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I have found conflicting reports of how often Paralysis procs in Skyrim as an enchantment, so figured to ask it here. I did a search first, and found this question:

What is the chance of paralysis on an enchanted weapon?

However, there is no reference to where this answer came from, and indeed no justification- but it is the accepted answer, which I've found on other sites pretty much reduces the chance of a correct answer to zero.

How do you handle such cases on this site?

(You can see an alternate answer here, but it too is unsubstantiated)

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Just because an answer is accepted does not mean other answers cannot be posted. I agree with you that having an accepted answer makes a question less likely to receive another answer, though. If you believe the accepted answer is incorrect, then other than trying to come up with an alternative answer yourself, you have two options:

  1. Challenge the answerer to provide more justification to the answer.

    If it's an active user, it's likely they'll try to dig into it some more. If you can, provide a counter-example to their answer to convince them there's something incorrect. No need to be rude - I've seen many times people delete or revise their answer when politely notified that it might not be correct.

  2. Offer a bounty on the question, and in the bounty description write that it will be given to those that provide a more substantiated answer.

    Remember the bounty mechanic is completely separate from the accepted answer mechanic, so you could, for example, offer a bounty on a question with an accepted answer and then award it to an answer which is not the accepted one. The little "this answer received a bounty" mark next to an answer can also help point people to check the answer out, just like the green check-mark does with the accepted answer.

A bounty usually works well on most questions, provided the answer is not too difficult to come up with and that other people are playing the game.

TL;DR - take one (or both) of the emphasized approaches above, but remember to stay polite - people don't just post incorrect things out of malice, they just don't know it's inaccurate.

  • Thanks for the answer- this makes perfect sense! – Chuck Dee Jul 23 '12 at 18:15
  • @wraith808 you can also challenge the asker to un-accept the answer, but that more rarely happens. – Oak Jul 23 '12 at 18:54
  • I believe there's also a badge if you post an answer that's much more popular than the accepted answer. – Daenyth Jul 25 '12 at 19:51
  • @wraith808 Though, as the question asker I'm more than happy to unaccept and demand proof. At the time no one contested Raven's answer when I asked for his sources. – Rapida Jul 27 '12 at 17:39
  • @Rapida - I just want a (correct) answer :) But for the purposes of the site being a sourced reference to answers to questions, it might be good to do so in the absence of other answers. – Chuck Dee Jul 27 '12 at 21:05
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I'm no authority on the subject, but accepting an answer isn't necessarily a confirmation that the answer is correct. To say that it is would mean that all answers that were not accepted are incorrect. The best you can do is attempt to communicate with either the asker or the answerer to strive for a better answer.

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Here was a similar case (top voted answer was wrong. my answer is right).

If the right information is in the top two answers, then the site is working perfectly.

If the right information is in the top five answers, then the site is doing ok.

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