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Should I delete wrong puzzle answers?
On most communities, if I post an answer that I later learn is wrong, I would delete it to reduce the amount of wrong information on the site. When I recently realized that a Puzzles answer I posted was wrong, though, I wondered if I should delete it as usual or leave it (marked as incorrect) as possibly helpful input for others trying to solve the puzzle. This is what I did (at least for now), but how do we as a community want people to handle this case? Do we view puzzle-solving as ideally a 1:1 relationship between the puzzle and your answer, or is information gleaned from wrong answers and comment threads part of the expected input?
In case it factors into the discussion: remember that we can configure the reputation amount per post type per category, so it would be possible to say that answer downvotes don't affect reputation if this is something the community is concerned about.
3 answers
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I think incorrect answers could still be interesting, particularly to the more fuzzy kind of puzzles and riddles. For example I posted this incorrect answer and I found my solution less far-fetched than the correct one. Also some incorrect answers can be thinking "outside the box" and provide creative solutions that the puzzle maker didn't consider.
I don't really think incorrect answers distract either. Most/all solutions will be within spoilers anyway. Though perhaps if the site gets launched, an "incorrect" reaction could be implemented, if that adds something of value.
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Wrong answers that claim to be right (can be implicit by not making it clear they are wrong) should be downvoted.
However, I wouldn't downvote where the approach might sound reasonable at first glance, but was later shown to not work. Knowing what doesn't work can be useful. I'm more likely to upvote the less obvious the error is.
There is a fine line. Different people will have different levels of what "seems reasonable at first". If I think the wrong approach is obvious up front, I'll probably still downvote the wrong answer.
Therefore, when posting an answer that shows what didn't work, you're taking a chance about how obvious the error is to other people. I suppose one strategy is to show what didn't work, then delete the answer if it gets a negative vote total.
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My rule of thumb is that incorrect answers should be deleted.
However I would distinguish between a partial answer and an incorrect answer.
Consider a Sudoku puzzle that involved some tricky deductions.
Suppose an answer, suitably marked as a partial answer, was able to solve part of the Sudoku but not all of it. If everything in the answer was correct, not trivial, and explained how it deduced the numbers it found, I would say it had value.
On the other hand, if an answer contained faulty solving reasoning, I would consider it to be of little value and should be deleted.
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