What should be done with factually incorrect answers?

Question

Consider this question:

Are you allowed to withdraw from 401k for no reason if leaving the company?

and the ongoing chat about the correctness of the currently top-rated answer:

http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/42516/discussion-on-answer-by-littleadv-are-you-allowed-to-withdraw-from-401k-for-no-r

The question here should be a straight question of fact. There's no real opinion involved - Either the law requires plan sponsors to allow participants to get out or it doesn't. There are two answers that differ on which is allowed. For sure, one or the other is factually wrong. "Voting" is not going to resolve this in general.

Whether or not it's elevated the correct answer in this case is mostly beside the point for this meta question. On the other hand, this specific question is a good case study, IMO, because

• User Chris has taken some effort to provide evidence for his position, which is the answer with many fewer votes
• The "other side" is a high "rep" user and a moderator, who have ("High Rep User") essentially called Chris stupid ("I'm not here to teach you to read, if you're more than 3 years old that ship has sailed.") and have ("moderator") told Chris that he must be wrong because high rep users on this site haven't heard of this ("I guess what I am stuck on is the idea that if this were true, wouldn't we have seen it?"). (In light of the comment, I want to be clear that's two different things done by two different users.)
• This dynamic, IMO, is consistently repeated on this site, which has a strong tendency toward "the community" self-reinforcing its own idiosyncrasies and bullying users who (with evidence on questions of fact!) don't go along with the high-rep users / moderators.

Sub-questions:

• What other mechanism is there for resolving such issues here? Should something like this be elevated to the SE ownership?
• Do members of this community care that factually wrong answers will at least occasionally get elevated, or is that just considered a possible consequence of free, online help?
• In the case where a answer is clearly wrong as a matter of fact, are the moderators expected and/or obligated to delete it? In a case like this where one must be wrong but they are no sure which, how to proceed?

Answer 1

In the case where a answer is clearly wrong as a matter of fact, are the moderators expected and/or obligated to delete it?

The system is not designed for moderators or Stack Exchange to delete incorrect answers. The correct way to handle an incorrect answer is to downvote it, preferably with an explanation why. If there is an existing explanatory comment (as there is in this case), you can upvote that one.

Consider what you're saying. Of people who have expressed an opinion on the question, a net fifteen have currently upvoted it. But you want to reject this consensus. Any governing system can make a wrong decision. The Stack Exchange system at least allows for a decision to evolve if evidence shows it to be incorrect.

Deletion is intended for things that are only pretending to be answers, not answers that are incorrect. Example:

LULZ YOU GUYZ ALL WRONG

That is pretty clearly not what we mean by an answer. So we delete it.

This example shows why we don't delete incorrect answers. It's still not clear who's right. There is considerable disagreement in the chat and no citations to non-primary sources. It may be that plans can restrict exit, but that none do so. In which case this is a purely academic distinction. It may be that the argument against the answer is based on an incorrect legal reading.

There should be some citable example of a plan that has that kind of provision and has enforced it. Or a citable example of a plan that tried to enforce such a provision and failed. Two answers that disagree may be the correct thing for now until such proof can be generated.

The "other side" is a high "rep" user and a moderator, who have essentially called Chris stupid ("I'm not here to teach you to read, if you're more than 3 years old that ship has sailed.") and have told Chris that he must be wrong because high rep users on this site haven't heard of this ("I guess what I am stuck on is the idea that if this were true, wouldn't we have seen it?").

If you think that a moderator is abusing moderator powers, that is something that you can escalate to Stack Exchange. It's not clear that you are claiming that moderator powers were used inappropriately (e.g. by deleting an opposing answer). It looks like you are just saying that some of the chat comments were inappropriate. That's just something to handle via the normal flagging system at worst. And often it's easier to just move on.

You should have more evidence for moderator abuse than just one event regardless. They would be looking for a pattern of behavior, not a single instance.

Answer 2

I think you misunderstand the term "straight question of fact". When it comes to laws, especially the US tax laws, there's not really such thing in many cases.

Even in this answer, you yourself were not able to chase down some of the terms defined in the statutes we linked. I keep mentioning this all the time in many answers - in taxes a lot of things are issues of "facts and circumstances", and it is rarely "straight question of fact".

Regardless, many times people give incorrect answers. Many times they end up being the most upvoted. Sometimes it frustrates me because these are cases where people upvote what they want to be the truth and not what it really is. So this time it's my turn.

That's how this site works, for better or worse, that's the whole premise of the system. You can upvote/downvote what you deem right or wrong, leave comments justifying your position, and that's how it is supposed to be. This time you guys dragged me into the chat, which is something I usually don't do. If I think an answer is incorrect - I downvote it with a comment about what I'm disagreeing with - and move on.

Answer 3

The "other side" is a high "rep" user and a moderator, who have essentially called Chris stupid ("I'm not here to teach you to read, if you're more than 3 years old that ship has sailed.") and have told Chris that he must be wrong because high rep users on this site haven't heard of this ("I guess what I am stuck on is the idea that if this were true, wouldn't we have seen it?"). This dynamic, IMO, is consistently repeated on this site, which has a strong tendency toward "the community" self-reinforcing its own idiosyncrasies and bullying users who (with evidence on questions of fact!) don't go along with the high-rep users / moderators.

Firstly, I'm sorry you get that feeling from interacting on the site. I've also seen other people say similar things occasionally. It's obvious, but worth saying explicitly that no-one - whether a high-rep user, a moderator, or anyone else - has a monopoly on the truth, and this site should welcome conflicting views that are reasonably backed up and politely put.

I would also be a little careful about lumping classes of users together. Each individual contributor has their own style. In this question, you happen to have wound up in a position where the two highest reputation users on the site both think the same thing, but that's certainly not always the case. Either way, I think you can expect different users to approach conversations in different ways and I think it's best to look at what each is saying separately.

For myself as a fairly neutral observer (while a moderator, I don't have a high reputation nor any significant experience of the topic), it feels like both "sides" have reasonable points and it's worth continuing to dig for something more definitive.

I don't see the comment about "if this were true, wouldn't we have seen it" as an appeal to the authority of the person making the statement, but rather suggesting that there aren't any other examples of this happening, either on this site or elsewhere. While not having seen something happen is not a definitive proof that it can't happen, in the right circumstances it can at least be a strong indicator. Of course, the opposing point here is that these circumstances would actually be rare by their nature, so there might not be many other examples to find.

Answer 4

Member @Brick has left. To the question here, SE expectation is the voting system will most often rank the best answers with upvotes and incorrect ones down. That's the nature of crowdsourcing.

Part of the system is that anyone can edit anything. So when I make a mistake, I expect to get a comment or suggested edit that makes the answer correct.

There were multiple things going on with this question. An issue that most members thought was an easy fact, and a voted up answer reflecting common wisdom. A single member providing the Black Swan disproving that 'fact'. Comments that got a bit heated as we tried to settle the issue and solicit facts.

As it stands, the initial answer remains voted +14 vs the 'correct' answer at +3. (And to be clear, the 'correct' answer warns of an issue that's not common, even the posting member implies this, as his evidence offers a different box choice checked)

In the end, I'd like to say the system works, and that Ben's examples (he lists 3) are part of the fraction of 1% that are not perfect. Let's keep in mind, as of this moment, there are 14,957 questions. Overall, the membership here has a track record I am proud of.

Answer 5

There is misinformation everywhere on the internet, and our site is not immune. Stack Exchange is written by people, and as a result, it is not perfect.

Having said that, I think Stack Exchange, and our site in particular, has a lot of good features that make the information here more reliable than many other sites. The voting system, the editing system, and the reputation system all work together to provide good answers to people and make the internet a better place. But it is not perfect, and there are some incorrect answers on here from time to time.

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Here are a few examples from questions I have answered:

I recently ran across this question from 2010 after a duplicate question was asked. It only had one answer that was highly voted and accepted from that time. However, in my opinion there were some problems with the answer, so I downvoted it and wrote a new answer, 6 years later.

Another example: This HSA question was asked last year during tax season. I wrote a good, convincing answer. My answer was the only answer, and it got upvoted and accepted. However, six months later, I had done some more reading and came to the conclusion that my initial answer was completely incorrect, unfortunately. So I did the only thing I could do, which was to edit and rewrite my answer with the opposite position. I pinged the OP to notify him of the change. It is unfortunate that the question had a completely wrong answer for 6 months. I wish that an expert had come along before then and downvoted my answer and offered the correct answer, so that the question hadn't sat with misinformation for so long, but that's the way it goes.

A final example, involving Littleadv and me, is this question, on which I wrote one of my first answers on this site. Littleadv also wrote an answer that is different than mine. I came out on top with the voting on that one, but which answer is really correct? It is hard to say. We both cite sources supporting our positions. In the end, hopefully the OP and anyone else reading that question can get some good information from both answers, and they would be best advised to seek professional advice. (Unfortunately, some comment flags were thrown that day, too. The mods did a nice job of cleaning up the mess, and I learned how to react (and not react) to comments.)

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Even a professional can get these things wrong, and sometimes there is no right answer. Legal opinions are called "opinions" for a reason. Two lawyers can read the same law and come up with two different interpretations for it, ultimately requiring a court to decide. Whoever wins the court case is called "correct," but that simply means that the court had the same opinion as the winning lawyer.

In the end, if you encounter an answer you believe is incorrect, vote it down, upvote a different answer (or offer your own correct answer), and move on with your life. Despite its quirks, I believe that this site is a wonderful resource and provides a lot of help for people, and I'm happy to be a part of it.

Answer 6

The question here should be a straight question of fact. There's no real opinion involved - Either the law requires plan sponsors to allow participants to get out or it doesn't. There are two answers that differ on which is allowed. For sure, one or the other is factually wrong. "Voting" is not going to resolve this in general.

I think voting does resolve this. In general, there maybe an answer that is 99% right all the time. There could be few exceptions that by and large don't matter and apply only to complex individual situations. Hence at times having a generic answer is right.

User Chris has taken some effort to provide evidence for his position, which is the answer with many fewer votes

I don't see any evidence in the answer. It maybe in chat, generally evidence should be linked up.

The "other side" is a high "rep" user and a moderator, ...

SE enforces that no one [moderator/high-rep user] can indulge in such things. Flagging etc ensure this is removed.

Do members of this community care that factually wrong answers will at least occasionally get elevated, or is that just considered a possible consequence of free, online help?

I don't think this is the right question. But there are question in past I have seen where incorrect answers [in my view] have got accepted. I would say that is the nature of things.

In the case where a answer is clearly wrong as a matter of fact, are the moderators expected and/or obligated to delete it? In a case like this where one must be wrong but they are no sure which, how to proceed?

There is individual wisdom and collective wisdom. On specific cases collective wisdom can equally be wrong, individual wisdom can be wrong. Even expert opinion can be wrong. Deletion is not the way to address this.