What is your opinion on easy-to-answer questions?

Question

When I first started TibiaQA I got downvoted often due to my questions not being unique. For example, if the question was "How to get x item" and this was already on a fansite I would instantly get downvoted once or twice. I learned to try to create content that is not answered easily. I always thought this was a bad way to look at things but now I'm just confused. I overall want a positive atmosphere in TibiaQA, but I am very torn. Now in TibiaQA, I feel like some are farming points faster than ever before which is very discouraging to see. Which is of course a side of the point system we know is toxic.

1. Should you downvote a question that's easy to answer?
2. Or should you let the question be as it doesn't hurt TibiaQA to have all different types of questions and just not upvote?
3. Or upvote if you think it's a good question regardless of whether or not it's easily answered.

Answer 1

I believe some questions aren't needed. I understand knowledge building, because TibiaQA is supposed to be an empire of knowledge about everything in Tibia... but breaking some things down to ask more questions is pointless.

Comments

Would you let it be and just not upvote?

Answer 2

I have a very strong opinion about this. I think that many times it's very easy to spot that a question is being added just for the sake of earning points, even if the question is well written. I'm not going to give examples to avoid pointing fingers, but it's obvious when it would have been faster to google that and find the information on any fansite than writing a question here.

As a general rule, I ask myself if there are, on fansites that cover that type of content, pages that are obviously about the focus of the question (e.g. an item or creature on a wiki, or a quest spoiler on any guide fansite), and if the required information is clearly presented there. Of course, it's not unusual that a question directly mentions one more fansites with information that the player found to be incorrect, imprecise or missing - that I consider perfectly fine.

An argument against this is that TibiaQA is its own fansite and should have all information on its own. Of course that TibiaQA is and should be independent, but I also think it should focus on the type of content on which it excels - answers to questions that aren't obvious. Needless to say, we have dozens of examples of those, some of which I had a lot of fun answering myself.

So yes, I do downvote easy-to-answer questions, but thinking about it thoroughly I think I do it mostly when I see the user is trying to "cheat" the point system. I have no interest in pushing away new users that aren't familiar with the best practices, those I think can be educated following everything Ellotris posted.

Comments

I respect all your points. I do agree this shouldn't deter new users away. The more questions the better for TibiaQA. However, research first is much appreciated especially if you're a frequent user.

---

Well put, +1

Answer 3

In my opinion these kind of questions are low quality, brings nothing new to the content and the main reason of them is just to make some points. Of course "How to get x item?" may be in some cases a very interesting question, but as I understand you mean items which are listed on any kind of tibia wiki.

Long time ago I just downvoted them and flagged them with a reason "easily answered by official manual". But then my flags were ignored and when I asked about the reason - I got an answer that we can not treat Wikis as an official source and these kind of questions are ok. So now I simply ignore them. It brings nothing valuable to the content, but also doesnt't hurt. Now when I'm thinking about it, I noticed, that I barely downvote any questions. I downvote usually answers which are incorrect, misleading, or don't answer on the question.

Comments

I barely downvote as well because I feel bad about it. I usually downvote and remove after because I know how it felt when I would get them on questions at least. Thanks for your input.

---

Maybe the flag reason for "easily answered by official manual" needs to be more specific, but the intent was to prevent questions that can be answered by simply quoting or linking to the Tibia website or Tibia itself.

Some examples include:
 - How much exp do I need for level 100?
 - What is the incantation of the light healing spell?
 - How many Open PvP game worlds are there?
 - How many houses are on Edron?

For all of those questions, the best answer that will remain valid forever, is to just point to the official website - and that's what we wanted to avoid. Of course, I understand that often as with other guidelines we might be asking ourselves - is that already easily answerable? Is it easy enough to find in the manual? If I have to check two pages and compile the results does that qualify?

Would it make sense to update this page with more details/examples? https://www.tibiaqa.com/asking-what-to-avoid

---

What do you think about questions that are on Tibia's FAQ? I don't see a problem with it but I feel the manual is harder to navigate than FAQ.

---

If the questions are exactly the same, and you can answer by simply copying from FAQ, I'd qualify that as already answered by the official manual too

Answer 4

What I would recommend doing when you stumble upon easily answerable questions or questions that can be see as low quality, is to ask in what context can the answer to this question be used (that's what such questions often lack).

As an example "When was XYZ added to Tibia?". This question without any further context might or may not be very valuable. If an answer for a question context is "well, it's an interesting fact" and you think it's not - you have the full right to down-vote the question. If you receive the context and consider it useful, you can make sure the question is updated to explain the context and then choose to upvote the question or not.

Some pointers that can further help you evaluate whether or not to downvote such questions.

• Could the question in its current form be useful to other users/players?
• Is the question in its current form something that other players/users could be interested in and are likely to search for it (e.g. via TibiaQA search or via Google)?
• Can the answer to this question reveal some interesting information/new facts?
• Did the author of the question put some effort in researching before asking the question?
• Did the author of the question put some effort in the question itself? Does it explain the intention behind it? The context? Or is it just one sentence to beat the minimum required character count?

When should I vote down?
Don't hesitate to vote posts down if you feel that they are not useful to the community, when they are unclear or when they are completely incorrect.

https://www.tibiaqa.com/moderation-upvote-downvote

Whenever you believe the question is not strengthening the knowledge base, but it just clutters it with stuff that doesn't bring much value - you are free to down-vote the question. I'd especially encourage downvoting the questions that seem easily answerable, low quality and the answers to that question can become outdated quickly. As a community, we are responsible for each question that exists in the knowledge base - if it requires a lot of maintenance (review, edits, updates) and brings little or no value, we likely wouldn't want to encourage such questions.

Finally, whenever you have feedback about the question or need the author to clarify the question, I'd encourage downvoting. This is an incentive for the author to take action on their post. We now have notifications when the post you downvoted was edited, as such, you can easily track when the feedback you requested was incorporated and then you can choose to remove the vote.

Comments

I also expanded the https://www.tibiaqa.com/moderation-upvote-downvote with some insights from here

---

Thanks for clarifying and expanding the section. I think the part that bothers me the most is when it's clear no research was done. I also like clicking on TibiaQA in google over any site so the more questions we have the better. Good to hear out of the box questions are encouraged.

Answer 5

people who are only here to farm points and resell the item and for that reason they ask those kinds of "easy" questions or better said null.

Comments

It's everyone's right to decide what they want to do with their owl, and we need to respect this. However, I didn't nor will I ever sell my owl or any fansite item. Every fansite item I've earned or bought has a special place with me. But to each their own. It is very upsetting to see "easy" questions. Or people who come to get the Owl and leave. Which, I understand everyone is busy at times but it seems to happen quite often where out of a coincidence it's when someone gets their owl. Maybe we can develop ways to make the owl harder to get? Or maybe we can work on creating challenging questions for the community. I know this is not our decision, but we can state our suggestions and opinions on this.