I didn't take it as particularly negative. The person flagging it explained that it would be more helpful if I answered the question directly. I agree with them: This type of answer is an Internet Cliché: Person asks, "How do I X?" and the first twenty responses are "You are an idiot for trying to X, you ought to Y instead."
Maybe "negative" isn't exactly the right word here. It devalued your contribution, and after you thought about it you decided it wasn't the kind of contribution Quora wanted, and that it wasn't the right site for you.
The way I look at it, your answer was helpful. Sure, it could have been more helpful to more people if it had been different; and there may well have been other better answers. Calling "not helpful" focuses on what it isn't, not what it is.
It devalued your contribution ... The way I look at it, your answer was helpful.
It's more useful to think in terms of signal to noise ratio rather than a binary helpful/unhelpful. It may have been helpful when considered in isolation but was it helpful enough to be valuable?
Raganwald nails it with: This type of answer is an Internet Cliché
When the ratio of advice and/or opinions and/or theories is 10:1 relative to actual answers to the question being asked (which is common) it's not enough to say those non-answers might be helpful. They have to meet a higher standard. Because they have a built in noise-cost they need to have a signal-value that is very very high.
A individually helpful answer can have a negative value when viewed in the context of the whole system.
So you think that raganwald's leaving is more valuable than allowing his highly-rated answer that a moderator didn't approve of to continue to display on the site?
