29

I recently had a declined flag on this answer. I'm guessing since the answer is accepted and has a high number of upvotes, that is the reasoning behind the declined flag.

The answer is an absolutely terrible, link-only answer:

Tim Abell wrote a macro to do this on his blog

It should be deleted as NAA. Or, the relevant content from the blog post should be included in the answer.

  • 6
    I'm with you on this one. It is not a valid answer per the rules of this site. – Hovercraft Full Of Eels Apr 20 '15 at 19:42
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    I'm guessing since the answer is accepted and has a high number of upvotes, that is the reasoning behind the declined flag ... I wouldn't guess. Could be a simple misclick. But the answer doesn't seem to have a lot of value beyond the link. – psubsee2003 Apr 20 '15 at 19:42
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    However, reading the question again - I do have a guess. The problem isn't the answer. The problem is the question - I am hoping there is a macro or an add-in that will do the trick. seems to suggest a tool request question. What kind of flag did you use? NAA? LQP? Custom flag? – psubsee2003 Apr 20 '15 at 19:45
  • I used NAA, I typically do on link-only answers. – Michael Irigoyen Apr 20 '15 at 19:46
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    @psubsee2003: Slightly reformulated. Still think it's the question? – Deduplicator Apr 20 '15 at 19:51
  • @Deduplicator fair point - that was a simply fix, but the top 2 answers both suck. Neither offers anything of value except a link. I got a little off-tangent, with the tool request point, but both answers need "fixed". – psubsee2003 Apr 20 '15 at 19:53
  • You know what's extremely strange, I flagged BOTH answers as NAA. One got marked "helpful," yet the answer still remains. The other one got flagged as "declined." – Michael Irigoyen Apr 20 '15 at 19:55
  • There's no benefit in deleting useful content (and an accepted answer, no less) and leaving behind an unanswered question. That helps no one. Editing is a far better option. Like exactly what @RobertHarvey did. – aroth Apr 21 '15 at 4:53
  • Double standards... – Salvador Dali Apr 21 '15 at 5:05
  • And the edit still doesn't actually answer the question. – mjs Apr 21 '15 at 9:27
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    @mjs - Clearly the answer satisfied the OP and at least 14 others. How is anything positive accomplished by coming in almost 6 years later and saying "nope, not good enough; you guys all got it wrong"? There needs to be a statute of limitations on these things, or something. Perhaps something like 'NAA flags are not available for answers that are > 2 years old and marked as accepted with a score of 3 or more'. – aroth Apr 21 '15 at 10:57
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    @aroth Not a bad idea putting a statute of limitations on older posts. I wouldn't want to see any flagging disabled, because there is still plenty of bad, old content out there. But perhaps, if a post is x amount of years old, the only flag you can raise is to a ♦ mod. – Michael Irigoyen Apr 21 '15 at 12:14
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    @MichaelIrigoyen: On questions which aren't locked, voting/flagging for closing should always be possible. – Deduplicator Apr 21 '15 at 13:14
  • @Deduplicator Don't disagree. Just perhaps there's a way to make it less... automated? I'd be interested to see the average age of flagged posts in the queue. – Michael Irigoyen Apr 21 '15 at 13:15
  • @Deduplicator Seems sensible. Its either locked for historical reasons, or should conform to the rules of the site – mjs Apr 21 '15 at 16:13
10

A substantial portion of the moderator queue is filled with flags like this on a regular basis, where a user takes it upon himself to flag a large number of highly-upvoted, checkmarked, link-only answers using an NAA flag.

Guess what the likelihood of such flags being marked helpful is?

Some things to consider:

  1. NAA is the wrong flag to use on this.

    When you cast an NAA flag, you're casting it because the poster is using the answer for some purpose other than answering the question, such as trying to communicate with another user or asking a new question. If the poster isn't trying to do that, then casting an NAA flag makes no sense.

    If you want your flag to be seriously considered in this situation, cast a custom flag, and explain why the answer is actively harmful to the site, and therefore justifies forcible removal by a mod, despite evidence from the community that they find the answer helpful.

  2. There are other things you can do to rescue these kinds of answers. You can leave a comment to the poster, link them to Are answers that just contain links elsewhere really “good answers”?, and ask them to summarize their answer in the post. You can summarize the answer yourself, by making a judicious edit. Either way, it's better than just disappearing the answer without explanation.

  • 9
    Part 1 of your answer goes against what George Stocker has to say about VLQ v. NAA answers. I know you said you're not going to argue about that, so I don't want to continue that discussion, but it's important to know that there is continuous disconnect between the proper way to flag cases such as this. – Michael Irigoyen Apr 20 '15 at 20:01
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    And why is it harmful to the site? It's literally a link to a blog and nothing more. I don't think anymore explanation is needed. It's not an answer. – Michael Irigoyen Apr 20 '15 at 20:02
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    Alrighty, custom flags it is in the future (though there is not a single doubt in my mind that this answer is NAA). Regardless, thanks for the clarification! – Michael Irigoyen Apr 20 '15 at 20:03
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    The only reasonable response that a moderator can make to an NAA flag is deletion. Why would they do that to a highly-upvoted, accepted answer? – Robert Harvey Apr 20 '15 at 20:05
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    Would you accept and act on other: "NAA, link preserved in other answer" / other: "NAA, other answer preserves the linked info"? Presuming those were true, naturally... – Deduplicator Apr 20 '15 at 20:07
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    Not on the accepted answer, no. – Robert Harvey Apr 20 '15 at 20:08
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    @MichaelIrigoyen Why not leave a comment to the user asking them to expand on the answer because it doesn't meet the quality standards that we expect? Also there is plenty of new bad content that could use your attention, why flag an answer from 2009 basically asking it to be removed? – Taryn Apr 20 '15 at 20:08
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    @Deduplicator Pointless yes, but users do it all the time. – Taryn Apr 20 '15 at 20:12
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    no amount of meta explanations can stop these flags from coming. Hundreds, if not thousands 2K users who have ever been in LQ review queue and saw respective deletion reason, will simply act by example of what they saw in the queue – gnat Apr 20 '15 at 20:34
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    @bluefeet Came across it randomly, honestly didn't even look at the date. Was busy with a few other things so flagged them and went on my way. – Michael Irigoyen Apr 20 '15 at 21:09
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    It's accepted, and highly upvoted. What's better for the site and the community in this case? Flagging it so that a human exception handler can delete it (thus making the question no longer have an answer) or taking the time to edit it and add a quote and thus improving the answer? – Josh Apr 21 '15 at 5:20
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    When the only possible response to an NAA flag is to delete the answer rather than to improve it, does this not simply mean that the flagging/moderation system is insufficient and fails to take into account this edgecase? Telling people to "use a different flag, not because of the meaning of the flag but because of the consequences of it" just seems like a leaky abstraction to me. – Sven Slootweg Apr 21 '15 at 15:41
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    @SvenSlootweg: When you cast an NAA flag, you're casting it because the poster is using the answer for some purpose other than answering the question, such as trying to communicate with another user or asking a new question. If the poster isn't trying to do that, then casting an NAA flag makes no sense. The remedy is to cast a custom flag and explain why you're casting it. – Robert Harvey Apr 21 '15 at 15:44
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    @RobertHarvey Okay, that wasn't really clear to me. Given the regularity with which such link-only answers appear, does this not warrant its own, pre-set flag? Something along the lines of "Just A Link". – Sven Slootweg Apr 21 '15 at 15:54
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    @SvenSlootweg: Link-only answers are too controversial to warrant their own flag. Even Are answers that just contain links elsewhere really “good answers”? has dissenting viewpoints, and it's considered canon. And there's still the little problem of people wanting to delete answers that actually contain a solution. – Robert Harvey Apr 21 '15 at 15:56

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