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In this question, I had posted an answer with quotation to show that, while the statement of the question is about rotations, the fundamental underlying confusion lies in the fact that the OP does not understand Newton's 1st Law.

As such, my concern and point, is that the other users should not be answering the wording of the question, but rather the spirit of the question. This is compounded by the fact that the OP tried to change the question to be something completely else, only later to be reverted upon scolding. It is clear that the specific question is not what the OP really needed answering.

In particular, there is not much educational value to confused people to focus upon answering whether the answer should be to teach the OP about centripetal concept, or about torque concept, or even couple concept. It is far more important to get the OP to realise that inertia concept has to come before any sensible discussion of rotation.

The moderator rob deleted my answer as unfriendly and non-answer, and then deleted my comments after that. I am not at all defending "unfriendly", but I vehemently disagree about "non-answer". How can my answer, which answers the most broadest problem of the question, plus a direct answer to the smallest reading of the question, be somehow still a non-answer?

I do not think this has been handled anywhere near correctly.

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It is perfectly fine to write answers that address the confusions underlying a question instead of the literal question, to vote to close because the question as written cannot be usefully answers, or take any other actions based on that.

But you didn't write an answer that addressed the underlying confusion. The entirety of your answer apart from quoting the question was:

This just means that you have not yet understood Newton's 1st Law. You need to first fix that.

And no, it is possible to induce rotation using just one force.

and rob, correctly in my opinion, explained in a comment why this does not really constitute a useful answer:

The first paragraph seems to say "you should learn more physics," and the second says "you're wrong" without counterexample nor explanation.

Now, if we're being technical, then indeed the second part does constitute an answer to the question (if one that is not useful to anyone). But together with the first part it simply falls short of contributing anything useful, while also being unnecessarily rude - of course it is in principle fine to point out when someone misunderstands something, but just saying they're misunderstanding without any additional explanation simply comes across as rude.

Remember that we generally assume good faith on askers' (and answerers') part - in particular, assume that they wanted to learn something.

What did this answer attempt to teach the asker, or indeed any other reader, other than that you assert you understand Newton's laws better than the asker? Regardless of whether that's true, that's an assertion about two people, not a statement about physics. It's an opinion (an unprovokedly confrontational one), followed by an assertion about the physics with no substantiation at all.

I think deletion of this is defensible, both for rudeness and for not being an answer, even though of course we can imagine much worse violations of our standards of politeness or being an answer easily, and perhaps if it had fallen short only in one of these aspects it might not have been deleted.

If you think the question is so confused it cannot be usefully answered, you should have voted to close it, not written a useless answer.

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  • $\begingroup$ No, I am not claiming that the question is so confused that it cannot be usefully answered. However, I am trying to warn other answerers that the essence of the question has nothing to do with rotation and that they should be steered to answer the N1L part instead. You have noted that the 2nd part of my answer is clearly answering the narrow question; how can that still be considered a non-answer? It is also pre-emptively not giving the specifics because, as other answerers also noted, the question could be interpreted as asking for centripetal concept or the torque concept; $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 19 at 21:41
  • $\begingroup$ a narrow answer stating either single choice of the two is thus premature. I have already taken these into account, what more do you want? I vehemently disagree that pointing out the fundamental confusion as "falls short of contributing anything useful"; often times this is precisely the most useful thing that there can ever be in an answer. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 19 at 21:43
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I do not think this has been handled anywhere near correctly.

The mod may have deleted your answer since you start by addressing OP, rather than addressing OP's question. Focusing on the asker rather than the question is frowned upon. Mods may be sensitive to such direct address to the asker (as opposed to addressing the question) because it can lead to the asker feeling attacked and then responding and causing a fracas.

OP's linked question is pretty bad/incoherent, so I think the best course of action would be: (1) vote to close; (2) downvote; (3) remain silent.

The answer you provided (your third sentence) is correct, to the extent sense could be made of the question.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for this, but I am not sure how "addressing OP" is the problem? I mean, I was not attacking the OP, if that was the concern; I was pointing out precisely what part that the OP needed to improve his understanding of, and I consider that as constructive criticism. The OP is given some chance, albeit small, to learn. All three of your suggested actions does not give the OP direct indications of what to do. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 19 at 23:08
  • $\begingroup$ Also, ACM above quoted the entire comment (which I can still see) that rob left on my deleted answer. Rob also left some other comments on the linked question to similar effect. We do not have to guess too much what rob thought. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 19 at 23:09
  • $\begingroup$ One last thing; yes, OP is confused, and the question is incoherent, but as an educator of many years, it is very simple for me to figure out what it is that the OP was trying to ask, and confused people often necessarily ask incoherent questions. I think it is counterproductive to close questions when it is deduce-able what the question actually is. It is quite a trend in modern education research to guide confused students via peer instruction to help each other. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 19 at 23:12
  • $\begingroup$ From my own experience, mods seem to frown on direct address. You wrote in your answer: "This just means that you have not yet understood Newton's 1st Law. You need to first fix that." (Emphasis added.) This is not an attack, but nevertheless OP might perceive it as such. When we speak, our collegial tone of voice may be evident, but when we write it is hard to make sure the right tone comes across. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 19 at 23:26
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, I caught that the first time, even back when rob simply mildly referred to it. I am not in any denial of that, only that this is, to me, way too much coddling. Thank you, nonetheless $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 20 at 2:11
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I have seen you say something like this on other posts, but I'll pull from what you said in a comment on another answer on this meta PSE post:

yes, OP is confused, and the question is incoherent, but as an educator of many years, it is very simple for me to figure out what it is that the OP was trying to ask, and confused people often necessarily ask incoherent questions. I think it is counterproductive to close questions when it is deduce-able what the question actually is. It is quite a trend in modern education research to guide confused students via peer instruction to help each other.

I think you have misunderstood what Physics Stack Exchange is. PSE is a Q&A site. It's not a forum, a place for Socratic dialogue, a place for guiding users to the answer on their own, etc. Users post questions, and other users are supposed to then post complete answers to those questions. Because this is the core reason for the site, there are rules that questions need to follow as well as rules that answers to those questions need to follow.

This is why the site rules are what they are. If a question is unclear, unfocused, etc., it isn't other users' job to try and find what they think the real question is and then answer it. The question should be closed if it does not meet the site standard. Similarly, if an "answer" doesn't sufficiently answer the question, it should be deleted.

Therefore, it actually isn't counterproductive to close incoherent posts. It's very productive in terms of what PSE is. If you think you know the "true question" the OP is asking, that's when you leave a comment suggesting an edit to make that clearer or ask a question to clarify.

It also isn't productive to post "answers" that don't actually answer the question. While there is overlap between PSE and education, PSE isn't a site focused on sound educational pedagogy and practice. Users should not approach this site in the same way they would approach a classroom, tutoring session, etc. Users should ask direct, clear questions, and then should expect direct, clear, and sufficient answers. If one wants something other than this, then they should look elsewhere.

Specifically to you... I don't get on PSE as often as I used to, but when I do, I often see misguided comments from you, and I rarely come across your answers. Your comments usually don't follow the main purpose of comments on this site: they don't ask for clarification from the OP, nor do they suggest edits to make the question better. Most of what I see from you is at best vague and unhelpful, and at worst rude and detrimental on the verge of putting the OP / other users down for lack of knowledge or understanding.

I am glad to see that you are trying to move into actually posting an answer instead of posting a comment that doesn't fit the purpose of comments, but now you also need to make sure that 1) you're answering a post that shouldn't be closed instead, and 2) when you do post an answer, it is a complete answer to the question.

I know when I first started on PSE I was the same way, and I did a lot of things I wouldn't do today. My general rule now (that I do fail to adhere to from time to time) is that if what I have to say isn't a request for clarification, a suggested edit, or a complete answer, then I just move on from the post and don't say anything, even if I think I have partial tidbits of information to impart that could be somewhat helpful. And, oftentimes, if what I have to say doesn't fall into any of those categories, it can sometimes reveal that the question does need to be closed until it is improved. Hopefully with more experience on the site you will be able to have that discernment as well, and you will be able to work within the rules and purpose of the site to contribute more positively.

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