We keep on getting asked questions on ISIS. I have no problem with the subject, but most of these questions are about current news, have little-to-no evidence and are all around receiving weak or downright poor answers. This in turn generates nonconstructive discussions and ill will.
Also, they seem to be focused on the shock value of the claims in order to attract upvotes.
We clearly need to address this in some way, because all the discussions are not good for the community.
What should we do to maintain quality on the site?
Explaining the problem better:
Our current policy is not to answer unless some positive evidence is found. In other words, proof that the claim is either wrong or right. These questions are unanswerable by our current standards, until the events are not current and historical evidence accumulates.
Our current policy is to only allow better sources to confirm or dispute a claim. You can't dispute a news item with another news item. You need a better source, like a primary source.
We do not allow questions based on original research. The reason that we are experts in evaluating the quality of studies and of reference, not at actually producing studies or investigative journalism.
We only want conclusive answers, not answers which are predictably going to be obsolete in weeks if not days.
Voting is clearly not punishing these bad quality answers. The reason for this is "drive by" upvotes coming through the hot questions list.
The problem is that these questions get continuously answered with posts that are in direct contradiction of one or more of these criteria. I can see only three alternatives:
We don't change anything regarding policies on questions or answers. This means deleting all these poor answers even if highly upvoted.
We don't allow answers until the dust is settled, thus discouraging "let's debate the news" answers and voting via putting the question "on hold".
We change the site rules so these answers are acceptable. I strongly oppose this option.