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I flagged this answer for moderator attention, marking it as not an answer. This flag was declined because "flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer".

However, that answer does not contain any such inaccuracies, and is not wrong per se. Rather. it simply regurgitates what the OP already knows and expresses in his own question. Is there another reason for which this flag was declined?

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    "regurgitates what the OP already knows and expresses in his own question" <-- This is what makes it out of the scope of an NAA flag: it required the moderator to read and understand both the question and answer before making a ruling. That's a no-no for NAA flags. Jun 25, 2013 at 16:02
  • @GeorgeCummins If that's the case, what should I have done?
    – arshajii
    Jun 25, 2013 at 16:03
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    What should you have done? Vote it down. It's a lousy answer. That option is always available, irrespective of flagging. Jun 25, 2013 at 16:03

1 Answer 1

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It's an attempt to answer the question, and that makes the "not an answer" flag improper. It so happens that it's not a correct answer to the question, but that doesn't make it not an answer. In this particular case the reason the answer is incorrect seems to be that the answerer misunderstood the question. As a rule, whenever you think that the poster mis-understood the answer don't flag as NAA. You can either downvote, comment explaining the probelms, and/or post another competing answer that shows what you feel is a solution to the correct interpretation of the problem.

The NAA flag is for times where even the poster themselves doesn't think they're answering the question, such as saying things like, "I also have this problem." or "Why did you choose to Foo the Bar?" (which should just be a comment). It should also be clear to someone with no technical knowledge of the subject material to be able to see that it's not an answer. If it seems like it might be an answer (even if it's wrong) then you should be downvoting and optionally commenting, not flagging.

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    Thanks for the answer (very helpful for future reference). Looks like the answer I flagged was deleted anyway.
    – arshajii
    Jun 25, 2013 at 19:17

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