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I had two flags rejected yesterday. I think I understand the lessons to take away from these, but I want to be certain.

Very Low Quality

The first post appears as though it was meant as a comment for another post—and, in fact, had been left as a comment as well. It wasn't a question for Stack Overflow and, in fact, made little sense outside the context of the original question. The post received six downvotes, and was later closed for lack of details and clarity. My flag, however, was declined because "a moderator reviewed your flag, but found no evidence to support it".

Lesson: As per The Limits of a Low Quality Answer (as linked from the flagging guide), the lesson is "yes, this question should be closed, but speedy deletion was not warranted here." In other words, downvoting it would have been appropriate—or using one of the less urgent flags, such as Needs details or clarity, as other reviewers used.

Not an Answer

The second post I had marked as Not an answer because it responded with a question as well as basic troubleshooting steps. From my perspective, it seemed to fit the criteria from the Usage guide for Not an answer:

A user... wants to reply to the OP, an answerer or a commenter, but doesn't have enough rep, and instead of thinking "maybe there's a reason I'm not allowed to post comments," ignores the help text about what an answer is.

My flag was declined, however, because "flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer."

Lesson: Even though the answer was phrased largely as verifying assumptions, it was still providing information which might have solved the OP's question, had the OP determined that the assumptions had not been met. As such, it wasn't obviously just a comment, as I had read it, and should have been left as is.

Are these valid interpretations? I want to continue flagging posts as appropriate—but want to make sure that my understanding of "as appropriate" is correct. Obviously, I need to be more careful with what flags I'm using.

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    We can't see your flag summary (your flags are confidential) so your first link isn't visible to normal users.
    – Wai Ha Lee
    Commented Mar 29, 2020 at 1:11
  • Thank you, @WaiHaLee. I was curious about that, but should have verified before including it here. I've edited the post to remove that link—and fixed a typo while I was at it. Commented Mar 29, 2020 at 1:15
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    Moderators can see your flag history through that link, as you can see your own, but regular users cannot. Moderators can also find your flag history through your profile, so including the link is not essential.
    – Cody Gray Mod
    Commented Mar 29, 2020 at 1:33
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    FYI: The SOCVR chat room is open for flag advice requests. If you post a message like Can someone help me decide if [this answer/question](url to post) is VLQ (or NAA)? the regulars are happy to help you out and offer guidance.
    – rene
    Commented Mar 29, 2020 at 11:10
  • @rene: Oh, I had no idea about that! Thank you! When reviewing queues, I still skip the majority of posts because I can make arguments in either direction. Having access to those discussions would be really useful in calibrating my intuition. Commented Mar 29, 2020 at 19:58
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    @rene: I wanted to thank you again for recommending the SOCVR chat room. I had the opportunity to use it for the first time the other day, and it was really useful. (And also less adversarial than Meta can sometimes feel—though I’m sure that’s largely in my head.) I’ll definitely make use of that again in the future, as I inevitably stumble across edge cases, or areas that fall outside of the clear cut guidance of the FAQs. Commented Apr 16, 2020 at 8:07

1 Answer 1

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Your "very low quality" (VLQ) flag was raised on this question. A moderator declined it using the logic that it did not need to be moderator-deleted in response to a flag, but rather just needed to be closed. I personally disagree with that. I think the question you flagged was a valid candidate for instant mod-deletion, and thus a VLQ flag. However, moderator opinions on this differ. More discussion on that in my answer here: When is a closeable question a very low quality question?

I wouldn't worry too much about the declined VLQ flag. If there is any lessons you should take from it, it is that:

  1. Moderators are humans, and our judgment differs. Some declined VLQ flags are inevitable, due to varying interpretations of "very".

  2. The simplest thing to do with inappropriate questions is to vote/flag them for closure. Downvoting is also always an appropriate action, but should be done in conjunction with voting/flagging for closure.

Your "not an answer" (NAA) flag was raised on this answer. I'm going to have to agree with the moderator who declined that flag; I would have done the same. Why? Because it is actually attempting to answer the question. While it does so in the form of a rhetorical question, it is not actually trying to ask a new question. It's making a suggestion on what the asker should try in order to resolve the problem. If the rhetorical question were rephrased as a statement, then would it be obviously an attempt to answer? I think so.

I also don't see it as a "link-only answer". Could the answer be improved? Absolutely. But there is meaningful information presented in the body of the answer, and even if the link goes dead, I can still learn something by reading it. Even in its current form, it is not something that needs to be deleted by a moderator.

You can find some better advice on how to use the NAA flag in this FAQ. This is what almost all moderators follow when evaluating NAA flags. Flagging answers that contain rhetorical questions is a common failure mode, which is what I believe happened in this case. So is flagging answers for being technically incorrect. Moderators don't judge the technical correctness of posts. If it looks like a valid attempt to answer the question, we will decline NAA flags on it.

Overall, my suggestion to you would be to think of NAA and VLQ flags as informing a moderator that the post needs to be immediately deleted. With that way of thinking, you will almost never go wrong. This is fundamentally how moderators interpret these flags. Also, under this interpretation, there becomes essentially no distinction between NAA and VLQ. That, too, is correct. Most moderators interpret them identically. Proposals have been made to collapse them together into a single "unsalvageable" or "needs to be deleted" flag; I continue to support those proposals, and recommend that you use the flags as if they were so labeled.

If the answer is just wrong, then you (or the community) could deal with that yourself by downvoting it; no moderator intervention/deletion is required. If the answer is not as good as it could be, then you (or the community) could deal with that yourself by editing it. If the question is unsuitable for Stack Overflow in its current form, then you (or the community) could deal with that yourself by editing, downvoting, and/or voting to close. Moderator intervention is not required in these cases.

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  • Cody, I realize I never got a chance to tell you how truly useful and welcome this feedback has been. Based on your detailed guidance, I’ve felt much more comfortable and confident flagging posts—and, in fact, have raised over fifty helpful flags since. (In that time, I did raise one declined flag, but I discussed it with SOCVR and have further refined my heuristic based on their feedback.) I know answers like this take time to write up, and wanted you to know that the effort was not in vain. Thank you. Commented Apr 16, 2020 at 8:00

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