Should I be requesting people answer the question independently?

Question

For a while now, we've had answers like these ones which fail to really answer the question on their own, but just add some extra information building on other pre-existing answers. They often even say as much: "This other answer already covers everything, so let me talk about some tangential extra stuff". They're consistently from users at least moderately experienced with our site, too.

I have an expectation that answers should always independently answer the question, such that if that's the only answer that exists, it should still make sense and the question should still be considered answered.

Because of this, I've been consistently downvoting these answers and leaving comments requesting that these people actually answer the question, and then provide the tangential stuff they want to - even if it's just a brief sentence or two and a link if they want to credit another answer.

Should I be doing this? Is there a better way to handle this?

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Answer 1

In my opinion:

• Answers should actually answer the question. This is non-negotiable.

• The real value of multiple answers is different perspectives.

I mean, really: five or ten answers just rewriting the same post are pretty worthless! All this really does is make sure the top 1-2 answers keep getting all the upvotes while all the other ones languish (because people read the ones already at the top, upvote them, and then get bored by other answers when they all seem to be repeating the same ideas).

When you write an answer, it's important to have the self-discipline to ask yourself: Do I have anything truly new to add? If I'm repeating what's already been written, can I actually express it better?

Sometimes, though, the answer to that question is "Yes, I really do have something to add! But part of my answer will be repeating someone else's and, quite frankly, no, I can't say what they've already said better than they can!" So, what should you do?

• Your answer should stand alone, but it's both acceptable and useful to reference other sources — whether external sources or other answers — for detailed discussion that you can't do better yourself.

Here's an example from B&CG SE. I thought another poster already posted a great discussion of one facet of my answer. So I linked to his answer and discussed it in brief. My answer is still intelligible even if you remove the reference, but the overall question view is cleaner because the same ideas aren't being repeated excessively.

• If you only have a small bit you want to add to an existing answer, edit the existing answer. (If you're unsure, start with comments and then make an edit once you've hashed out the idea a bit.)

Answer 2

Yes, you are correct. Answers should be standalone - answers which "add some thoughts" to other answers within the question are not good answers. This is what people should be using comment/edits for.