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This kind of answer are not good for the long term usefulness of the site for the same reason that link only answers are frowned upon. In the future, the chances are good that users will eventually move away from the site, get rid of assets or change contact information.

This results in the accumulation of large numbers of answers that could potentially have no benefit and puts an immense burden on someone looking for an answer to filter through answers that may no longer be valid, but can only be tested through a time consuming process of contacting each answerer directly.

How do we want to handle this type of answer going forward and do we want to do any clean up of these kinds of answers that are historically present on the site?

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Any request to solicit or offer help offline is not allowed in this Q&A space.

The purpose of Stack Exchange is to create a work of reference, and to share it openly with all users and everyone comes after. As such, any activity for requesting or sending answers offline — even if well-intentioned — should be removed. If the entire answer contains little more than "contact me for help", it should be removed entirely.

  • I agree with @stavrosound (below). Ofcourse this is an online forum, you want the information (answers) online. Hypothetically: what if somebody is asking for samples from specific world region, how would another user answer? Not every user wants to share his recordings with all users, we should allow that i think.. In other words: If you can only answer 'contact me offline' maybe the question is the issue? – Arnoud Traa Feb 14 '14 at 13:49
  • Wait this is confusing, there is already a discussion on this topic elsewhere: meta.sound.stackexchange.com/questions/76/… Couldn't we merge these topics or delete one of them. I think there is overlap.. – Arnoud Traa Feb 14 '14 at 13:52
  • @ArnoudTraa I'm having trouble seeing how the post you linked is related to this one. Can you clarify? – Robert Cartaino Feb 14 '14 at 16:37
  • well it is related because both in some scenarios concern the same issue: a simple question (can anyone help me get this sound) and a simple answer (email me). – Arnoud Traa Feb 14 '14 at 17:04
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Usually thats why most have used the REQUEST prefix. Maybe make it an actual rule. That way it's easy to tell them apart (see my questions for example).

  • 2
    That could potentially work, though how do we make the difference in behavior clear to new users that are used to the way the rest of SE works? I would also suggest that perhaps we make it a tag rather than a prefix since that would make filtering and looking through those records easier. We could also then use the Tag wiki to describe the special criteria around those questions. – AJ Henderson♦ Feb 12 '14 at 14:26

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