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I ran into this question today:

How to execute an SSIS package from .NET?

The accepted answer with 32 upvotes is just a link. Its a pretty old one too, which is probably why it hasn't been picked up by anyone. Is this flagable? I know in the good ol' days SO was a bit more lawless, but how should it be dealt with now?

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  • 1
    answered Nov 7 '08 at 21:53
    – Oded
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:44
  • 2
    All posts have to comply to the same rules. The age of a post does not matter. Flag it.
    – juergen d
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:44
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    I would not flag it, I would comment to the user (who is still around) asking if they could expand on their answer. If they don't, then suggest an edit to expand on it.
    – Taryn
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:45
  • @bluefeet ...and you'd do that 24,000 times right?
    – gnat
    Nov 27, 2013 at 13:04
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    @gnat sure why not? if I run across them, I will post a comment to the user asking them to improve their answer.
    – Taryn
    Nov 27, 2013 at 13:05
  • @bluefeet more power to you. This way, it took us about 7 months (March to October 2013) to cleanup link-only answers at Programmers, I guess it'll take about 700 months (about 60 years) to do so at Stack Overflow which is 100x times larger
    – gnat
    Nov 27, 2013 at 14:03

1 Answer 1

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I went ahead and converted that answer to a comment, as we would do today if flagged.

In particular since there is another, much more detailed and also highly voted answer.

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  • very nice i like <= borat
    – user221081
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:47
  • Whoever downvoted - care to discuss?
    – Oded
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:48
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    Do you think that maybe a comment should have been left to the person who answered explaining why it was deleted, stating that if they expand on the link-only, then it could be undeleted? I would be surprised if the person who received 32 upvotes doesn't post to meta asking why the answer was deleted. If a comment was added before you deleted it, it might prevent any question.
    – Taryn
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:48
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    @bluefeet - possibly. Though someone who has been on the site that long, with that kind of rep should understand without a comment.
    – Oded
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:50
  • I voted up cause the action was immediately taken
    – user221081
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:52
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    @Oded I'm just surprised by the fact that you deleted an accepted answer with 32 upvotes with absolutely no comment to the user. I foresee a meta post asking why that happened.
    – Taryn
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:52
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    @bluefeet - I did add a comment now... it is a fair point.
    – Oded
    Nov 27, 2013 at 12:53
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    I went ahead and converted that answer to a comment, as we would do today if flagged. Not that I disagree with that, but is that the consensus?, according to this meta discussion it isn't (meta.stackexchange.com/questions/183603/…). I just want to understand what to do when faced with a link only answer that tried to answer the question
    – Lamak
    Nov 27, 2013 at 13:05
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    @Lamak - flag it. Doesn't matter how old it is. Doesn't matter how many upvotes it has. Doesn't matter if it is the accepted one. There is consensus that link only answers are low quality.
    – Oded
    Nov 27, 2013 at 13:13
  • @Oded Ok, so I flag it as low quality, not "not an answer", right?
    – Lamak
    Nov 27, 2013 at 13:14
  • @Lamak - Right. "Not an Answer" is for things that are glaringly not answers (such as follow on questions, me too, thanks and such).
    – Oded
    Nov 27, 2013 at 13:15
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    I don't think I agree with the conversion of this answer to a comment. Just because an answer consists of little more than a link doesn't necessarily mean we should remove it or convert it to a comment. The fact that this was accepted and highly voted showed that people found value in it. The link was not broken. I typically decline flags that ask us to remove older answers like this.
    – Brad Larson
    Nov 27, 2013 at 15:38
  • I support the move 100%. We close newer questions (sometimes of higher quality) and point them to older questions. Thus as the standards of the site evolve, the "older" Q&A's must evolve with them.
    – Aaron Hall
    Jan 14, 2016 at 16:07

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