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I've seen "answers" which are simply factually wrong, and have commented on those "answers" to correct it, even providing the proof of the facts, but the posters are simply refusing.

I've tried suggesting edits, but they've all been rejected with as reason "This edit deviates from the original intent of the post. Even edits that must make drastic changes should strive to preserve the goals of the post's owner." which is, frankly, ridiculous. If someone were to post 1+1=3 (fictional example, obviously), and I suggest an edit to correct it or suggest an edit which adds a note that this is factually wrong, then of course my edit goes against the intent of the poster who is trying to push the fantasy that 1+1=3.

I've tried flagging the "answer", providing proof that the statement is indeed factually wrong, and ask for a correction or removal, but then I get rejected too, with the message "declined - flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer".

What else is there to do? Commenting, editing, flagging, all of them lead to nothing!
I've read downvoting but that's a ridiculously naive option. The post has several upvotes already because the "answer" looks complex (creates fake trustworthiness) and is popular in certain niche groups (think flat earth groups, but less obviously wrong).

Is there no adequate way to deal with such blatant lies and factually wrong answers?
That's very depressing for a site which is all about spreading information and an unacceptable blemish on its reliability.
Without the proper tools to make sure that stated claims are indeed correct this place will devolve in a site for tinfoil opinions and fantasies and not actual; objective facts.

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  • 5
    Moderators aside, it takes more than one person to "bring down" a post. This is by design so that a rogue user cannot destroy the site. So even if you feel strongly that something needs to be removed, you need to convince other users to flip to your side. This is usually done by downvoting, commenting, or going to the appropriate chatroom to source other people to do the same. Moderators generally don't get involved unless the moderator is also an expert in the subject - in which the moderator will try participate as a normal user (keeping in mind that whatever action they take is binding).
    – Mysticial
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 16:26
  • Related, but not dupe: Would it be possible to have a “community accepted” feature?
    – SOLO
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 19:03
  • You'd probably get better discussion if you used some 10 cent words instead of $2 ones. My eyes glosses over trying to parse what you are getting at. That being said, we already have the tools to deal with all this. Sometimes, it works better than others.
    – patricksweeney
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 19:36

3 Answers 3

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You've done everything you can do. Downvote, for sure. Leave a comment if it will be helpful. If you're feeling really kind and/or motivated, write your own, correct, answer. Then move on.

If it's as inaccurate as you say, the community will reward it with downvotes and future readers will see that it is not valuable.

One other thing: Moderators don't remove "wrong" answers. (They generally don't step in for anything that the community can do by itself.) You might try bringing up a discussion on the meta for the site where you're seeing this, to see what the community thinks about dealing with what you say is blatantly incorrect information.

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The way to deal with incorrect answers is to downvote them and or write your own if you know what the correct answer is so your correct answer can accumulate upvotes.

Incorrect answers do have value, they tell you what not to do. So if it's something you were considering as a possible solution you know not to go down that road. Even if there are no other answers you can rule out that path as something you need to investigate yourself, that will save you from one blind alley even if you end up going down several others.

When you are a trusted user (20K on non-beta sites). You can vote to delete negatively scored answers so there is a mechanism for subject matter experts to delete things if necessary. 3 delete votes is enough to delete an answer.

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I'm from Anime&Manga and I applaud your effort in compiling such a huge answer on that question. That's pretty cool and deserves a couple upvotes for sure.

What you did by sharing the information you've found is good, and downvoting the other answer is perfectly acceptable also. For various good reasons it's not allowed to edit other people's answers adding things like "this entire answer below is wrong". Best you can do is what you already did.

Random people who view these posts will find that there are more than 1 answer and draw their own conclusions from the information available to them. After all, learning what information could have led to misguided wrong answers is also part of the fun! So don't worry about that. I hope you have a good time using these sites, learning and sharing information together.

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  • Thank you for the kind words. I don't believe in the all correcting power of votes, though. Facts are not a popularity contest. Especially in this case where the English speaking fandom (not the Japanese) massively believes in a fan theory which has been repeated contradicted by the show staff. Of course will the debunked theory get upvotes, this is an English site. With the upcoming sequel this fan theory is harmful as it will no doubt damage the fandom because so many people simply believe a non-canon fantasy and many people will erroneously think the show staff have "betrayed the canon" ...
    – Lelouch vi Britannia
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 19:13
  • ... while in reality it's them who have been wrong all these years, because people on sites such as this have been pushing for a theory which was never correct. Fan rage a backlash seems to be in fashion these days, the staff of Darling in the FranXX, for example, even got death threats. I do NOT want that to happen to Code Geass as well, all because of widespread disinformation. But sites such as this, which don't allow correcting factually wrong statements aggravate the situation. Writing comments under the wrong answers don't do anything either. i've already done that to no avail ...
    – Lelouch vi Britannia
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 19:17
  • For one, there's already too many comments, so mine aren't even visible, and secondly the original writer of the contradicted claims simply shrugs and does nothing. That's why more steps need to be taken against potentially harmful lies on this website. If flagging for takedown is not possible, then a mod should edit or allow editing of the incorrect answer to make clear to the viewer that the answer is in fact demonstrably false. Not just in this case, but in general. The reliability of this site suffers if anyone can just post whatever and all we can do is vote and pray.
    – Lelouch vi Britannia
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 19:22
  • @LelouchviBritannia Give it some time. You've already done all you can. Your answer has already accumulated 5 votes in 3 days. By comparison, the answer which you've taken an issue with has had 6 years to accumulate 22 votes. With time, yours will rise up. But as a rule, answers which are wrong or outdated do not get deleted for those reasons alone.
    – Mysticial
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 20:45

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