Please note that this answer is aimed at any moderator.

Please just keep in mind that we only act on posts that are flagged not an answer by the community. If they want it as a comment, then indicate as such :)

When we click flag button and read the description of not an answer, we see:

This was posted as an answer, but it does not answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.

So, people click not an answer in the case that they want it to be a comment.

The problem is we convert it to a comment and someone tells them to make it the answer so they can accept it, and the circle just starts again. Why can't we just not have high quality posts from the beginning?

Agreed. I think the answer should instead be flagged with low quality by our users rather than with not an answer in those cases, which means that you can safely say the flag is invalid. Just leave a comment asking to include a summary on such low quality posts, it doesn't make sense to turn it into a comment or to even delete it. An answer is an answer, even when the only effort that has been done was on Google. This is where a General Reference close reason would work well, but it does not exist yet...

Also keep in mind, when the answer is too short, the system displays a message telling the poster that his answer might not be accepted because it doesn't meet the minimum criteria. If they read it and skip it outright, and it gets flagged, is it really our job to make it a comment?

Agreed, although the job becomes simple with Pro Forma Comments.

I will admit there are exceptions to this, but 95% of the time it turns out to be spam or drive by posters.

No comment as I'm not in statistics. I think this depends on what type of posts you are looking at, I have a feeling that the 5% is higher as there are probably some low reputation regulars that might also make posts similar to the one @slhck quoted, perhaps of a bit better quality but still a bad quality overall.

The community can handle these with there editing abilities before it even comes to the moderator's attention.

Agreed, if what I said about flagging with low quality is done (or a comment is left), users that use the /review section could help by including the summary of the link into the post. It's usually just a copy / paste where the only thing left to do is a bit of formatting, which is very similar to usual edits.

We are sometimes extremely hard on moderating the site, due to past issues which we do not want to rehash.

Agreed, don't feed the helper vampires; although you can't expect new users to know most things...

Of course, it takes a lot of time, so perhaps we might look into a solution where moderators have delete reasons which automatically leaves a comment to the user. Similar to Pro Forma Comments, but then available to all moderators by default...

Please note that this answer is aimed at any moderator.

Please just keep in mind that we only act on posts that are flagged not an answer by the community. If they want it as a comment, then indicate as such :)

When we click flag button and read the description of not an answer, we see:

This was posted as an answer, but it does not answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.

So, people click not an answer in the case that they want it to be a comment.

The problem is we convert it to a comment and someone tells them to make it the answer so they can accept it, and the circle just starts again. Why can't we just not have high quality posts from the beginning?

Agreed. I think the answer should instead be flagged with low quality by our users rather than with not an answer in those cases, which means that you can safely say the flag is invalid. Just leave a comment asking to include a summary on such low quality posts, it doesn't make sense to turn it into a comment or to even delete it. An answer is an answer, even when the only effort that has been done was on Google. This is where a General Reference close reason would work well, but it does not exist yet...

Also keep in mind, when the answer is too short, the system displays a message telling the poster that his answer might not be accepted because it doesn't meet the minimum criteria. If they read it and skip it outright, and it gets flagged, is it really our job to make it a comment?

Agreed, although the job becomes simple with Pro Forma Comments.

I will admit there are exceptions to this, but 95% of the time it turns out to be spam or drive by posters.

No comment as I'm not in statistics. I think this depends on what type of posts you are looking at, I have a feeling that the 5% is higher as there are probably some low reputation regulars that might also make posts similar to the one @slhck quoted, perhaps of a bit better quality but still a bad quality overall.

The community can handle these with there editing abilities before it even comes to the moderator's attention.

Agreed, if what I said about flagging with low quality is done (or a comment is left), users that use the /review section could help by including the summary of the link into the post. It's usually just a copy / paste where the only thing left to do is a bit of formatting, which is very similar to usual edits.

We are sometimes extremely hard on moderating the site, due to past issues which we do not want to rehash.

Agreed, don't feed the helper vampires; although you can't expect new users to know most things...

Of course, it takes a lot of time, so perhaps we might look into a solution where moderators have delete reasons which automatically leaves a comment to the user. Similar to Pro Forma Comments, but then available to all moderators by default...

_{This answer reflect's Diago's answer.}

Please just keep in mind that we only act on posts that are flagged not an answer by the community. If they want it as a comment, then indicate as such :)

When we click flag button and read the description of not an answer, we see:

This was posted as an answer, but it does not answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.

So, people click not an answer in the case that they want it to be a comment.

I think as a long time mod you haven't seen the dialog for some time, seems like a misunderstanding...

The problem is we convert it to a comment and someone tells them to make it the answer so they can accept it, and the circle just starts again. Why can't we just not have high quality posts from the beginning?

Agreed. I think the answer should instead be flagged with low quality by our users rather than with not an answer in those cases, which means that you can safely say the flag is invalid. Just leave a comment asking to include a summary on such low quality posts, it doesn't make sense to turn it into a comment or to even delete it. An answer is an answer, even when the only effort that has been done was on Google. This is where a General Reference close reason would work well, but it does not exist yet...

Also keep in mind, when the answer is too short, the system displays a message telling the poster that his answer might not be accepted because it doesn't meet the minimum criteria. If they read it and skip it outright, and it gets flagged, is it really our job to make it a comment?

Agreed, although the job becomes simple with Pro Forma Comments.

I will admit there are exceptions to this, but 95% of the time it turns out to be spam or drive by posters.

No comment as I'm not in statistics. I think this depends on what type of posts you are looking at, I have a feeling that the 5% is higher as there are probably some low reputation regulars that might also make posts similar to the one @slhck quoted, perhaps of a bit better quality but still a bad quality overall.

The community can handle these with there editing abilities before it even comes to the moderator's attention.

Agreed, if what I said about flagging with low quality is done (or a comment is left), users that use the /review section could help by including the summary of the link into the post. It's usually just a copy / paste where the only thing left to do is a bit of formatting, which is very similar to usual edits.

We are sometimes extremely hard on moderating the site, due to past issues which we do not want to rehash.

Agreed, don't feed the helper vampires; although you can't expect new users to know most things...

Of course, it takes a lot of time, so perhaps we might look into a solution where moderators have delete reasons which automatically leaves a comment to the user. Similar to Pro Forma Comments, but then available to all moderators by default...

Please note that this answer is aimed at any moderator.

Please just keep in mind that we only act on posts that are flagged not an answer by the community. If they want it as a comment, then indicate as such :)

When we click flag button and read the description of not an answer, we see:

This was posted as an answer, but it does not answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.

So, people click not an answer in the case that they want it to be a comment.

The problem is we convert it to a comment and someone tells them to make it the answer so they can accept it, and the circle just starts again. Why can't we just not have high quality posts from the beginning?

Agreed. I think the answer should instead be flagged with low quality by our users rather than with not an answer in those cases, which means that you can safely say the flag is invalid. Just leave a comment asking to include a summary on such low quality posts, it doesn't make sense to turn it into a comment or to even delete it. An answer is an answer, even when the only effort that has been done was on Google. This is where a General Reference close reason would work well, but it does not exist yet...

Also keep in mind, when the answer is too short, the system displays a message telling the poster that his answer might not be accepted because it doesn't meet the minimum criteria. If they read it and skip it outright, and it gets flagged, is it really our job to make it a comment?

Agreed, although the job becomes simple with Pro Forma Comments.

I will admit there are exceptions to this, but 95% of the time it turns out to be spam or drive by posters.

No comment as I'm not in statistics. I think this depends on what type of posts you are looking at, I have a feeling that the 5% is higher as there are probably some low reputation regulars that might also make posts similar to the one @slhck quoted, perhaps of a bit better quality but still a bad quality overall.

The community can handle these with there editing abilities before it even comes to the moderator's attention.

Agreed, if what I said about flagging with low quality is done (or a comment is left), users that use the /review section could help by including the summary of the link into the post. It's usually just a copy / paste where the only thing left to do is a bit of formatting, which is very similar to usual edits.

We are sometimes extremely hard on moderating the site, due to past issues which we do not want to rehash.

Agreed, don't feed the helper vampires; although you can't expect new users to know most things...

Of course, it takes a lot of time, so perhaps we might look into a solution where moderators have delete reasons which automatically leaves a comment to the user. Similar to Pro Forma Comments, but then available to all moderators by default...