When the answer is wrong is it an answer at all?

Question

I have a question I asked and later after researching different schematic that that only answer is wrong. I added mine the correct one and received down votes while the incorrect answer gets up vote. Even with proof people tend to follow the wrong answer. On other SE sites when your answer is just wrong it get deleted. What do I need to do to fix this question?

Can a helium balloon be anchored by using magnet entrapment?

Answer 1

I have a question I asked and later after researching different schematic that that only answer is wrong.

You have a question that you self-answered and now you're trying to get a competing answer deleted. This is not the way to demonstrate that you are returning to the site in good faith.

I added mine the correct one and received down votes while the incorrect answer gets up vote.

Putting aside for a moment the question of whether either answer is correct or incorrect, you have no control over the way other users vote. You have the privilege of being able to vote any question or answer up or down as you see fit, short of outright abuse, and so does everyone else on the site with at least 125 reputation.

Sometimes people don't vote as you would like them to. There is nothing you can do about it but try to convince them of your position.

Even with proof people tend to follow the wrong answer.

People upvote the most useful answer. When questions do not concern practical problems that many readers are actively trying to solve, a few things happen.

1. The question doesn't get many views. The accuracy of our voting system relies on scale; the answer score and ranking that is displayed on this site is a direct measure of consensus, and while consensus can be wrong, the consensus of a large group of experts is usually right.
2. Readers are not directly verifying the correctness of the answers. If there's a practical problem to solve then you can directly verify if an answer is right or wrong because when you follow the advice in the answer, you observe that your problem is or is not solved. That's why our model works for specific, practical problems that people actually face, and why it doesn't work for other types of question that we specifically disallow.
3. Questions become much more open to interpretation about what the actual problem is, and answers may start to compete more on the basis of which one actually interpreted the question correctly, and less on the basis of which one is accurate or correct.

All of these are relevant to your question, particularly #3. The top answer interprets your question as asking specifically about the un-powered, permanent magnet toy you describe in the problem statement. This is reasonable because it's what you have explicitly asked about. Your (currently deleted) answer interprets your own question more broadly than it is written, and talks about a powered toy with an electromagnet.

Both answers may contain correct information but Jonathan's answers the question that you actually asked, while yours answers a broader question that you had in mind but did not make evident in your problem statement.

On other SE sites when your answer is just wrong it get deleted.

From a policy standpoint, this is patently false and directly contradicted by the site-wide FAQ, which explicitly states that wrong answers "should be downvoted, not deleted."

What do I need to do to fix this question?

Honestly? Ask it on a discussion forum instead of on Stack Exchange. There's nothing inherently wrong with your exploring this idea, and I don't even think your question is bad, but clearly it's not giving you the result that you want (and modifying it to ask the broader question would take it out of scope). We have worked with you extensively on this issue and you show no interest in using Stack Exchange to find and cultivate solutions to shared practical problems. Maybe it's the network's fault for enticing you with gamification but I am pretty sure that in the long run everyone will be happier, yourself included, if you choose another platform on which to explore your inventive ideas.

Answer 2

When the answer is wrong is it an answer at all?

Yes, it's still an answer.

The problem is with the question. Not just in the example you cited, but with all SE questions. If you see discord within the answers of a question, it is almost always due to a fundamental issue within the question.

And the problem with the question you cited is that there are a number of flawed assumptions behind the question.

It appears that the goal of that question is to provide a basis for the related question asked on Worldbuilding. In general, this is a horrible basis for a question on Engineering. While I'm sure there's an exception, every question that Engineering has received from Worldbuilding has been closed for being off-topic or too broad. WB style questions are not appropriate for this site.

Even with proof people tend to follow the wrong answer.

That's generally not how things work here on Engineering. If you feel that's the case, please cite examples in a new meta question.

Based upon the now deleted comments, the issue here appears to be a misunderstanding upon your part of the scientific principles involved with the question you had asked.

What do I need to do to fix this question?

First, you need to keep your questions focused on tight, reasonably answerable problems. Your history of fantasy based questions is tripping you up on this site. Those questions are potentially more appropriate over at Worldbuilding, but definitely not here.

Second, when you do receive a answer then you need to read and absorb the material. If there's a minor issue that you don't understand, it's okay to ask for clarification. It's not okay to continue to dramatically edit the question based upon your misunderstanding or disagreeing with the answer that was provided.