1. The answer is prefaced by "This is not a complete answer, but..."

I like it when people warn me of potential problems in what they've found and I don't see it as a problem that people leave partial answers. I would think that leaving an well referenced partial answer to be of help to others that try to answer the question. As long as the answer isn't noise then I don't see how it's equivalent to:

2. The whole answer is less than three lines long.

3. There isn't a single link in the answer or reference, and it's several paragraphs long.

4. The answer starts with "This is just a guess but", "I think that", "Maybe that, "I would guess that", "In my opinion," "Personally," or any other term that suggest speculation rather than certainty.

I would also much rather have complete answers for everything, but the main objective should be to leave answers that useful, and not a waste of time reading.

Discouraging partial answers is going to be a huge problem when dealing with questions that have a large scope with lots of research (like say climate change) and seems to me like it's an easy way to remove useful contributions from the site.

Instead let us praise answers with any noise (by up-voting them) that lets us collaborate and build upon each others partial answers, letting everyone chip in to the body of answer that can paint a complete picture even when it's not in community wiki mode.

1. The answer is prefaced by "This is not a complete answer, but..."

I like it when people warn me of problems and I don't see it as a problem that people leave partial answers, if anything I think it's a good thing, it's just not the best thing. Leaving well referenced partial answers, is of help to others as long as the answer isn't noise. I don't at all see how it's equivalent to:

2. The whole answer is less than three lines long.

3. There isn't a single link in the answer or reference, and it's several paragraphs long.

4. The answer starts with "This is just a guess but", "I think that", "Maybe that, "I would guess that", "In my opinion," "Personally," or any other term that suggest speculation rather than certainty.

I would also much rather have complete answers for everything, but the main objective should be to leave answers that useful, and not a waste our readers time.

Discouraging partial answers is going to be a huge problem when dealing with questions that have a large scope with lots of research (like say climate change) and seems to me like it's an easy way to remove useful contributions from the site.

Instead let us praise answers with any noise (by up-voting them) that lets us collaborate and build upon each others partial answers, letting everyone chip in to the body of answer that can paint a complete picture even when it's not in community wiki mode.