Answers providing tangential/related information but not an actual answer?

Question

I recently answered a question HERE concerning the long term efficacy of "personal development seminars." When I saw the question, I was reminded of information I ran across some time ago and posted an answer containing this related, but not specifically-targeted information.

In the comments, someone said:

Not sure why this has so many upvotes, it's just repeating the opinion of one person, and doesn't even address the question (see title).

I responded:

I admitted as much and suggested that someone else might come along with more pertinent information about seminars, not books. Also, while this is one person, I offer the source as I'm not sure who, PhD after the name or not, has read 340 self-help books. Thus, I would consider Luke an expert on the contents of such books, common threads, etc. My aim for the answer was mostly to contribute to the information -- take what you wish, leave the rest.

Now, whether or not my source is actually an opinion or not aside, it made me think about the point of the comment as well as my aim when I posted the answer.

Namely: What if an "answer" intends not to answer the question but still aims be useful? [1]

I'm open to the consensus of the community, and could see it either way. On one hand, I do think the answer was pertinent to the general field of inquiry and added to the discussion.[2] On the other hand, the commenter was absolutely correct -- my answer was not directly aimed at the question and this is a question and answer site, not a question and discussion site.[3]

What do others think? Is related enough if it contributes to future inquirers and provides good information, or should all answers only directly answer the question?

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[1] I consider this different than Psuedo-answers are the enemy, but I could be wrong about that. While I agree that my answer could easily fit into bucket #1 ("This is not a complete answer, but..."), I have a hard time seeing that it fits the preface to the whole list, "...calling them low quality answers would be far too generous." Is that the case for my answer? If so, good to know! I did note that a "psuedo-answer" with upvotes prevents the question from being listed in the unanswered section, so perhaps this builds a case for at least waiting a significant amount of time before answering like I did.

[2] One thing to note is that there is another, direct answer to this question now, which is great. Mine was first, then the second answer, and then the comment. Consider a case in which no other answers came in -- perhaps no one could find any information on this. Then would my answer have seemed so icky? It would have at the least provided THIS incredibly well-cited summary of the state of our knowledge with respect to self-help.

[3] If comment boxes were long enough, I could have put a lot of my information in condensed format there. I probably still could have done this with a bunch of links and very brief interjections. Perhaps that is preferred.

Answer 1

The path I follow:

• If it fits in one or two sentences, put it in a comment
• If it (adequately) answers the questioni, put it in an answer
• If it helps add information to the question/topic that is pertinent to a future answer and can fit in a single comment, put it in a comment
• Otherwise, if it fulfills the quality standard of a question (strong references; valid points; relevant information) go ahead and put it in an answer with a disclaimer noting an intention to help someone else find a better answer.

The main advantage in doing this is that a future answer can use yours as inspiration and link to it as further evidence toward the truth. In other words, the rule of thumb should be: "Does this answer help bring us closer to resolving this issue?" If yes, go through the above steps.

Answer 2

When I said "calling them low quality answers would be far too generous" in Pseudo-answers are the enemy, I was communicating the fact that those posts are not actual answers.

A low quality answer answers the post, but could be improved upon (citing references, quoting relevant quote, elaborating, etc.). By your own admittance, your post does not answer the question. Is it an helpful contribution? Likely. But is an answer? No. It's a comment posted as an answer.

In fact, the whole post could be distilled down to the following comment:

Luke Meuhlhauser of Common Sense Atheism has read 340 self-help books and makes the following statement: "95% of self-help books are complete bullshit ... I sometimes suspected the book was being written to get people motivated without actually giving them good advice so that when they failed ... they would assume it was their fault but look back positively on their initial motivation, and then buy the next heavily-marketed self-help book."

Answer 3

I approve of (some) tangential answers, sometimes. Why not?

If you're interested in the topic you may be interested in closely related topics. There's no need, IMO, to upvote, downvote, nor censor such answer, nor to expect any votes either way if you do post such an answer.

Examples:

• Does torture work well as an interrogation technique? (answer explaining what torture does work well for)
• Is there a metabolically superior diet? (answer stating was does boost your metabolism)