Proposal for making the meaning of "Not an Answer" flags clearer

Question

SE has specific flagging reasons, not to make it possible to flag (we already have that with custom flags), but to give guidance on valid reasons to flag.

The "Not an Answer" flag comes with a description that implies its proper use (which I suspect that many people don't read or simply ignore):

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

In other words, the OP is trying to add additional information to their question in an answer, someone is trying to communicate with another user in an answer, someone is posting a new question, or someone is posting nonsense.

"Not an Answer" flags are widely abused to mean "wrong answer" or "I don't like or agree with the answer". This is a problem for the Review Audits algorithm, because sometimes it gets things wrong when moderators dismiss such flags as helpful. It is also a problem for the mods, who now have to take extra time to figure out what is really wrong with the post, take the appropriate moderator action, and then decline the flag (it also modifies their workflow, since they are declining a flag in contravention to the moderator action).

Perhaps it is time that, instead of hinting at the correct uses of Not an Answer, we should simply spell them out, and leave custom flags for the remaining cases. So our flagging dialog would now contain these specific radio buttons to choose from:

• it is spam (an unsolicited commercial advertisement)
• it is offensive, abusive, or hate speech
• it should be edited into the question
• it is an attempt to communicate with some other user (should be a comment)
• it is a new question
• it is not in English, cat on keyboard, or other nonsense
• other (needs ♦ moderator attention)

Answer 1

The problem with the guidance on the “not an answer” flag isn't only that people don't read, it's also understood differently by different people. We've had many debates on MSO as to whether it covers things such as

• gibberish (if a post is completely incomprehensible, does it “attempt to answer the question”?)
• statements (whether true or false) that address a related question but not the question that was asked — when does it stop being a failed attempt at an answer due to misunderstanding the question, and start being unrelated musings from someone who thought they were posting on a discussion forum?
• posts with only a link and no other information — does that count as answering, and if so, does pointing someone towards Rome count as having driven them there?

I've proposed to overhaul not-an-answer/very-low-quality flags before. I think our proposals work well together: make flagging more specific, and let the community handle some types of flags.

I would structure the flagging dialog a bit differently, with two levels. Like closing and question flagging works now, selecting an option at the first level brings up the corresponding second-level options.

• It is spam
• It is offensive, abusive, or hate speech

• It is an attempt to communicate with another user

  • check box: it should be converted to a comment on [box, prefilled with the question, allowing selecting an answer instead]

• It should be deleted because … [essentially, the current choices in the very low quality queue]

  • it is a “thank you” comment
  • it is a different question posted as an answer
  • [not for self-answers] it is a “I'm having this problem too” comment
  • [only for self-answers] it should have been an edit to the question [guidance: perform the edit first]

  • it is merely a link with no other information
    I like Shog9's guidance proposal: “It is impossible to identify the solution presented in this answer without following a link to an external site.”

  • it is incomprehensible
    [note that “not in English” isn't right here, or else has to be customized per site]

  • it is completely unrelated to the question
    [I'm not sure how to word this, or whether it is needed at all (as opposed to a custom flag). This is for a class of answers where VLQ tends to be used now, where the answer has absolutely nothing to do with the question. This could perhaps be lumped with “is a different question” or with “incomprehensible”.]

• It is wrong [which doesn't flag, but brings a popup telling the user to downvote instead]
  (I wonder if “it is urgent” should be another honeypot… Is it a problem outside SO?)

• other (needs ♦ moderator attention)