most recent 30 from area51.meta.stackexchange.com 2025-08-08T22:45:59Z https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/feeds/question/9054 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/rdf https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/q/9054 44 Ismael Ghalimi https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/users/75751 2025-08-08T14:06:49Z 2025-08-08T22:24:08Z

<p>What is the rationale for not allowing answers during the definition phase of a proposal? My naive understanding of this phase's purpose is that it helps define the topic and audience for a proposed site, and I would contend that candidate answers and tags contribute to that almost as much as questions. Were there solid reasons for excluding answers and tags from that phase?</p> <p>The same question could be asked for the commitment phase as well, and for this one, I would suggest that being able to answer questions during the commitment phase could help build a knowledge base that would be extremely useful during the beta phase, especially if the commitment phase is to go on for several months. It should not serve as a substitute for the beta phase, but I like to believe that some middle ground could be found during which commitment is properly assessed, while a body of knowledge is being prepared.</p>

https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9054/-/9056#9056 9 Nicol Bolas https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/users/52829 2025-08-08T18:03:31Z 2025-08-08T18:03:31Z

<p>The purpose of the example questions is that they help define what is supposed to be on-topic for the site. Answers would simply be noise; they're not supposed to be answered yet. Even worse, if you could answer them, people would start to treat it as a functioning site.</p>

https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9054/-/9063#9063 40 Robert Cartaino https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5 2025-08-08T01:10:04Z 2025-08-08T16:20:49Z

<p>I understand your <em>eagerness</em> to get these questions answered. But part of building a Stack Exchange site is to make sure the participants can <strong><em>properly</em></strong> build a reliable canon of knowledge. </p> <p>The core reason we created Stack Exchange was to <em>assure</em> that information posted on the Internet is widely vetted, edited, and improved by a thriving community of peers. <strong>Area 51 provides <em>NONE</em> of those capabilities.</strong> </p> <p>The aptly named "example questions" of Area 51 are only posted to help define the scope. That's it. But it is <strong><em>not</em> a Q&amp;A site.</strong> When unwary Internet travels come across these posts through search, we don't want to be the source of half-baked answers to rhetorical and largely incomplete questions. </p> <p>Just winging an answer wherever someone finds a place to type goes <strong><em>against</em></strong> why we so meticulously curate these sites in the first place. Hang on to your answers; these questions can be <em>properly</em> answered soon enough&hellip; when the Q&amp;A site is created.</p>

https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9054/-/13166#13166 3 user45927 https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/users/101486 2025-08-08T17:27:09Z 2025-08-08T17:27:09Z

<p>answering questions is indeed distracting from the very purpose of the definition phase. I made the mistake myself, I'm used to think ahead a little.</p> <p>However, I agree with the proposal to store the answers that get censored though. once decision on the kind of questions being acceptable is finalized, the kind of answers that are on-topic and possible tags IMHO should be discussed too. also when the site starts, it would be nice to have some pre-answered questions and tags already. not all sites here are as popular as askubuntu or stackoverflow, for some it's a struggle to get actual content.</p> <p>so the rationale behind this decision obviously is to speed up reading for visitors in this phase. the faster they can skim through present questions, the more likely they will leave a question of their own. guess that's also the reason why example-questions should be short.</p> <p>the downside of such an automatism is that there cannot be much teach-by-example kind of sites here. i.e. if the allowed questions are only questions starting with "give me an example of by answering:", then it is difficult to convey what kind of examples that particular site has to offer when answers aren't allowed.</p>

https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9054/-/21775#21775 0 Turion https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/users/36617 2025-08-08T17:30:22Z 2025-08-08T17:30:22Z

<p>It is obviously sensible that there is no interface to write answers to example questions. However I think that <strong>answers in comments shouldn't necessarily be deleted</strong>, for a simple reason:</p> <p><strong>The quality and nature of an answer can shed light on the quality of the question.</strong></p> <p>Example:</p> <ul> <li>Q: "What is 2 + 2?" A: "It's 4. Simple." Lesson learned: The question is too easy.</li> </ul> <p>On the other hand, if somebody can present a good answer to a question, the question is likely to be good.</p> <p>So my opinion on answers is: <strong>An answer to an example question is useful exactly if it is used to demonstrate the quality or lack of quality of the question.</strong></p>

https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9054/-/23632#23632 0 EKons https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/users/153825 2025-08-08T17:18:51Z 2025-08-08T17:18:51Z

<blockquote> <p><strong>This answer is too compact. Please don't down-vote because of simplicity.</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>The point is to follow/commit so that you <strong>wait less</strong>, answering too early is not the point. We want to create sites, not place-bos. Waiting is the motivation to <strong>follow/commit</strong>, <strong>NOT</strong> to <strong>throw answers</strong>.</p>

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