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I had a flag declined on this answer with the message

declined - flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer

I feel like a C++ answer in a C# question is a wrong answer and not simply a technical inaccuracy. Is there an official position on this?

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A wrong answer is a technical inaccuracy.

The technical correctness of an answer is judged through votes. Moderators (and therefore flagging for moderator attention) are for problems with an answer other than its technical accuracy, such as whether it is offensive, not even an attempt to answer the question, etc.

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  • Ok yeah I misunderstood the moderator message. So any answer, no matter how out there is it, is an answer anyway. Got it! Thanks
    – dee-see
    Feb 27, 2014 at 21:37
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    @Vache Parsing the English statement and expressing it as a bitwise operation may help :) flags should not be used to indicate (technical inaccuracies | wrong answer)
    – slugster
    Feb 27, 2014 at 21:57
  • @slugster Haha indeed, google translator should offer that service
    – dee-see
    Feb 28, 2014 at 0:52
  • @slugster: Bitwise?! Do you mean "logical"?
    – Kerrek SB
    Feb 28, 2014 at 1:26
  • @KerrekSB Logical OR would use the double pipe (||), right? I've been working with some flag fields lately hence my use of bitwise. Either would achieve the same thing here though.
    – slugster
    Feb 28, 2014 at 1:35
  • That's conditional. Logical operators refer to logic gates. (But, yet even stranger, "the conditional operator" refers to ?: instead of || and &&.)
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    Feb 28, 2014 at 1:58
  • @slugster: Never mind notation, I was questioning why you would need to treat English bitwise. Usually, language has more to do with logic than with arithmetic.
    – Kerrek SB
    Feb 28, 2014 at 9:39
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While a wrong answer is still an answer, this is possibly an answer to a slightly different question, but that is still not flag worthy. It needs to be an answer to a completely unrelated question to be flag worthy. A moderator isn't suppost to need technical knowledge to handle a flag and they would need technical knowledge to act on that flag; I would just comment, downvote and move on

See the FAQ on how-do-i-properly-use-the-not-an-answer-flag

When should I not use this flag?

Do not use this flag when a user posts:

  • A partial answer
  • A wrong or inaccurate answer
  • An answer to a (slightly) different question
  • An answer you disagree with
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  • Looking at the actual code, I really think he was trying to answer that question. It's trying to solve the same problem, is using similar variable names, etc. And the code in the OP could be legal C++ code. He likely just missed the C# tag.
    – Servy
    Feb 27, 2014 at 21:42
  • @Servy True, I'm trying to find the link but from memory "an attempt answer to the question or to a closely related question should not be flagged NAA
    – Richard Tingle
    Feb 27, 2014 at 21:44
  • Of course it shouldn't be flagged NAA. He's trying to answer that question. It's a bad answer, but it's certainly an answer.
    – Servy
    Feb 27, 2014 at 21:45
  • @Servy Strictly speaking it isn't an answer to the question asked (even a wrong answer) but it is an answer to a closely related question which still shouldn't be flagged (not that it really matters, we both agree it shouldn't be flagged, we're just debating why)
    – Richard Tingle
    Feb 27, 2014 at 21:50
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The answer could potentially solve that situation if it were in that language. It does attempt to solve the problem being addressed. So it is definitely "an answer".

It is not spam or malicious.. It does have content issues in that it is in the wrong language, but I am not sure if that counts as severe.

Flagging is probably not the best course of action here. Just downvote if you feel the answer was not useful and move on.

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    A mod isn't going to delete an answer for being wrong, or not useful, not matter how many downvotes it gets. That's the whole point of this meta question. The mod is specifically stating that he won't delete the question for that reason, and he's correct to do so.
    – Servy
    Feb 27, 2014 at 21:43
  • @Servy - A mod might not do it, but I've had the community delete one of my answers (still deleted) because it answered the OPs question in an (obviously) non-useful way. It even had 3 upvotes to go along with the 7 downvotes. All this just to say it does happen...
    – Krease
    Feb 27, 2014 at 22:36

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