Am I right? No, you're wrong!

Question

The problem:

I've recently seen questions in this form:

Some title that might need polishing

< a lot of background that usually doesn't add to the question >< a question that the OP wanted to tackle with >< the answer OP had in mind, has a 80% degree of certainty and just needs a nod > Am I right? (or a similar variation of it)

I think I can safely assume most, if not all, of the passionate members of our community have noticed that "Am I right?" questions, if occasionally useful, tend to be a "VLQ answer seed". (i.e. they tend to attract "yes, you're perfect and so is your reasoning") answers that aren't really answers, not on Stack Exchange. If not, they'll get a comment saying the same, and will remain unanswered.

I recently commented on one of them ¹:

Again, these kind of "amirite" questions are not really helpful for the community. Instead of posting all as a question and asking "am I right?", please consider writing a self-answer and explaining the connotation that the stressing conveys, optimally with resources and the "why"s.

The solution:

I would like to see learners competent enough to say "am I right?" write their own answers. Per the self-answer section in the help center:

Can I answer my own question?

Yes! Stack Exchange has always explicitly encouraged users to answer their own questions. If you have a question that you already know the answer to, and you would like to document that knowledge in public so that others (including yourself) can find it later, it's perfectly okay to ask and answer your own question on a Stack Exchange site.

So, the question above would ideally be:

A title that makes the question distinctive, or hopefully unique

< a little background that relates to the question >< a question the OP wanted to tackle with >< some thoughts on the question >< question mark>

Please note;

I don't want the side effect of this request to be a new generation of bad answers and guesses. If you're speculating, please include your "thoughts" in the question. If you're "answering", please do so in the answer part.

In other words, if you're typing to get a "yes, you're right." then you most probably should write an answer. If you're expecting a lot of corrections or aren't 80% sure your answer is correct, then include your thoughts in the question. Note that this doesn't have any contradiction with the "provide research and original thought" close/downvote reason.

A humble request from our querents:

Dear next user who'll ask an "am I right?" question,
As I've seen most of the questions like this end up with yes rather than a no, or with more thoughtful comments from senior users, I think you need to write a real question and a self-answer. Include what you think the answer is in the question only if you're unsure whether that's the answer or not.

If you're looking for someone to nod and say "you're right", then post your thoughts as an answer if they're complete. Alternatively, visit ELL's chatrooms.

If you're unsure about your answer, just don't post or include it. But never include it in the question, pretty please. ELL is not a platform to gather nods and claps; we want real answers to real questions. So please don't formulate your question with a possible answer and an "amirite, no?".

Best regards, MA

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_{1: No links 'cause I despise the meta effect.}

Answer 1

The problem is a real one; but I don't much care for the proposed solution.

• It requires additional effort on the part of users who in many cases struggle to express themselves once.

• It separates the user's problem from her effort to solve the problem—matters which may have a common origin.

• It exposes the user to unnecessary risk. A question which demonstrates a clear effort, however invalid, to understand the problem will rarely be downvoted at all, and at worst it exposes the user to -5 downvotes. But if the question and effort are separated, both the now-inadequate question (-5) AND the invalid effort (-10) are likely to be downvoted, tripling the user's exposure.

What I want to know is how the questioner's mind is working: What led her to perceive a problem here? or What led her to believe that this approach/phrasing might constitute a solution? In nine cases out of ten what needs to be addressed is some underlying misunderstanding or misinformation, and addressing that will not only solve the immediate problem but provide a sound basis for addressing similar situations.

In particular I'd like to see the "research" schtick go away. I can do any necessary research far more competently and far more quickly than OP; and frankly, I'd rather not point her to Google, where the probability is very high that she will be misinformed by some bozo who thinks that having read two style manuals (only one of which is not Crank & Blight) constitutes grammatical expertise.

Answer 2

Are they suitable for the site? Yeah. But here's the thing.

Firstly, I've always been a little bit hesitant to suggest that questions are a poor fit based solely on the answers that they would receive. Why? Because the asker often doesn't know what kind of response they'll get, and it's likely to turn people off using the site. Are these those kinds of questions? Eh, maybe. We encourage prior research, and so really, asking and suggesting an answer is just a form of that, as Araucaria suggests.

There's another problem, though. The problem with posting answers as comments is that you lose the very important downvote signal that you would get on an actual answer. I suspect that this is offset, in part, by people who would not normally have commented pointing out incorrect comments, but even then, it's more difficult to see, at-a-glance, what the community thinks.

There's a huge opportunity here to prevent further questions like these, though. How? What it really comes down to is the fact that, well, there are very few unique problems. Sure, more general problems may take the form of specific questions. But, you can abstract the specific problem that the question asks, and write a slightly more general answer to it.

This is a question about a thing

Introductory text:

A bit of example text

I think it should be:

What the OP thinks the answer should be

Am I right?

Suppose the answer is no. There's room to expand. If the answer is yes? Well then:

1. Edit the title and question to make it a little more general
2. Write an answer that answers that slightly more general question, with guidance for other language learners, ideally with reasons why the OP's proposed answer is correct
3. Close all future questions that are answered by your answer as duplicates
4. Enjoy the long tail of reputation

Is this possible on all questions? No. But you could probably do it for the examples provided in the OP here, and I'd say that this is a more productive way to help future learners.

And I'm not saying that we need to, or should, do this for every question. But not every question will lend itself to this kind of answering. But there's a reason why anyone can suggest an edit, and I don't believe that making a specific question a bit more general would be too radical of an edit. As long as the question still asks, and the answer still answers, the OP's original question, then making it a bit broader will only be good for the site in the long run.

Just remember to respect the original author, and actually help them.

Answer 3

I think one of the problems here is SE guidance itself, especially some of the comments given in reasons for closing. Very often users are asked to say what they think a language item might mean, or what they feel the correct answer might be. In addition the lacks research reason for closing is over-used. It means that people who ask questions may feel compelled to give an entire theory before asking their questions. My feeling is that lacks research should be used more judiciously. Sometimes it is eminently clear why a question poses a problem and no further research is necessarily needed. Lastly I wonder if this question is partially motivated by some other factors, for example particular users flooding the question list with numerous questions, or if the phrasing of the questions happens to irk this particular OP. Personally, I don't particularly like am I right questions, but I don't think that they're necessarily intrinsically problematic or need policing. I think perhaps more of a tolerant approach to other members would be more productive with regard to this particular type of problem.