When is an answer eligible to be flagged as "not an answer"? What to do?

Question

When I am flagging answers I read

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.

This is very broad and does not say when an answer is eligible to (or should) be flagged.

Usually, this leads to rejection reasons that do not match the description or flag reason:

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(^ wrong rejection reason, complete opposite of what I said)

(^ wrong rejection reason, OP has explicitly excluded the answer)

(^ wrong rejection reason, OP has already tried)

And so on...

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There seems quite a mismatch in what (high reputation) users and moderators believe is wrong, or at least I can find no general text that tells me what to belief. I also don't like the guessing and debating that results from this, whereas understanding the moderator's view upon this can help a thousand times.

Hence, my three questions to the Super User moderators:

1. So, to get this cleared up, in which cases should we flag "not an answer" answers?

2. How should we flag eligible answers? What do we put as the close reason to be clear?

3. What do we do when the answer is ineligbile for flagging, but isn't a good answer?

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Here is an unmodified TL;DR summary of the important bits of the ♦ answers:

1. If the post makes an effort to answer the question (even if it does a bad job of it) then it is an answer and this particular flag doesn't apply.

2. Just flag them as not an answer. If you feel they're an odd case then flag them as other stating "not an answer; because x y z" or something similar.

3. Add a comment explaining the problem (or upvote any comment that has already done so). If it's particularly bad for some reason then downvote the post.

We need to remember that moderators are human exception handlers.

Answer 1

Here's my take.

It's how I interpret the flags here as a mod and how I use them elsewhere on the network as a user.

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In which cases should we flag "not an answer" answers?

The not an answer flag does not mean "this answer is not an answer to the question posed".
It means "the post isn't an answer at all" (see the "It should possibly be..." bit of the flag description, although the "deleted altogether" bit is painfully ambiguous)

I'd extend this to include answers that are answering something completely unrelated to the question at hand (eg, Q:"How do I backup my data?" A:"Mix together 300g flour, 100ml water, 250g prawns and a ripe banana"), but these are pretty rare to see anyway.

Not an answer does not include a post suggesting something the OP has already ruled out, such as in your 2nd and 3rd example flags. In that case it's just a "bad" answer (see answer to 3rd question).

It's not cut and dry, but essentially if the post makes an effort to answer the question (even if it does a bad job of it) then it is an answer and this particular flag doesn't apply.

How should we flag eligible answers? What do we put as the close reason to be clear?

I assume by "eligible answers" you mean those like I've outlined above as being not an answer?
And I'm assuming "close reason" is a typo for "flag reason"?
If those assumptions are correct then:

Just flag them as not an answer. If you feel they're an odd case then flag them as other stating "not an answer; because x y z" or something similar.

What do we do when the answer is ineligbile for flagging, but isn't a good answer?

First, I'm assuming there are no other problems with the post. Obviously if it's spam, offensive, appalling quality, etc you should flag it for whatever other reason might be suitable.

Assuming it can't be flagged for anything then the answer is valid within the confines of the system, it's not an exception and doesn't need moderator attention.

Add a comment explaining the problem (or upvote any comment that has already done so).
If it's particularly bad for some reason then downvote the post.

Answer 2

in which cases should we flag "not an answer" answers?

"it does not answer the question" … actually entitles you to flag anything that logically does not answer what the OP asked for.

Simple cases

This could be, in the most obvious cases:

• comments that don't really solve the problem (“reminds me of the time when my foo controller broke down as well …”)
• a follow-up to another answer if it's not a standalone answer of its own
• a clarification question that should have been posted as a comment
• "I have the same problem!"
• answers that exactly repeat what has already been said in other (possibly upvoted/accepted) answers
• random gibberish or otherwise unsalvageable posts
• spam

Redundant answers

Furthermore, you can flag:

• "don't do that!", unless the answer mentions why exactly this is a better solution. See also How to Answer:

  What, specifically, is the question asking for? Make sure your answer provides that – or a viable alternative. The answer can be “don’t do that”, but it should also include “try this instead”

• "use this alternative", if the OP specifically has ruled out this exact alternative beforehand (as confirmed by the discussion here).
  If the answer mentions why the alternative is a better solution and how it overcomes what the OP thought of as impossible, then it should stay though.

• "try this", if the OP specifically has already tried this (for example, as indicated in the original question or a follow-up comment).
  If you flag, make sure the answer was posted at a point in time where this was already known, otherwise then the person answering can't be blamed for not knowing (although short "try this" answers could be converted as comments if they're egregiously short).

Answers that don't logically answer the problem stated

Now, finally:

• answers that state the obvious / repeat the situation of the OP, unless they explain the backgrounds and why it happens.

  Recent Example:
  Q: "Sometimes I need to hold my power button for a few seconds to boot my device. Why?"
  A: "Holding the power button for a few seconds force-reboots your device".

  In these cases, if you're unsure, let the OP handle it. If the OP is not satisfied with an answer, they'll most likely drop a comment, just as the user did in the example above. Since the OP is trusted with knowing what answer helped them best (because they can choose to mark it as accepted or not), they should also have the final say in what answers their question and what not.

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How should we flag eligible answers? What do we put as the close reason to be clear?

Be as specific as possible. Mention if the OP has ruled out the answer too, this helps. Link to relevant meta posts. If unsure, raise it on chat.

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What do we do when the answer is ineligbile for flagging, but isn't a good answer?

Downvote, comment.

Answer 3

I've done my fair share of flagging over on SF and now I have a ♦ I've dealt with lots too.

As a high rep user there are few reasons for you to flag as you mostly have the tools to do what's necessary yourself (or in conjunction with other high rep users). You're pretty much stuck with Spam/Offensive or Not An Answer.

Remember that moderators are human exception handlers - the community should call on them when they can't do something themselves which should be rare as there is lots you can do.

Not an Answer

I tried to only flag 'answers' that didn't answer the question - the majority were 'me too' type of answers, stuff that should be comments or stuff that should have been an edit. I'd leave a comment about asking their own question merge text etc and then I'd flag saying what I'd done and what I thought was required.

If an answer was incorrect or said something that the OP specifically excluded then I'd leave a comment to that effect or downvote and comment etc - these are answers, you really shouldn't need to ask a moderator to deal with these as you have the tools to do it yourself.