2

Okay, look. I've stumbled upon this first post: enter image description here (Having written the rest now this is a terrible example in hindsight as it's clearly VLQ but read on)

What do I do with this?

  1. Flag it as VLQ

That would be the perfect solution right? I'm not sure. VLQ describes itself and is described by the community as the last option after asking someone to improve their post themselves. Thing is how would I get a new user to improve it? Sure I could throw them a canned "Edit your answer to explain it to future readers" message but 9/10 times I'll get a reply saying "But why, it answers the question and that's it" (That is if I get a reply. I've commented on tons of posts without a single reply too). Though is it really necessary to already hit new users with deleting their posts while they were just trying to help?

  1. Ask them to edit the answer

But why? Why would they edit the answer if it answers the question in their eyes? This is something I've thought about a lot - From the quite large amount of comments I've left I can currently only recall one person actually editing their post (having to note though it was a question) from the comment. So I'm not really convinced by posting comments to ask for OP improvements as they rarely happen.

This post is a mess so far, sorry about that.

TLDR What do I do about posts that answer the question, but require editing by new users? When is the point at which a VLQ flag is required? Also I'd be interested in how many people actually have had someone reply to comments asking for improvements like this and have had them fix the issue. To me commenting rarely seems to help and flagging seems too harsh.

I am aware of asking way too many questions that could be answered with common sense though having been review suspended twice my common sense does not seem to fit the site whatsoever at times. So I'm asking questions to avoid getting permanently review banned (because I bet that'll happen next time I fail an audit).

7
  • 2
    Is it a valid answer? Some very simple questions invite very simple answers.
    – Erik A
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 16:40
  • 1
    @ErikvonAsmuth Well yes, sometimes even ten-character answers could answer a question, just without any relevance to future visitors. Also last time I called a short answer that was answering the question valid I got review suspended so I'm not sure about anything anymore
    – LW001
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 16:43
  • @LW001 If you were review banned then I strongly suspect there was some problem with the answer besides just its length.
    – Servy
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 16:45
  • The review part out of the way, when is a short answer a valid answer and when is a short answer a too short answer?
    – LW001
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 16:48
  • 2
    @LW001 There is no such thing as "too short" of an answer. If the answer provides a useful and complete answer to the question asked, it doesn't matter how short it is. Lots of questions can be answered with very short answers, and lots of very long answers are still incomplete, or reduce their own usefulness by obscuring the important information with irrelivant information. Post length simply doesn't correlate with usefulness at all.
    – Servy
    Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 16:50
  • 2
    The VLQ and NAA flags have become useless to get rid of unhelpful content. All you can hope for is that a DV will get the user to voluntarily delete his post. Commented Oct 9, 2017 at 17:09
  • The VLQ and NAA flags have always been useless to get rid of this type of answer. How is a moderator to know that the answer is wrong? We don't. For all we know, that's the correct answer. It certainly seems like it could be the right answer. Should we delete it just because the person who posted it doesn't know how to format their code? No, that's something the community (i.e., you) can fix by suggesting an edit. And if there's more information that needs to be provided, you can also add that. Or, you can leave a comment asking for clarification to be added to the answer. Commented Oct 10, 2017 at 4:21

1 Answer 1

7

The post shown certainly doesn't merit flagging as VLQ. It's not utter garbage that needs to be destroyed immediately. It's an answer to the question.

If there's something that you feel the answer is missing, then by all means, you're welcome to post a comment to explain what you feel the answer ought to cover that it does not.

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