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In this question (Is this rule "If" specific?), the top-voted answer has several up-votes and only a few down votes, but the entire second half is incorrect (plus one or two other more minor issues). Pointing these out has resulted in comments has resulted in no additional comments or changes to the answer.

What is recommended here? My own answer was downvoted once without any context why it might be seen as incorrect and I've expanded it.

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    One other very important thing to note is that the post is very old and that might affect how we decide about it.
    – M.A.R.
    Jul 7, 2016 at 9:42
  • Do not take one down-vote (or even two) too seriously. Everyone has a different interpretation about what deserves a down-vote or an up-vote, and it probably varies from day to day. I know I try not to vote at all when I'm cranky :) I'm fairly sure I've cast votes I'm not even aware of trying to scroll through the answers on my mobile. If you looked over your answer and you're happy with it, and there are no comments pointing out a problem, I wouldn't worry about it.
    – ColleenV
    Jul 7, 2016 at 20:07
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    It was less the downvote on mine and more that the top answer had six upvotes and was massively wrong.
    – eques
    Jul 7, 2016 at 20:18
  • Like I said, don't take it too seriously or you'll drive yourself mad. If you want to see really stupid voting, go look at the word-request tags on English Language & Usage. There are many factors that go into how scores end up the way they do on these sites, and I don't think correctness is even remotely significant. Score is just a very general guideline of what is "interesting/popular" and should only be used in sorting out which answers you want to read, not which answers you end up believing.
    – ColleenV
    Jul 7, 2016 at 20:30
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    There is a game we play some Fridays after work - Ultimate Werewolf where the "villagers" try to figure out who the werewolf is. After some gameplay, we discuss it for a few minutes, and then everyone points at who they think the werewolf is. It's amazing how often the group is right even with the werewolves and their minion trying to mislead the villagers. It's the same thing on SE. Some answers may be partially (or completely) incorrect, but if everyone participates in good faith, as a group we end up with the right answer anyway.
    – ColleenV
    Jul 7, 2016 at 20:37
  • You could write a new question, referencing the original one, adding details of the points that you feel were incorrect. It would be better to discuss in a new question rather than drag out an old one.
    – user3169
    Jul 8, 2016 at 2:05
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    @user3169 I don't think a new question would be a good idea - you lose all of the context. What's wrong with writing an answer that discusses the problems in another answer on the original question?
    – ColleenV
    Jul 8, 2016 at 2:39

1 Answer 1

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Well, according to the answers to this question:

I think there's nothing more you can do about this situation. You can't edit the post without changing the author's intention and you can't use flags for (partially) wrong answers - that's where downvotes are for.

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  • I would say that writing on meta about a wrong answer is not what we would want. A blatantly wrong answer should be down-voted. As moderator, I would delete a wrong answer when written from a new user whose reputation is 1, when I feel the answer was quickly given without carefully read the question.
    – apaderno
    Jul 22, 2016 at 12:36

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