Won’t somebody think of the server?
Nope. It’s too slippery. If you start banning people for wasting the hamsters’ time, where does it end? Do we ban people for posting MPSIMS?
It’s annoying, but I think we just have to deal with it. And in my opinion, handy has been getting a little better recently.
Think of this hypothetical:
A person asks a question in GQ. They get an answer. They go out into the real world and tell somebody this new fact they learned. That person responds that there’s actually a different, more correct “answer”. Because people out in reality tend to be ignorant. The original poster either knows enough to rebut that answer (yay!), or they’re more confused than ever. In the latter case, they surely have to come back to the board for clarification.
handy just makes it so this whole process is taken care of on the board. What’s the difference?
It’s no use-he’ll never read this. handy NEVER comes to the Pit.
Still, I’ve got to wonder-does he do it on purpose? Or is he just ignorant himself?
I’ll second that. I don’t spend a ton of time in GQ, but I’ve definitely noticed him being much more coherent/on topic in lots of places…
::shrug::
Don’t people ask for cites or sites? 
[sub]Obligitory Political Jab, just cause.[/sub]
Nah, can’t get rid of the people consistently posting incorrect inaccurate information, cause the board wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if all the Liberal Democrats were canned. 
Now on to the serious part of the OP.
Nope, unless he can be shown to be doing in just to get a rise out of people irritated by his erronious answers. At least here, the answers may be corrected by those who know more factual information. ( I won’t comment on matters of opinion, because while I don’t believe that all opinions matter/ are equally valid, they must be handled in/on a more case by case basis, and alas, not objective for obvious reasons.)
Look at it this way, would you rather he be saying it here, or on some other MB where he won’t be corrected?
One more vote here for “Handy’s been much better lately”.
I get a little tired of the “Handy is wrong all the time!” pile-ons, too. Handy is occasionally wrong. I’m occasionally wrong. I don’t get “Ban DDG!” Pit threads started in my honor.
LunaSea, how about some cites? “Volumes” of wrong answers? Really? Where?
Handy is sometimes wrong, but more often it seems to me that he’s just off base. He often posts a tidbit of information that is related to the topic, but doesn’t really answer the question. Sometimes it seems like he misinterprets the question.
Sometimes he’s right!
I certainly don’t think he is intentionally spreading misinformation.
You want we to search through 12,000 of his posts? I think I’d make the SDMB explode. Seriously though, please excuse my hyperbole.
It only requires one post to correct an erroneous one, and many times, it only requires one post to correctly answer a GQ. What is your proposed cutoff for thread length once it is correctly answered or an answer is corrected? If you are that concerned with server space, you should be attempting to get rid of the other forums, including this one, rather than individuals.
There’s a really simple solution to the problem underlying the question here:
If you know, and can document, a given answer, state it as fact, giving documentation where appropriate or requested.
If you believe you know the right answer but are not positive of your data and/or cannot prove it, then say that instead.
If somebody asks what the causes for the schism of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church were, a statement by DDG or me that “what I recall is that…” will be useful, since we are both respected as people who usually know what we’re talking about, but would differentiate our vague memory from the facts as spelled out in some histories-of-denominations website somewhere, or as quoted in the Encyclopedia of Bizarre Denominations.
And there was me thinking that you were talking about december 
pan
Some of us even give statistics!
WAG quotient of this answer: 0%
A new low!
IIRC, handy did, at one point, receive an Official Warning from the mods, telling him not to post inaccurate medical information in GQ. And he took it to heart, and Sinned No More, at least in that respect…
I’ll own up to posting a few WAGs in GQ myself on occasions; with a bit of luck, it irritates someone who actually knows something about the subject, and they will then come in with a real answer… I’m getting better at avoiding doing this. (I hope). Unfortunately, handy isn’t; most of the time, I just write off any contribution he makes as part of the general “noise” level of the threads. If he is a problem, it’s a self-correcting one in a way; many people, like me, just learn to ignore him. When it actually matters - as with the medical stuff, where misinformation can be actively dangerous - action is taken.
One thing I love is everyone saying that the answers in CQ are so sacred. I agree that there are some questions that should be treated seriously, but there are some that don’t deserve any respect at all. “Why can’t we eat roadkill?” would probably get some serious answers (I haven’t looked), but would it really be surprising if there were some wise-cracks thrown in? As Turbo Dog pointed out, some questions only require one answer, so after that what does a little fun hurt? Sometimes I do a search and the answer is so easily found that I wonder why it was asked, but of course then we’d all be doing searches instead of hanging out here. I thought perhaps Dooku was giving me the treatment, until I saw “several thousand posts” because I don’t always show the reverence some people seem to demand (even [sup]dare I say this?[/sup] in GD).
I disagree. No matter how inane, if it’s a legitimate GQ question (i.e. one with a factual answer), it’s our duty to provide a serious response if we can. But that doesn’t men we can’t have some fun. Consider how many ridiculous questions Cecil has answered in his column. He’ll provide a factual response peppered with humor. That’s the example we should follow in GQ.
Give it time, darling.
In answering the OP:
No. I pride myself on expressing meaningless ideas in nonsensical ways and composing false facts with charachterless humour and tasteless opinions.
In short, I’m a lawyer from Maryland.