Should we answer questions that are likely to be closed?

Question

I’m fairly new to the community, but I’ve noticed that a fair number of questions that eventually get closed as off-topic will receive answers before they’re closed. Is it acceptable to answer questions like these?

If it’s not acceptable to answer questions like that, how should this rule be enforced? For example, is a comment telling someone not to answer constructive?

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Related StackOverflow Meta: Should one advise on off-topic questions?

Also related StackOverflow Meta: Is a comment telling someone not to answer constructive?

Answer 1

It's a bit of a grey area as some people's idea of off-topic are different to others - this is why questions are closed after a consensus has been reached.

If you personally feel that a question has enough topicality and information for you to post a relevant answer, then there's nothing stopping you from submitting that answer.

If you feel that the question is off-topic, then flag it as such.

If you feel that a question can't be answered effectively enough without some missing information, then leave a comment on the question asking for that clarification.

We don't leave comments asking people not to answer.

Answer 2

When it comes to answering questions, I start with a few assumptions:

• The OP is genuinely interested in getting an answer, may not be used to thoroughly describing complex problems, and may not be aware of site guidelines or rules which may lead to closure.
• As a community, our first responsibility is to be helpful to people asking questions (versus, say, being primarily responsible for curating/maintaining the site). Sometimes the best way to serve these people is to close their questions and guide them on how to get the help they need, but other times there may be situations where things aren't as black and white.

Given those, in most cases, even if I feel a question has a strong chance of being closed, I will often still post an answer. Sometimes this means posting a general answer and, at the same time, commenting and asking for clarification - then you can go back later and make the answer more specific if the clarification ever comes. In other cases, this approach may mean answering and commenting and voting to close, i.e. if the question is potentially a duplicate - you can post an answer, point out potential duplicates in a comment, and ask the OP to clarify if their situation is markedly different. And, of course, there will be cases where an answer isn't appropriate at all, if the question is an obvious duplicate or it's really just so ambiguous that it's unanswerable - but I find this is often not the case.

This is a different approach than may be typical on other SE sites, but I feel that is appropriate given the nature of TWP. We are much more focused on human problems (versus technology problems). By nature, that means the problems are harder to define (it will not be natural for people to give enough context to distinguish potential dupes, for instance). And, it also means the answers will naturally be less quantitative and factual, and more driven by opinion and experience.

It may make sense to rapidly close (and not answer) questions on a site where there is a black and white manner in which a problem can be defined, and a single right answer that's easily written and verifiable. But I don't think that's always the case on TWP.

Answer 3

Sometimes I race against close votes to answer a question. Sometimes I get easy rep for it. Sometimes OP never comes back, answer or no.

I've never had anybody complain about me answering the question, though I've had a few downvotes I suspected were for answering a bad question. Funny how nobody wants to own up to it. You know what I think. I think if nobody's going to own up to it I'm going to continue, and I think you should too.

To be fair, I'm likely to vote reopen on such a question that I'm likely to race against the close votes.