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NOTE
I have searched for this topic across the SO Meta and the SE Meta but can't find anything that really fits what I wanted to ask; I'm sure this topic has been answered/discussed before, but somehow those relevant results are not being dug up by me :-(.

I have found this answer which is an exact word-for-word copy and paste of another users answer.

Obivously I needed to flag this, however the standard "flags" listing didn't seem to remotely cover this situation. What I did was flag this for Moderator attention,

I was at first very hesitant to link in for Moderator attention as I felt that this concept (plagarism) was something that can be easily sorted by simply 3 (I + 2 others) can see the flag and clearly see that the post is a duplicate answer - in the same way that Close votes are decided.

So;

  • What is the correct way to deal with a plagarised answer?

  • Can it be made clearer on the "flag" dialogue how to deal with answers that are plagarised?

  • It seems logical to me that plagarised answers simply need standard flagging rather than adding workload to a Moderator. The Moderator approach felt 'over-elevated' to me.

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    It seems logical to me that plagarised answers simply need standard flagging rather than adding workload to a Moderator. The Moderator approach felt 'over-elevated' to me. Not to me. Flags need to be judged by someone, and having random community members judge plagiarism, without the ability to see past flags and suspensions or see all deleted answers, doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I think plagiarism is one of the cases where evaluation by a moderator is always needed. – Erik A Apr 9 at 9:24
  • Though not on topic for making a change to who should handle the flag, there was a discussion about how the flags are found and perhaps creating a separate flag for plagiarism in this answer by Brad Larson to ♦ moderation queue priority concerns in the comment section. – Scratte Apr 9 at 9:33
  • @ErikA I can see your point; I would expect it could be a review task for only those with enough reputation to view deleted answers etc. I had also not noted the further actions required for plagarism rather than for other review tasks (as noted in Zoe's answer). Cheers – Martin Apr 9 at 9:49
  • From that same user a curious case of self-plagiarism as well, here. – usr2564301 Apr 9 at 11:28
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    @usr2564301 I don't think there is such a thing as "self-plagiarism". One can rightfully pass the work off as one's own. – Scratte Apr 9 at 12:13
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    @Scratte well at least, it's answer duplication.... – Martin Apr 9 at 12:32
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    @Martin Absolutely. But handling it is not as straight forward. Maybe one Question is a duplicate. To determine that, it's best to know the technology. If I remember correctly there is a script that handles exact duplicate answers. I have no idea why it didn't work here. I think the consensus is to wait a day before flagging. – Scratte Apr 9 at 12:41
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What is the correct way to deal with a plagarised answer?

You raise a mod flag. Mods are the ones who handle plagiarism, and take any relevant action (some times warnings, other times suspension, always deletion of the relevant post). What happens depends on the user's history. Repeated offenders are more likely to be suspended, but this is slightly beside the point.

Normal users don't have anything to do with plagiarism, so you were right to flag for mod attention. It's just how the system is set up. Normal users can delete posts, but normal users cannot take the action plagiarism usually leads to. Plagiarism is a lot more serious than posting a bad question or answer, after all. I'm also guessing (read: I have no idea), but I think diamond moderators have some additional tools to help with plagiarism detection and handling. That's looking aside suspensions and mod messages.

The correct action is somewhat unintuitively mentioned on the referencing help page. Specifically, it links to this MSE post, which tells you exactly what to do when you find plagiarism. The post you linked is indeed flag worthy. While it does contain "attribution", it for one contains bad attribution, and violates this rule (see the referencing help page):

Do not copy the complete text of external sources; instead, use their words and ideas to support your own. And always give proper credit to the author and site where you found the text, including a direct link to it.

TL;DR: keep calm and mod flag.

(all of the above also applies to questions)

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    Thanks for the clear answer. I hadn't actually considererd the possible actions beyond post deletion (where, unlike with this, for "closed" topics that ends the issue) so that was a good point to note. Cheers – Martin Apr 9 at 9:46

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