25

When I saw the question How does Windows 10 allow Microsoft to spy on you? with 10'000 views, and an answer that seems to be not accepted for it's accuracy or facts, I wondered if there's precedent on how these questions are handled. This comment by "BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft" sums up my thoughts:

Why even ask the question if you're going to accept the most sensationalist answer, rather than the one most upvoted by the community of experts? If you're looking to validate prejudices, there are plenty of other forums for that.

Should we:

  1. Just ignore these questions and move on, considering that they seem to be rare?
  2. Flag them as opinion based, if the accepted answer is obviously just an opinion?
  3. Do something else entirely?

Edit: To be clear, my issue is not that an answer that doesn't have the most votes is accepted. The issue is that the answer is manipulative and misrepresents facts as has been stated in it's comments. And by accepting that answer, it seems that was the intent of the question as well.

0

1 Answer 1

16

Frankly, I don't feel we need to do anything. A user is free to accept whatever answer they want to, and other users are free to post rebuttal answers and have them voted on.

There have been questions where the Asker is wanting to instigate a circus, and those questions are closed. But that does not seem to be the case here. Moreover, the question is on-topic, with an interesting set of answers.

It is regrettable that users have intermixed vitriol with research, but efforts have been made to minimize the emotion to let the facts shine through.

Where there is value, we need to encourage it.

4
  • 4
    I would agree, except that the question was originally a lot different, the circus-instigation and request for vitriol were explicit in the original version. Instead of closing it, as the original question probably should have been, the community cleaned up the question and focused it on the actual, interesting part of the question.
    – AviD Mod
    Aug 16, 2015 at 7:14
  • I interpret that as option 1) with the addition that the moderators will have a look anyway if the question becomes popular.
    – Peter
    Aug 16, 2015 at 12:52
  • 3
    @AviD - Unfortunately, the accepted answer is still deliberately misleading by quoting the preview release's privacy statement while implicitly claiming that it's for the release version of Windows. The points it makes are good ones (Windows used to do this, how do we know that code is gone?), but it's written in highly misleading terms with links that don't say what they're claimed to say.
    – Bobson
    Aug 17, 2015 at 22:44
  • 3
    @Bobson I agree, and that too used to be worse. Currently, its just a wrong answer (now that the vitriol and religious argumentativeness is removed), and wrong answers are traditionally handled by community downvotes.
    – AviD Mod
    Aug 18, 2015 at 7:58

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .