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An answer to an ID question can be very short, it can be the title of the movie and a link to imdb or wiki.

These sorts of answers, though, are very low quality. They might serve to answer that particular question, but those that stumble upon the question in the future might be looking for a different, yet similar, movie/tv/etc.

What if, instead of just providing the title or episode number or whatever, we give details on WHY the movie matches. What elements does the answer match, what elements DON'T match. How did we come to that conclusion? What websites did we look at to find the answer? What did we search for on our journey to the answer?

We can gleam a lot of insight into how correct an answer might be when provided this information. We can also teach future readers how to answer these questions for themselves.

So please, when answering an ID question, provide some more detail. It'll help everyone out.

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  • 2
    Related: How to handle low quality identification answers?.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    Feb 2, 2017 at 19:43
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    I have to say that the regular contributors already do this. Perhaps we need to spend more time downvoting poor answers even if they are correct and commenting on how they could be improved.
    – Paulie_D
    Feb 2, 2017 at 20:19
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    @Paulie_D sounds like a good idea to me
    – DForck42
    Feb 2, 2017 at 20:19
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    Alternatively, just post the same answer...but better. Taking upvotes away from poor answers is actually better than downvoting poor ones...or do both! :)
    – Paulie_D
    Feb 2, 2017 at 20:20
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    If the goal is an inclusive community then adding a comment is very constructive towards that end.
    – faintsignal
    Feb 3, 2017 at 16:20
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    @faintsignal: Agreed. Why not be helpful to new users by adding constructive comments instead of just downvoting? It's crushing and exclusionary to effectively say 'you don't know what you're doing' as opposed to 'let me help you.'
    – aryxus
    Mar 8, 2017 at 0:08

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