How useful are "Here, say this instead" answers, when the OP isn't asking for them?

Question

Imagine three scenarios in Q/A:

Q₁: How can I say that "foo bars the baz"?
A₁: Just say "the foo bars" instead.

Q₂: Is "foo bars the baz" grammatically correct?
A₂: Just say "the foo bars" instead.

Q₃: What is the difference between "foo bars the baz" and "the baz is barred"?
A₃: Just say "the foo bars" instead.

I've notice this type of answer being given to many questions on ELL since I joined, and this meta.SO post encouraged me to write something about it. My point being, while the answer to Q₁ may be appropriate, I often find the answers to Q₂- and Q₃-like questions not very useful.

I really appreciate how everyone likes to share their knowledge and help the OP, but in order to be different from forums, which our mission is, we need to be able to make a clear distinction between answers and comments. Both tools are available to most of us, but some of us don't use them as we should.

Let's make one thing clear: On StackExchange, you're here to help the OP, and many other people. To do so, you are here to make a library of detailed answers to questions. Helping the OP is just a part of it, and everyone should be here for something bigger, better, more beautiful. You're also trying to build something people coming from Google will be glad to read. So what if the passer-by isn't interested in the many other variations of a phrase and is interested in only one usage? The answers wouldn't be helpful then. I know it because they tend not to be helpful to me, and I'm here to learn.

So when I see a question about comprehension, for instance, I'd like to see, as a future visitor, an analysis, technical or not, of the very sentence/phrase in question. I do not need to see "meh, he phrased it poorly. I'd say X, Y, Z, A, B, . . . " Sure, one could also point at an alternative while explaining the structure of the thing in question, but that shouldn't be the main constituent of the answer.

Enough said. The only thing I hope happens by writing this meta post is that next time you (plural) write an answer, take a look back and see whether your answer is something someone coming from two days of cumbersome failing Google searches desperately looks for. I hope this becomes one of the few steps in trying to improve the answers we write.

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_{I'm not providing specific examples to avoid/minimize the meta effect. If asked to, I'll happily do. I hope the request is straightforward enough, nudging the people it should.}

Answer 1

Your Q2 is interesting:

Is "foo bars the baz" grammatically correct?

If we followed your guidance to an extreme, and only answer what the O.P. is directly inquiring about, we'd end up with a lot of answers that are not as useful as they could be, such as:

Yes, it's grammatically correct.

I don't have any problem seeing answers go "above and beyond" what the O.P. asks for, and my gut feeling is that such supplemental guidance would make the site more useful in the long run.

For each future visitor who comes along, wondering if foo bars the baz is grammatically correct, there's likely to be another learner who will want to know: Is there a better way to say it? So long as the passer-by can find the answer among the answers, the additional information is icing on the cake.

At risk of invoking the meta effect, you'd have to site some egregious examples of this practice for me to see it as detrimental to the quality of the site.

Very few of our questions get more than two or three answers, so it's not like the answers to the direct questions are getting lost in the weeds.

Answer 2

I think the best way to answer this question is by way of example - if you see somebody wandering around looking lost, and they ask whether an incredibly convoluted set of directions will get them where they want to go; you can run through the directions, see that they will arrive in about an hour and be entirely correct in saying "Yes"...or you can point them 3 doors down the hall to the left, and save them (and the poor person waiting for them) the long and twisting journey.

Yes, it's quite possible that some of the questions you're talking about actually have some need for the specific/weird phrasing that's used. But that's not the likeliest scenario. And even if it was, the directions we're giving aren't just going to be read in the context of the asker's situation. Every other person who views the question is going to adapt the answers to their own circumstances. So, at least in my opinion, it's important to give that sort of info.

Edit: Of course, it's also a good idea to find out from your lost compatriot where and why they got their directions from, so that the next time they're looking for somewhere they have a better navigational foundation to build on. Or know not to get directions from Off-track Oliver.