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1

but...how many duff links are there are over at microsoft/msdn
– redsquare
Commented Jul 22, 2009 at 20:07
I see your point, but I'm not making a grand sweeping statement about links elsewhere. Even your links have descriptive text to them, which is more than some answers get.
– romandas
Commented Jul 22, 2009 at 20:07
9

MSDN is the worst for bad links.
– Lance Roberts
Commented Jul 22, 2009 at 20:20
4

That's why I will sometimes craft a very specific "I'm Feeling Lucky" link to point there. That way it will hopefully continue to get you to where you want.
– Brad Gilbert
Commented Jul 22, 2009 at 21:05
6

It depends what part of MSDN. Real documentation, especially the .Net stuff, is generally stable. "Articles" are often less so.
– Joel Coehoorn
Commented Jul 22, 2009 at 21:14
11

I realize this answer is old, but I would say that a question for which the entire, correct answer is a link to another site is probably a bad question.
– tvanfosson
Commented Jan 11, 2012 at 16:20
14

Questions that merely ask for references to other resources are generally off-topic. That's what Google is for.
– user102937
Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 14:45
1

But some resources are hard to search for. "Where can I find documentation on Python's % operator?" seems like a fair question to me.
– Daniel Lubarov
Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 4:18
@RobertHarvey Agreed, but not all the users have the same skills. If you put good keywords in a cache clean browser you can find a good solution, not biased. The point is to select the right ones. For one is difficult for another easy. Maybe, since we want to solve a problem as well as to learn how to solve it, it can be useful to write even how that link was found, and the link will be updated by the new search of the engine.
– Hastur
Commented Sep 18, 2015 at 8:22
@user102937 I don't think everyone is capable of Googling everything. I find it very likely that someone doesn't know even the names of some things, but does know their essence.
– Gulzar
Commented Apr 1, 2021 at 16:45
Well, I'm from the future, and these particular links work just fine, even though MS mothballed MSDN years ago. (They even link to pages containing the expected information!)
– SamB
Commented Apr 25, 2022 at 21:46
the links break, after years they become 404 and the answer is lost.
– Dorath
Commented Dec 15, 2022 at 19:10
1

@Dorathoto, correct, a link alone is a bad answer , that deserved to be improved or downvoted, but usually do not delete
– Michael Freidgeim
Commented Oct 14, 2023 at 20:02

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