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Regexp to extract parts of ApexClass.Body

Notice the post by the @crmprogdev user. Notice how that post has a downvoted. Is this a normal scenario? I felt like the answer was fine, even if the original asker didn't find the answer all that useful to them , the user clearly took their time to post a well thought out, well written answer. I have always worked under the policy of if the question and/or answer is well thought out and well written, it deserves an upvote even if it doesn't give me exactly what I am looking for. Downvoting an answer simply because "I can find it in the documentation" is such a terrible reason to downvote.

What are you thoughts? When is it good to downvote an answer?

4 Answers 4

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Agreed - answer was factually correct, and many answers contain info from the docs. Downvote not deserved, imho.

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I'm not going to say that the answer necessarily deserved a downvote but I would definitely not have given it an upvote. The asker clearly understood the pattern and matcher classes, what a regex is, and was asking for something fairly specific.

An answer that re-hashes the docs and talks about regular expressions in general is not particularly useful. If the question was

I need to find phone numbers in a long text area. How do I do this in Apex?

then yes, an answer like that would be perfectly valid and would probably be useful to other people searching for similar questions.

Also, I think it's fairly counter-productive to tell people "that was a terrible reason to downvote" if for no other reason than that votes are private and explaining downvotes is behaviour we want to encourage.

full disclosure: I also answered the question.

2

It really peaves me when I take the time to write a very detailed and pretty answer (formatted to look nice and easily demonstrate an answer), especially if it involves writing code examples (and taking the time to format everything!!), only to see it down-voted. No votes is much much better than a down-vote, especially when there is nothing factually wrong with the answer!

I've learned 100% of my Salesforce knowledge through forums, and I realize that other people will be sifting through forums too, so when I answer a question, I try to use a style so that an absolute beginner will get something out of my answer -- which isn't always the case of the asker.

I would love that to down-vote an answer, a reason must be given. That way, when others come across the post, the down-vote reason (+ any further responses) may be of constructive help.

When I see a post that I took ~a half-hour to write get down-voted, and there is nothing factually wrong about the answer, I get dismayed. It's lame.

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While I understand the importance of keeping spam away and maintaining quality content in general, that's not spam. It was well written, thoughtful, and contains useful and related links. The persistence of relevant and searchable content is part of what makes SE so valuable. He certainly contributed to that while clearly trying to address the question in the best way he could. That's worth encouraging, if anything.

The great thing about up/down voting is the organic distillation of "quality." It's just that sometimes experience gaps can be mistakenly viewed as shameless reputation building.

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