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Under the question Is it offensive to the chef/host to finish all food on your plate in Italy? there is an answer about Thailand.

I have downvoted it and feel we should avoid such answers.

  1. It is not answering the question
  2. We risk getting a lot more of these under the same question(s), because there are always people knowing how it is in my country.*
    The end result would look like a list question which are discouraged on SE sites anyway (too broad).

Suggested course of action?

  1. Downvote, leave a comment

  2. Flag moderator for deletion

Note that this is not the same question as Is one answer per country acceptable?, because the question is perfectly valid.

* At the minumum it will lead to a lot of irrelevant comments; this is happening right now while I'm writing this meta question

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I am the user who gave the Thailand answer.

My intent was not to say "I don't know about Italy, but this is how it works in Thailand", but rather "Is it possible that you source has confused Thailand and Italy?". I do not live in Thailand and had based my answer on something I recently read in a book.

Noone is infallible when it comes to memory. I frequent Arqade (the gaming site), and we used to (and unfortunately still do) get A LOT of "identify this game" questions that were just "here are some minor factoids I remember from this decade old game I played somewhere. What game am I talking about?" One of the core issues we had with this was that people tend to mix up their memories, often even attributing one game factoid to an entirely different game.

So the reason I said "This is what's going on in Thailand" was not to give a tangential remark on customs in other countries, but rather to provide an alternative interpretation based on incomplete or incorrect recollection, either by the OP's source or by the OP himself. Hence why I said "I think the person who told you that is mistaking Italy for Thailand", which is an entirely different tone from "I don't know about Italy, but here's how it works in Thailand and China".

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    But there is nothing in the question related to Thailand, so what would distinguish your answer from making it one about Russia, The Netherlands or Peru? I'm not doubting your good intention, but intentions is not what people see when they visit this site.
    – user40521
    Jul 10, 2017 at 12:54
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    @JanDoggen I picked Thailand because I ended up already being aware of this aspect of Thai culture, and added China during creation of the answer because my research showed that to be the case. If Russia, Peru or The Netherlands appeared in my research as well, I'd mention those as well. My point isn't to point out that one particular country has the described habit, but rather to point out the possibility that somewhere in the information chain that told the OP about this supposed Italian cultural aspect, someone misunderstood and attributed to Italy the culture of another country.
    – Nzall
    Jul 10, 2017 at 13:01

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