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So there are a few users on here that have some really good knowledge about certain sports. You get pretty good quality answers - these guys are generally coaches or referees in their respective sports and honestly most of the really knowledgeable people don't have a lot of answers on here.

Then there are a few users on the site that you can tell (by their comments and secondary information) that have little to no expertise on the questions they are answering. Their answers vary from not right at all, to kind of right but totally missing the point.

These same users will down vote good answers that aren't theirs (I have tested this out multiple times with multiple accounts - I do not have multiple accounts, another user helped me test this and it was very easy to test). Then they will answer the same question with something close to what was downvoted - and sometimes it is funny that they will answer it (googling things but then misinterpret most of the facts to the point the answer is wrong).

This never gets fixed and we have a large degree of answers on this site that range from bad to wrong - these have upvotes and are accepted. What is also telling is that I belong to a couple of officiating forums - basketball and football - and there is a general disdain on those sites for this site. These are users that have no idea I even post on this site, and they basically treat this site as nothing - or answers from kids.

So the DIY SE site has a lot of answers from contractors, electricians and builders. The mathematics site has a lot of answers from teachers, professors, and engineers. Where does this site get it answers from?

A big problem on this site is the moderation. The mods only involvement are to enforce "play nice" rules. On other SE sites if there are poor answers the mods step in and comment or try to encourage site to have good answers. Here the mods allow a small group to up and downvote answers to fill their tally - we all know it is going on.

So "play nice" is only for those with the maturity to directly discuss things on the site, not for the people in the background working passive-aggressively. Good job SE and mods!!! It looks like the robotic rules do not work with a small captive user base.

Do you need examples? How many do you want? Do you want me to just name names? Are the mods/SE happy with a site that is this poor and has so many misinformed answers?

Recent Example: Why do teams leave ~4 seconds for a field goal attempt

The accepted answer is wrong - categorically. There has never been a timeout in upper level college or pro football in the past 30 years with 4 seconds or less on the clock after trying to attempt a live kick. The answer reeks of - let me think this one out - not actual football knowledge. He even said that the kicker/holder can spike the ball. What? That is grounding. Upvoted/accepted. My correct answer downvoted. How is the site not a joke to new users?

Older Examples:

  1. Basketball - Blocking and Catching Shots - Accepted answer ABSOLUTELY WRONG - common knowledge wrong. My small kids know that a block gathered is a block and rebound on stat sheet. Someone writes another answer to support mine, a mode edits it, yet that mod doesn't delete it as a duplicate, the same mod doesn't ask for a print of the rules for the answer, yet that mod downvotes mine and asks for rules - and then when I add the rule references, no comment from mod! That's our mods in a nutshell!!!

  2. Is a hard slap to the basketball a foul? - A right answer by me downvoted by three users and two users that are referees commenting on why would this be downvoted. Notice how these two guys, who are referees, don't answer many questions on the site? Why would they? Wait were the favorable comments deleted? Why yes they were.

And might as well shut the site down because it is way less accurate than Wikipedia Example:

Does the defense have to defend the extra point? - 7 years and an absolute wrong answer has 15 upvotes. No mods commenting about the wrong answer. During those 7 years this has played out multiple times with the NFL referees making the defense get back on the field.

Update: Really odd that none of the mods on this site have wrote an answer about any of my examples. This has been open for a month and zero from the mods.... Yea I quit answering questions on the site too.

New Update: After reviewing the questions again I have noticed that any comment that agrees with my answers on these questions or supports them have been serially deleted. Does anyone think that behavior is normal. I have also had to flag a mod multiple times on this question for defaming me.

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    Yes, a few examples to back up your point would actually be great. Without them it's just a rant. While I agree that we need more moderating power, no one (including mods) knows everything, so they can't act properly on every wrong answer.
    – dly
    Commented Mar 2, 2020 at 9:23
  • Also if you're unhappy with how a site is run you can always reach out to the SE CMs.
    – dly
    Commented Mar 2, 2020 at 9:35
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    @dly - Added multiple examples. All of the accepted answers are globally incorrect.
    – Coach-D
    Commented Mar 3, 2020 at 18:47
  • Thanks. Having something to look at is really important in such cases.
    – dly
    Commented Mar 3, 2020 at 22:07
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    Downvotes on meta simply mean that people disagree with you, not that they are attacking you.
    – Chenmunka
    Commented Mar 4, 2020 at 11:39
  • There are examples of wrong and outdated answers, highly upvoted and accepted, on every Stack Exchange site. If one goes to the HNQ list on any given day, it's quite likely that at least two out of fifty have wrong answers (counterfactual or opinionated posts, perhaps not even an actual answer, that would be downvoted and deleted as VLQ on 100+ sites). A few examples means nothing when speaking of a whole site. How many of all the answers on Sports SE are wrong/outdated and yet accepted/upvoted? Without meaningful stats, this is still just a rant, albeit now from in a cherry-picker.
    – Nij Mod
    Commented Mar 7, 2020 at 4:15
  • @Nij - is calling me a cherry-picker supposed to be a knock on my character - you sure seem to be wielding it with a negative connotation. Don't worry I flagged it :). I gave a question, then listed examples. Would you like more examples? Would you like to comment on these examples or would you just like to discredit me? Would you like to comment on why none of these questions, after being discussed in meta have had wrong answers addressed? What are mods doing about it? Wait - one last question - why are comments agreeing with my answers deleted? Yea we know why.
    – Coach-D
    Commented Aug 18, 2020 at 19:20
  • You are called nothing - the post and its content are the only thing mentioned anywhere in my comment. Try reading all of the words instead of seeking a reason to continue personal attacks this time.
    – Nij Mod
    Commented Aug 19, 2020 at 3:16
  • @Nij - You deleting my comments - like you did on the answer below and you saying that I am attacking you is for sure an attack on me. It is defamation. I am flagging this comment too. Why don't you answer my questions in my comment instead of attacking me?
    – Coach-D
    Commented Aug 19, 2020 at 17:27

1 Answer 1

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I can't really check out the correctness of all of the posts you stated, since I'm not really familiar with basketball (but you go rogue because of a rebound, which wasn't asked about?) and the recent football post is not that bad. But yes, the old one is wrong. Refusing to field the defense would have led to a serious punishment.

From what I've seen quite a few down votes are the result of bad attitude (attacking others within your answer) or lack of citation, which is frowned upon. Sports SE is still pretty harmless, though. Gaming SE would net you tons of down votes for rude answers or posts lacking details. That's simply curation. A correct post is not automatically a good post.

I've learned it the hard way when I started participating. A correct answer often means nothing without backing it up, even when it's obvious. If the OP knew the topic they wouldn't have asked about it, so it's better to prove your point by citing some rules or definitions whenever possible. If that's not possible you should at least try to back up your answer with some explanations.

A correct answer is: "It is like this."

A good answer is: "It is like this, because... [explanation or quote of an article or rule book]"

And serial voting (going through all your posts and down vote them) should be caught by the system, so I don't believe that's the case here.

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  • Also I didn't go rogue on the rebound. The question is about the stat the defender gets. The user doesn't have the knowledge - and this is an advanced question - to gather there would even be more than one category addressed. I gave the right answer - for sure. Still the only right answer. A block is not a change in possession. So if someone just answers the defender gets a block - that means he caught the ball and fumbled it out of bounds. Which does not align with the example. So - block by itself - is wrong.
    – Coach-D
    Commented Aug 18, 2020 at 19:34
  • I understand this answer. I don't understand still why these questions' answers that are incorrect continue to get upvotes. I also don't understand why comments that agree with my answers are serially deleted. Does SE have anything in place to look at the comments that are deleted by mods/whoever?
    – Coach-D
    Commented Aug 19, 2020 at 17:31
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    @Coach-D votes are not part of site moderation and never will be. Anyone with enough rep can vote. What you're looking at are probably drive-by votes: people reading interesting topics and up voting posts with high scores or even all of them. Comment moderation is easy... unfriendly comments get deleted.
    – dly
    Commented Aug 19, 2020 at 21:03

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