Require Second Opinion for Flagged Answers

Question

I just did a flag on following answers

• answer.
• answer
• answer
• answer
• answer

But from the moderator i got message like declined - flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer.

As per my opinion they could be comment more than a answer.

Am I correct ?

Answer 1

As far as I can tell, all five answers you listed look worth converting to comments.

• ^{Typical one-liners of fairly limited / questionable value. Converting such answers would preserve all the info that is there (if any), plus it will fix broken windows. Plus, it will help future visitors avoid false impression that answer sufficiently addresses the question - oh hashtable is covered in another answer OMG this answer is accepted, no need to explain further - yeah sure.}

Another thing I noticed is none of the answers you flagged would qualify as clarifying comment.

• ^{What is "clarifying comment"? Imagine question and answer like "- why my flag was declined? - what flag did you use?" You see, second is a clarifying comment, not an answer, not even intended to be an answer. Simply removing it would be wrong - because clarifying things is really important, but converting to comment is just what doctor ordered. I've seen this kind "answers" eg from users with insufficient privileges or from those who just don't understand how SO works.}

Now, let's look at the flag you used. At a first glance, it looks like good fit doesn't it. Description says, "should possibly be... a comment" - are we there yet? Actually, this is wrong way - and to understand why, one needs to check previous statement in description: "it does not answer the question" - but the answers you flagged really were intended to answer the question.

If you connect two pieces of this puzzle, you'll find out that flag description really fits clarifying comments - these just exactly 1) do not intend to answer and 2) should be comments.

As for the one-liners you listed, the way to flag these would be to use "Other" flag with suggestion to convert to comments and appropriate explanation. There is no predefined flag with canned message.

Safer way to read not an answer flag description could be like:

This was posted as an answer, but it does not intend to answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a clarifying comment, another question, or deleted altogether.

One willing to be a heavyweight flagger would better learn nuances like above.

---

_{Side note - if you feel discouraged with downvotes you received, thing worth taking into account is that per my observations, MSO community tends to negatively meet discussions like that. This is likely a matter of subjective preferences because for example, SU Meta guys appear to be more open to this kind topics. Negative attitude may be the reason why slippery flag description lives its long counter-productive life. Why worry about improving it when complaints are dumbvoted into oblivion.}

Answer 2

I looked at all 5 of your examples and they are all answers to their questions. They may not be the best answer (didn't evaluate that part), but they are honest answer-attempts, nonetheless.

As the decline-reason states, bad answers are not usually a flag-able offense. See "When should the “Not an Answer” flag be used?"... Although, I have had some luck flagging link-only answers.

When in doubt, give the poster the benefit of the doubt. Post a comment asking for clarification, or edit the post to make it more like a proper answer, if you can see a way to do that (and feel up to it).

~~~
Finally, the flagging system is usually pretty backlogged, we don't need to be adding unnecessarily to the moderator's job by requiring a second opinion. I don't agree with every call, and sometimes bad calls are reversed after posting on Meta, but bad flag calls are now infrequent enough that I, personally, just take my lumps and never flag again! soldier-on, bravely ;).

Answer 3

Question:

Are there any free or cheap tools that can display XML schemas as diagrams and allow visual editing?

Answer:

VS.NET Express (not sure about visual editing)

Well, that does answer the question. It's not a very detailed answer, and you might not even consider it helpful, but the proper action for answers that are not helpful is downvoting, not flagging.

After all, the text for flagging as not an answer reads:

This was posted as an answer, but it does not answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.

Again, it answers the question, so it is an answer.

---

Question:

I'm writing a simple web server. I'd like to let the user set the port the server listen to, but how could I know if the port the user input is already in use or not?(if I know it's already in use, I can tell them to input another one.)

Answer:

Just another approach :p try to connect to that port on localhost. (comments and down-votes are cooooomiiiiiiing...)

That is just plain wrong (and somehow should edit the last part out), but as the moderator said:

[...] flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer.

Wrong answers aren't potential edits, comments or other questions. Just wrong answers.

---

The other answers, I don't understand. I know little to nothing about Eclipse, mySQL and Java.

But it looks like they fall in the same category as the first two: bad answers (but answers after all).

Answer 4

Quoting..er..um...myself,

Flags are for slightly more serious things. Don't flag anything for an action that you have the privilege to carry out (there may be exceptions, but this is not one of them).

Not an answer is for posts that weren't intended to be answers. Not an answer != Not a correct answer

If you feel that the answer is misleading, incorrect, or incomplete, downvote and comment. Even ranty questions should be downvoted and commented, flag only if they are too offensive.

Also, if the question answers a different (related) question, it still should not get flagged--it was intended to be an answer. Just downvote and comment. Hopefully the answerer will read it and revamp the answer. Such answers don't need to be deleted--so the flag won't change much.

Here is the Not An Answer text:

This was posted as an answer, but it does not answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether

Note that it does not answer the question does not mean it is a wrong answer.

See also: When should the "Not an Answer" flag be used?

Answer 5

Quoting from SU meta When is an answer eligible to be flagged as “not an answer”? What to do?:

Here is an unmodified TL;DR summary of the important bits of the ♦ answers:

1. So, to get this cleared up, in which cases should we flag "not an answer" answers?

   If the post makes an effort to answer the question (even if it does a bad job of it) then it is an answer and this particular flag doesn't apply.

2. How should we flag eligible answers? What do we put as the close reason to be clear?

   Just flag them as not an answer. If you feel they're an odd case then flag them as other stating "not an answer; because x y z" or something similar.

3. What do we do when the answer is ineligbile for flagging, but isn't a good answer?

   Add a comment explaining the problem (or upvote any comment that has already done so). If it's particularly bad for some reason then downvote the post.

We need to remember that moderators are human exception handlers.