How do I write a good answer to a question?

Question

Are there guidelines for what constitutes a good answer? eg. What should be included in an answer and what shouldn't be, How to maintain the site's decorum while answering a question, etc...?

Answer 1

The core criteria for writing answers on the Stack Exchange model, not only on this site but across the entire network, is one of usefulness; this can be reflected simply by hovering over the vote buttons on the side of every post:

Usefulness, unfortunately, is highly subjective. Unlike our progenitor Stack Overflow, where something merely needs to be correct to be useful (and this is often easily verifiable), Islam is a multi-faceted religion, often with multiple equally viable viewpoints. And more often than not, these viewpoints require significant study and knowledge to either confirm or deny.

This issue has been around pretty much since Stack Exchange started expanding out of Information Technology and into a more general Q&A network. Robert Cartaino covers it in his blog post "Good Subjective, Bad Subjective," which is and remains highly recommended reading for anybody posting answers to this site.

However valuable the above blog post is, it only covers the general case of subjectivity across the network. In this post, I will attempt to focus on what makes an answer "useful" to Islam.SE in particular.

---

Being correct is not the same as being useful.

One of the qualities of the internet, especially for a site like this, is the fact that we're all pretty much equal (some would call that an advantage). You could be Zakir Naik or Bilal Philips, or you could just be Joe Sixpack from Milwaukee, and we really couldn't tell the difference.

One effect of that is, when proclaiming an answer, we the community (and especially future users) have no way of knowing if the poster is speaking from experience, knowledge, or just mere opinion. Even if Joe Sixpack is an expert on all things Milwaukee, that doesn't give him the authority or expertise to give a fatwa.

One key factor of Robert's above blog post is the concept of the "Back It Up! Principle", which he describes thus:

Back It Up! means that your answers must be based on either:

• Something that happened to you personally
• Something you can back up with a reference

While I have seen questions that can be (and have been) effectively answered by no more than the above criteria, I feel that there is one key factor missing in this description, at least as it pertains to our site:

• Something you have the authority to say.

The simple fact is, anybody can claim anything as a fact. Obviously, that doesn't necessarily mean it is a fact; no matter how many times I say the sky is green, it won't change the fact that the sky actually is not green (at least not where I'm sitting). But whereas the colour of the sky is easily verifiable by looking out the window, confirming the veracity of a lot of Islamic information is not that easy.

What authority do we, as a community, have?

As a lot of questions on this site involve either proclaiming something halal/haram, or for events that happened over a thousand years ago, authority is a major concern. Presumably, none of us were around a thousand years ago to personally witness events, and none of us have been granted personal authority from God Himself to forbid what He has permitted and permit what He has forbidden. In lieu of any personal authority, if we're going to answer such questions we need to establish upon what (or whose) authority we do speak.

And as mentioned above, since there's no real method to prove or disprove anybody's identity, the poster's own authority is negligible; all posts should be written as if by an average person on the street. If any post makes claims that this hypothetical average person does not have the authority to make, then Back It Up!. This means that even if Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi were to create an account, he would still be expected to provide evidence to support any of his claims.

Unless easily verifiable, making a claim without clear authority is never useful, regardless of whether or not it's right. What makes such a claim useful is either:

• referring to reputable research with verifiable methodology
• laying out the evidences in full

If the poster is not able to produce proofs for any claims made in the post, those claims should not be made. As God commands to ahl ul-kitab in the Qur'an, "Produce your proof, if you should be truthful."

What, then, is useful evidence?

There is no clear response to this. Evidence that is useful to a Hanafi would not necessarily be useful to a Maliki, nor to a Ja'fari, nor to an Ahmadi. Different schools of jurisprudence have different methodologies, and put different weights on different evidences. And that's not even getting into those movements which don't rely on a particular madh'hab.

In cases where the question explicitly requests particular evidences, or from the perspective of a particular school, usefulness is fairly easy to judge: Answers lacking the requested evidences are not useful.

There are, however, a large number of questions which do not focus themselves thus; such questioners may be unsure as to what school (if any) they even follow, or they could be intentionally trying to get answers from various points of view. Answers to such questions should make it clear what methodology, and from what authority, they do come from.

---

In summary

Regardless of the methodology used, or the evidences cited, the usefulness of any claim (and thus answer) depends almost entirely on making clear the following two points:

• It is not mere opinion
• It comes from an authoritative source

Answer 2

Answers at Islam.StackExchange.com are expected to:

• answer the question.

• be clear.

• be up to the point.

• be self explanatory.

• be referenced (quoted) from the Qur'an, Ahadith, Fatwas, or any other reliable Islamic resource relevantly. Further, read this FAQ to know how to create references in your answers.

• be linked to more information and further reading.

• be revised regularly to include more information as it comes along.

Answers at Islam.StackExchange.com are NOT expected to be:

• abusive

• disrespecting other religions.

• disrespecting other sects

• deviating from the question.

• having grammatical mistakes.

• having ambiguous statements.

• containing severe formatting errors.

• link-only (only links and no text).

• single-word or single-sentence.

• unnecessarily long.

Answer 3

One possible minimum requirement for a good answer is to explain why your answer is correct, for example you could say it is based on a hadith, Qur'an a book of fiqh (on should name the reference at least).

If possible one should quote the evidence or give a link.

Note that Allah says in the Qur'an in different verses:

... Say, "Produce your proof, if you should be truthful." (See for example 2:111 and 27:64)

Or ask the disbelievers to deliver their proof if they have any, so we are asked to worship him by knowledge not by blind trust or fellowship (see for example 21:24) and therefore we should deliver our proof or evidence.

Let's give some examples

A no go is saying: Yes X is haram see (link or verse or hadith)!
As references are not self-explanatory (see Do evidences speak for themselves?) so this statement needs elaboration.

Another no go is to start with: Yes I think it is haram ...
We want focused and clear answers not opinions, so please find out first whether what you think actually has some support by any credible source!

A third no go is: Yes it is haram ... while the rest of the answer is a copy paste from a link!
We look for answers of your own words (see The copy-paste issue, revisited), so if you can't explain a fatwa you basically are unable to answer the question by yourself! You should leave it for people with more knowledge and try to understand verses such as:

And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge. Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart - about all those [one] will be questioned. (17:36)

A better answer is: Yes X is haram because ...

• scholars (of school A) say so and so (see in book -> title) + explanation if necessary.
• In the Qur'an we may read -> quote the verse(s) + explanation
• the prophet () said -> quote (a)hadith + explanation.
• give a comprehensible explanation which doesn't contradict the Islamic believe.

Some further reads:
What is the correct way of quoting references?