as we run across them, or through some search query. We then have the following options:

1. Any person who runs across it in the course of regular use can, of course, use their own best judgement and possibly edit the post. If they're not sure, they can discuss on chat, open a new META post to discuss in general (or possibly add a link to some standard work-page for review.)

2. If we determine some type of comment has a general potential for being undesirable, we can add it to a list. For example, we can add "Hope this helps!" as a "Potentially Undesirable" phrase. That in no way means every such instance (or even ANY such instance) would be "editable-outtable" just because it's on the list. Being on the "Potentially Undesirable" list would not be justification for removing it. The list may have other phrases or types-of-things. For each phrase, there may even be some general guidelines. There might also be some links to posts where the item isn't removed and the reason why. (That tends to help a conservative attitude.)

3. We may also, at some point, perform a search query to identify all such posts of a given class. (We might even have a standard way to search for a lot of different classes of "things to look for", so the results might be comprehensive.) This would result in both active and inactive posts.

4. I rescind my earlier idea of not-editing the "active posts". There shouldn't (and couldn't!) be any prohibition to handling potential issues that have been identified with active posts. They simply may need to be handled differently than older posts. They are "active" and (if deemed to need an edit) require some additional measure of sensitivity or interaction with the OP. For example, a helpful comment might be warranted (or not). (I think comments are not typically warranted removing some simple thing from older posts.)

This is a way that stuff-like-this could be identified and cleaned up without requiring it to be some icy-cold rule. It would be helpful because it would include guidelines that are shaped and updated through time, which allows the wisdom of experience and best practices to be maintained and communicated for both current and future "Stackers". (Are we called Stackers?). This type of process allows ELL to maintain a sense of cultural continuity over long periods of time.

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Separate Idea to be submitted as separate META POST

This is a whole other topic which I may submit to META because there would be a lot to discuss just about this, but I wanted to get it "down" now as I thought about it.

I think it may help to include some discussion of deliverables in posts like this. For example, perhaps a single answer posted with a title "Summary" that anyone can edit, much like a Talk Page on wikipedia. This Summary page can help be a continually updated answer that provides important clarifications and each person's particular view (should they want to update it). This summary page can be created by anyone but thereafter edited by anyone. Even though it can be edited by anyone, it's still one step below a community page because it's still being discussed, and this allows certain META posts to have some overall "status" while still allowing its scope to be restricted to its Question/Answer page.

Answer 7

I think it's an empty formula and superfluous as a second tail for a cat. The poster can judge himself whether the answer is helpful or not.