BTW this is not restricted to software questions only obviously. I've seen more than one question where the OP admitted that when they reinserted the card/cable/doodad it worked fine "this time".

@DanielBeck: Yep, in this case there was at least a question edit and answer, but I've seen just a comment being left and nothing else (no answer selected obviously because none was correct, and no self-answer either). Anyway, even with a self-answer there's no reason the question can't be closed. That's what I'm asking, what do we do with all such cases, irrespective of where the OP admitted his fault?

@KronoS: Here's one with a few comments but no answers apart from the OP's own: superuser.com/questions/602546. I have seen lots of similar instances in the past that I can't track down now, which were worse in the sense that multiple comments/answers had been posted by people and finally there was just a small hidden comment from the OP stating XYZ had been forgotten after all. I'll add links if I can locate any of them (I distinctly remember upvoting the OP's comment each time just so it would be visible to others).

@DanielBeck: Questions where people assume the OP knows what he is talking about and if at all someone asks the OP to double-check, is told that steps were followed accurately. Hence time is wasted by people trying to solve what seems to be a puzzling issue. Finally it is the OP himself who admits that a mistake was indeed made and now the problem is "solved".

While I do not agree that nuking should always be the recommended solution, I guess tech savvy users who can attempt a proper system cleanup wouldn't really be posting here desperately asking for help either. I agree with @OliverSalzburg, IMO such questions are far more suited to any of the various malware removal fora where users can be hand-held through the process of providing HiJackThis logs and subsequent follow-ups. A Q&A site like this is just not suited to the extensive back and forth required for successful resolution of such problems.

@Breakthrough: Don't forget, too many deleted questions might lead to a question ban.

If you're interested now might be a good time to figure out an appropriate SEDE query to answer your own question. :)

Oh wow, the voting on that SF question/answer is just plain ridiculous.

IMO this is going to require pages and pages of documentation, duplicating much of what's already out there and available on the different distro sites/wikis. Also much of the UEFI/Secure Boot stuff is still very much in flux. Collecting it all in one place is not a bad idea if properly done (shouldn't become a complicated mess or a huge dump that no-one can make head or tail of), but is a question on the site the best way to do this? Perhaps a series of SU blog posts by experts dedicated to one topic each would be better when it comes to tackling something like this?

Precisely, explain why you think it's pointless. Other than revenge downvoting, people generally don't go on a downvoting binge. Besides the (minor) loss to the downvoter's rep, pulling down other valid answers provides no great advantage that I can think of. Perhaps you can and would like to share?

@DanielBeck: I agree, and perhaps it makes sense to deal with these on a per-question basis. For example, does this one qualify and should it be closed?

+1, very nice suggestion! It has always irritated me that clicking the link silently inserts comments and I need to go back and start reading from the top again so I get the proper order and "flow". I personally wouldn't really mind if all comments were displayed by default, but others may not agree and of course loading on demand reduces server load no doubt.

@DanielBeck: Yeah, these changes have certainly thrown many of us for a loop. We were all used to closing as dupe irrespective of answer status; you much longer than me of course.

Must admit it doesn't help matters when we're sent mixed signals like this.

@slhck: Cool, good to know about the flags, and yeah, I know from experience that moderating can be a tiring and often thankless job. So, status-completed I guess?

@slhck: Thanks a lot, really appreciate your detective work. :) I actually thought that since Daniel had taken cognisance of this post he'd have gotten rid of them already, but KronoS' comment made me think a flag might be required after all. So did I have to flag or could you guys have taken care of this after just reading this post? Is a flag absolutely required to initiate action?

@DanielBeck: Doh! I just flagged one of the non-answers, but linked to the wrong meta post! I had the one KronoS linked to above open and copy-pasted its URL instead. Tried to re-flag with proper link but seems that's not allowed since my second flag never showed up in my list. Sorry for the mixup.