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As Rarity mentioned, many questions are not real questions or are not constructive (because every answer is equally valid and they are just asking for suggestions). If an "asking for suggestion" kind of question is not welcomed here, I am confused why there are so many question still standing. To me, they are all asking for suggestions.

How can we define question which need expertise and question which only need opinions?

It seems to me that there are plenty of "What should I do..."/"How should I do..." and those questions which are asking for suggestions for a behavioral question such as this.

If only expertise is needed, do we need the answer to state that "I am expert on this because I interviewed xx people" or "I am expert on this because I fire a lot of people in my life"? If they don't say this, how can we distinguish a simple opinion from a answer of an expert?

  • I don't care for downvote really. You can't hurt me with downvote. But I think sometimes people tend to forget that they should leave a comment when they downvote, just to be polite. – lamwaiman1988 May 29 '12 at 3:23
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    Voting is Different on Meta. Downvotes often mean "I don't agree" (vise versa for upvotes) It's also been well established that requiring explanation of downvotes is not useful – Rarity May 29 '12 at 3:27
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    I'm not sure I understand the question. I do think it can be difficult to understand what makes a question answerable. If you are looking for a forum, this isn't it. If you have a question that can actually be answered, and not just a "here's what I'm dealing with, please respond" -- then any type of response should be allowed, as long as it is backed up. – Nicole May 29 '12 at 3:46
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Basically yes, we have established you need more than just an opinion to make a real answer. You need a solution to a problem. Furthermore you should include why you believe your proposed solution should work; whether it's expertise you've acquired because of X or because you've faced this exact situation, that information is important to judge the validity of your answer, and is why we now include the following in our FAQ:

Please note that answers should be backed up either with a reference, or experiences that happened to you personally. You should always include in your answer information about why you think your answer is correct.

See this answer to Should we add a "Back It Up" rule to the FAQ now?, the discussion here at Does this site need a "back it up" rule? and the actually post about the current FAQ text at FAQ proposal: Back It Up and Don't Repeat Others. We have had this discussion before more than a couple times.

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