It devalued your contribution ... The way I look at it, your answer was helpful. It's more useful to think in terms of signal to noise ratio rather than a bina

It devalued your contribution ... The way I look at it, your answer was helpful. It's more useful to think in terms of signal to noise ratio rather than a binary helpful/unhelpful. It may have been helpful when considered in isolation but was it helpful enough to be valuable? Raganwald nails it with: This type of answer is an Internet Cliché When the ratio of advice and/or opinions and/or theories is 10:1 relative to actual answers to the question being asked (which is common) it's not enough to say those non-answers might be helpful. They have to meet a higher standard. Because they have a built in noise-cost they need to have a signal-value that is very very high. A individually helpful answer can have a negative value when viewed in the context of the whole system.