How About a Rating for Bad Answers?

Just rate it 'off topic' and let everyone else tear it up if you can't say why it's a bad answer yourself.

That's exactly what I was going to write...
Ok, my version would have been shorter and maybe funnier...
GA from the Cat
Del

GA I agree in that to ask about electrical problem and the how to fix here is a accident wait to happen. No one should work with electricity with out some knowledgeable supervision.

i agree with you

Your point is good. Many questions involve the same kind of situation, e.g., "How can I connect six phase, 617 VAC to my HO train?" kind of questions. It's an open forum and difficult to control in that respect. I would think anyone calling himself an engineer (no matter the licensure) would have the stones to say, "No, I don't know enough about that to even offer an opinion."

"How can I connect six phase, 617 VAC to my HO train?"

Now consider the dumbest member you can think of and they are reading that question. What are the chances that they are going to think "What a stupid $^#&@%* idea!!!". That will be burned into their memory. It did its job. We are sort of a running public service announcement, among many other things.

If we, all, would just ignore the stupid, ignorant, dangerous questions they would go away.

But no, someone just has to set the record straight and respond to the jerks and off we go.

IGNORE THEM!!

The problem with that approach is that some of them won't go away. They might have an agenda they're trying to push, so they will stick around as long as they think they can get someone to come over to their side. They could also see silence as acceptance of their ideas.

Hey That's no way to talk about the HHO guys

I think the guest is our favorite squirrel...

Seriously This subject does come up from time to time.

I would say that experience & knowledge are what determine the accuracy of the posts. Personally I very rarely reply to threads started by guests, which filters out a bunch of the dumbass questions.

An off topic vote & a good dressing down, usually does it. LOL

The freewheeling open nature of this forum is a double edged sword, sometimes from the mouths of babes, the occasional gem appears.

IGNORE THEM!!

To expand the concept slightly:

1. Do not feed the TROLLS

2. The only thing more futile than arguing with a fool is thinking you can win the argument.

Oh, I get it. You're all talking about me, aren't you?

The "stupid, illigoical and ludicrous" part totally gives it away.

My only suggestion to reduce foolish contributions by idiots like myself would be to require registration for commenting. My Guest status makes it far too easy and compelling to just chime in annonymously and mention about how I've recently been using half-shaved rabbits to smuggle a few dozen gross of those "disappearing clothes" nekkid girlie ink pens across state lines.

See what I mean?

Yes, morons like myself could just register annonymously. But we're a lazy lot. It's not worth the trouble after commenting privleges are revoked once or twice.

Hopefully that would take care of at least some of the problem. Anyway, that's my $0.02.

So...anybody want to buy some pens?

I usually just ignore them and hope they "go away" by their own hand, if you know what I mean. But then I'm a big fan of The Darwin Awards.

I think that most people have said enough and correctly already.

This post will allow me to follow the thread further. And well done for bringing this up in the first place, its close to my heart....

Well put.

Your bad answer example reminded me of an elegant engineering design was discovered and nearly thwarted earlier here. A liquid nitrogen cooled detector was designed properly to be vented with a simple spring and O-ring seal pressure relief valve. The approximately one square foot plate with the valve was bolted down with six 4-40 bolts despite much thicker side walls that could accommodate stronger bolts. The pressure relief valve became stuck from an ice dam build up. (I think somebody spilled a beverage.) The pressure built up with the boil off of the liquid nitrogen until the six bolt heads snapped off with a crack and a burp of nitrogen gas. The machinists charged with repairing this detector chamber originally wanted to make the system better by using bigger bolts to hold off more pressure. Cooler minds intervened before this happened for heavier bolts would only mean failure at higher pressures.

This scenario shows why we must police the answers here in some fashion. Well meaning people can easily suggest unknowingly dangerous answers to a problem. How CR4 could do this, I don't know.

At the same time though, acting on a dangerous piece of equipment with solely the information obtain from anonymous advisors, just might raise the average IQ a few points.

You mean everything I read on the internet isn't true?

Any advice you receive here is "Buyer Beware" & worth what you pay for it

If you can make a good case for why your flapjamit only needs 5 OEM clamps, fair enough, the only people you have to answer to are the survivors, local authorites & your insurance company...

There is no contract implied or otherwise, everyone here is obligated to do their own due diligence.

The level of moderation on CR4 is adequate.

CR4 is no more than a forum for all of us to exchange ideas & bears no responsibility for anyone who "Trys it at home"

You are 100% right of course, but the dumb ones just may not know or understand that!!!

Therefore we still must take some responsibility for what we post.

Good Post, GA from me.

You can pretty much figure that your post that got not a single vote as a "good answer" was a "bad answer".

We have gone around on the site with ratings of "GAs". If I at all deserve Guru status here on this forum, it is not because I know so much, but because I know who knows more than I do.

We do not know really who all reads this forum, and sometimes some of the answers if considered viable by youths who have been introduced into the forum, could actually be considered Bad, from the point of view, of Deadly.

Hence I do not oppose a "Deadly" category for judgements concerning "Bad Answers".

We were asked for permission to allow for this.

Some of the questions come from this seem to be trick questions, which while producing some great information, really are dangerous if there is no backstory for some of the assignments as phrased, do come to us short of detail, which can kill people, if combined with half knowledge, and half question, for hotshots with great motive to show up and perform beyond their knowledge. I am aware that High Schoolers have been encouraged to nose around here.

Can we agree that a Bad Answer, is a Deadly Answer?

It all depends on the context

I wholeheartedly agree that there have been some very bad answers to relatively humble questions and support the proposal for a "Bad Answer" button.

However, just look at this thread! Some posters have gone on and on about bad QUESTIONS when that wasn't the subject! No wonder we get bad ANSWERS!

Rant over.