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I didn't notice anything that really leaned one way or the other on this, but let me know if this is redundant or irrelevant.

Should answers such as Jack R. Woods's answer on this question be permitted? What practical considerations are there for amateur observations of transiting exoplanets?

Google results change frequently, and also depend on where you are in the world and your search history, so I don't think this is a valid answer. At the very least, hyperlinks ought to have been provided.

Alternatively, (although I don't this suggestion has any chance of actually being accepted) it would be nice to reduce (or remove) the points minimum required for commenting on answers. In cases like above, it doesn't take a frequent contributor to realize that the answer is substandard.

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  • $\begingroup$ In case anybody is wondering, it looks like the answer I referred to above has been deleted. It said something along the lines of "Google _______" (with the blank filled in with the appropriate search term). $\endgroup$
    – Ben Sandeen
    Commented Jun 6, 2016 at 16:06

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No, that post did not answer the question, and it has been deleted.

In regard to your question about changing the points. We can't change the points locally for our site, so that is technically a question for Meta Stack Exchange. I think some explanation is in order though. Stack Exchange sites are not really meant to be discussion boards, and so the comments are a secondary communication medium intended for use only to discuss changes to posts and then eventually be deleted. In practice, many comments often go on for a while without deletion, particularly where the comments are brief and do not result in much distraction from the subject matter.

In any case, new users are typically still learning the written rules and culture of the site, and in order to avoid the site turning into a forum Stack Exchange has implemented a reputation point limit for making comments. If you have an idea on how this situation can be improved, I highly recommend that you post a question about it on Meta Stack Exchange.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the clear answer. I suppose I should've realized that it's a Stack Exchange thing, but I guess I didn't think that through. Is there already some policy against answers like that, though, which yield results that are subject to change? $\endgroup$
    – Ben Sandeen
    Commented Jun 6, 2016 at 16:00
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    $\begingroup$ @BenSandeen Not against all answers that yield results which are subject to change (though it is preferred that answers are not too time-dependent), but specifically against answers that rely on outside sources to answer the question with incorporating the critical bits of information into the body of the post. $\endgroup$
    – called2voyage Mod
    Commented Jun 6, 2016 at 17:47

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