Timeline for When is an answer eligible to be flagged as "not an answer"? What to do?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 12, 2020 at 13:47 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
|
|
| Apr 21, 2012 at 20:12 | comment | added | slhck | Yeah, I can see that in many cases there's a subtle difference to consider. If the answer goes into explaining further, where the OP went wrong, etc., then that's okay. It's just that in the above case, there was literally no value added, which even the OP had confirmed (and who's better to judge?) | |
| Apr 20, 2012 at 15:43 | vote | accept | Tamara Wijsman | ||
| Apr 20, 2012 at 9:38 | comment | added | DMA57361 Mod | CC @slhck for above. Plus: Perfect consistency with the handling of edge cases is never going to occur (here or on the wider SE network), because not everyone agrees on which side of the fence each edge case lands on (or even if the fence exists, or what colour it is). That's true of the SE staff, mod teams and all the communities, and this is broadly a good thing imo (else they'd be no way to develop and change anything). That said, improving the consistency of flag handling can't really be a bad thing. | |
| Apr 20, 2012 at 9:34 | comment | added | DMA57361 Mod | I agree some of these suggest-something-question-has-excluded answers could be deleted, but it should not be an automatic reason to remove an answer. Consider that the OP maybe hadn't realised Y really could solve X how they wanted, so suggesting particular usage of Y could be the answer they really needed, in a sort of reverse XY Problem style. Sometimes of course it's clear that isn't the case, so downvote/comment etc. But imo they only deserve deletion if the answer doesn't add any value. @DanielBeck | |
| Apr 20, 2012 at 9:31 | comment | added | Tamara Wijsman | @DanielBeck: Exactly what I experience when flagging, moderators handle the same type of flag differently; consistency would indeed help here. Unaccepted the answer till it is resolved. I've not chosen to include that in the copy-pasted TL;DR summary anyway, because we have those two questions to refer to. But indeed, this full answer and flagging on SU show inconsistenties... | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 21:33 | comment | added | slhck | Also inconsistent with this comment by nhinkle♦: > I agree, in situations like these we should be deleting answers which suggest doing something that the asker already ruled out. /cc @dan, so maybe, DMA57361, could you discuss this with your fellow colleagues so we get a final, official response? | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 18:44 | comment | added | Daniel Beck Mod | Inconsistent with this ♦ moderator post, unfortunately. While this explains the moderator behavior, it doesn't exactly resolve the problem. These "answers" are useless... | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 13:39 | comment | added | Tamara Wijsman | @Iain: Hey, that's great, +1ed it. | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 13:34 | comment | added | user35787 | @TomWijsman: When I was trying to marshal the 10k+ users on SF I asked that /review have a delete tab added to make it easier for us to see what was being nominated. More votes may help get it noticed. | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 13:01 | vote | accept | Tamara Wijsman | ||
| Apr 20, 2012 at 9:29 | |||||
| Apr 19, 2012 at 12:58 | comment | added | Tamara Wijsman | @slhck: Hmm, indeed a problem. Another meta question to raise that issue (perhaps even Meta.SO)? Or perhaps I should stop caring and leave from this whole moderation thing and just answer tons of questions instead, perhaps throw in an edit here and there... :/ | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 12:56 | comment | added | slhck | @TomWijsman Sounds like an idea, but let's face it: How many actively moderating 20k users do we have? You, Daniel, Journeyman, me, that's about it. Even the VtC/D room needs help from moderators for just closing questions, which even 3k users can do. | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 12:52 | comment | added | Tamara Wijsman | @slhck: I think we (as high reputation users) should band together and sort out what we will use our delete votes for, perhaps in the VtC/D room? Not to undermine / override moderator's actions, but to delete stuff where we can do it and a moderator isn't really required. And if a moderator wants to, he can always jump into VtC/D room and walk through a few. As for your last comment, I kind of feel the same as to make the viewers read less stuff, that's why we are removing thanks, HTH from posts and more too... | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 12:48 | comment | added | Tamara Wijsman | Thanks @DMA57361, also welcome back (didn't see you handling flags / active for some time) to Super User. I will no longer use "not an answer" for "low quality / dumb" posts... :) | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 11:25 | comment | added | slhck | @iain I've done my fair share of flagging too (> 1200 now), but my understanding was that anything that doesn't attempt to solve the problem should be deleted, because it's noise. This applies to redundant answers too, because there's no value gained from keeping them around. | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 11:07 | comment | added | user35787 | @slhck: Then the community should deal with it themselves as they have the tools - down vote and comment . | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 10:55 | comment | added | slhck | The third flag has nothing to with that too, the "answer" just said, "try X", while the OP already mentioned that he had tried X | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 10:35 | comment | added | slhck | > Not an answer does not include a post suggesting something the OP has already ruled out – I believe the community begs to differ, as indicated by my previous meta question on this subject. There's no point in keeping redundant/obsolete answers around (unless they explain why something the OP has ruled out is not a good idea or where there's a workaround). | |
| Apr 19, 2012 at 10:17 | history | answered | DMA57361Mod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |