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Our rate of unanswered questions is quite low, but it could still be better. Looking through some of the top voted questions that are still unanswered, a number of them fit this pattern

"Is there a way to do X?"

In many cases the answer is probably "No", but since it is hard to be conclusively sure that is the case, we end up with no answers.

Would it be better to give some of these a conclusive answer? That way visitors to the site won't think that we are just ignoring the question. And the answer can always be deleted if it is later proven to be wrong.

Some examples:

Is there errata available for the Final Fantasy VIII BradyGames guide? (This one I actually did give a "No", although it again seems like one of those inconclusive cases)

How to prevent snail poo?

Is it still possible to disconnect gates in the latest version of X3TC?

Filter by game mode in SingStar?

Is there any way to see a list of tips in Words with Friends?

Edit: Another new question that falls into the "No, but nobody can 100% prove that to be the case" category

https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/25718/in-what-other-game-can-i-use-a-dungeon-keeper-map

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  • Do you mean wholly unanswered questions, or questions with unaccepted answers?
    – Raven Dreamer
    Commented Jun 29, 2011 at 22:27
  • Questions with no upvoted answers. The ones that appear under the unanswered section of the Questions tab. Most have no answers at all though.
    – bwarner
    Commented Jun 30, 2011 at 0:53

1 Answer 1

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Would it be better to give some of these a conclusive answer?

If you do know the answer is "no", then yes, answer it. If you don't know the answer, I wouldn't recommend just guessing.

We have the comment area and the votes to show that we are not ignoring the question, but the answers have to answer the question in question.

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  • I don't know anything about the games in the examples. But I remember encountering a similar question about "Does a Civ 5 mod exist that does X"? I don't know every Civ 5 mod, so I couldn't be 100% certain that the answer is no, but it seemed so unlikely that it was better to answer the question as "No" than to just leave it empty.
    – bwarner
    Commented Jun 29, 2011 at 17:57
  • @bwa, well, in that case you have some experience and grounds to answer with a high probability "no" and a little explanation.
    – juan Mod
    Commented Jun 29, 2011 at 17:59
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    Definitely give information - for instance, to that Civ 5 question, you could say, "Here are the top 3 (or X) sites for Civ mods (links), and none of them have that mod, so probably not".
    – Cyclops
    Commented Jul 2, 2011 at 16:12
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    I am so going to make terrible mods for games and keep them secret, then release them when someone says no.
    – user56
    Commented Jul 2, 2011 at 18:59
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    @Arda, someone will update the answer and your plans will be foiled.
    – juan Mod
    Commented Jul 2, 2011 at 20:27
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    @JuanManuel The site will be more accurate, the asker will have his mod and I will have my snarky comment. Everyone wins.
    – user56
    Commented Jul 2, 2011 at 20:48

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