Should every answer be "The Answer"?

Question

Sometimes a person doesn't have "The Exact Perfect Answer" but tries to help with some suggestions or a bit of brainstorming. After all, there are multiple playstyles, but frequently I see those "secondary answers" being down voted. Which of those behaviors would be considered appropriate?

Answer 1

There's a mixture of things you might be referring to. I'll go through our policy:

• We expect that answers should be an attempt to wholly and independently answer the question, such that it could work if no other answer existed. We don't do "tack-on" answers, though you might see those on other stacks. (Should I be requesting people answer the question independently?)
  • We also expect people to never answer in comments. You can suggest an improvement to an existing answer, but comments that are not suggestions and are wholly attempts to answer the question are deleted on sight. (Should users refrain from answers (or partial answers) in comments?)
• You mention "help with some suggestions or a bit of brainstorming": we expect homebrew to be backed up by actual experience, either yours or someone's you can cite. Anyone can just come up with homebrew from their armchair without ever trying it, but we're looking for solutions that actually work. (Is homebrew an acceptable answer to a question?)

You don't need to have an exact perfect answer, but we have quality expectations. The short summary is answer the question directly, and cite and back up your answer with facts/experience. We don't want armchair speculation, anyone can do it, we're fine without it.