10

I saw this answer in the Low Quality posts queue. It's an incorrect guess at the answer.

Should I nominate it for deletion? Is it okay to judge answers in the review queue based on technical correctness?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
15

Incorrect answers should be downvoted, not removed.

That said, the answer you link to is probably more suitable as a comment. It's a one-liner than doesn't explain anything; not really an answer.

Improve this answer
14
  • 2
    You can help them earn their Peer Pressure badge! It's really the decent thing to do.
    – Brad Mace
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:10
  • So on the review page should I incorrectly say that it "Looks good", or just downvote and skip it with "Not Sure"?
    – Peter Olson
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:10
  • @PeterOlson Downvote and click "looks good", just for the irony of it ;)
    – yannis
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:11
  • 1
    You can't downvote from the review queue. Unfortunately.
    – bfavaretto
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:11
  • @bfavaretto Do I smell a feature request?
    – yannis
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:12
  • 9
    I am not convinced I agree with keeping incorrect answers on the site; what's the rationale?
    – Dave Newton
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:13
  • 3
    @DaveNewton Sometimes it's extremely valuable to show people what not to do. Also only a very small subset of users can delete posts, we can't expect them to be able to judge the technical correctness of potentially every post on the site.
    – yannis
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:15
  • 4
    @YannisRizos While I agree it may be valuable to have examples of what not to do, I'd rather see SO be a collection of right stuff, not wrong. Users can vote to delete at some point, after a post has downvotes. AFAIC, incorrect, downvoted answers should be deleted, and that's why we have the power to vote for deletion.
    – Dave Newton
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:40
  • @DaveNewton First thing you do when you happen upon an incorrect post is to downvote it. If you can vote to delete and you think it should be removed, then by all means do so, but don't ask others to delete it for you (notice the question is about nominating the answer for deletion).
    – yannis
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:42
  • @YannisRizos You mean this feature request?
    – Troyen
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 2:46
  • I agree with Dave Newton that technically incorrect answers should be deleted. But this doesn't require flagging or any moderation intervention. Most of the time the natural process happens and the OP deletes the answer themselves after receiving a few downvotes. Now, there is a separate problem of people not downvoting nearly enough and some people even upvoting these answers.
    – Esailija
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 4:41
  • @Esailija Exactly why technically incorrect answers should be downvoted rigorously.
    – yannis
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 5:17
  • Incorrect answers should definitely be removed. They tend to confuse newbies (i. e. if someone answers you have to free() a string literal and somebody does it, it will crash, right?)
    – H2CO3
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 7:47
  • @H2CO3 That's why we downvote them, would you seriously try something suggested in a -5 answer? But you would certainly know what to avoid.
    – yannis
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 9:53

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .