Recently, a user 'called to arms' on chat to cast flags on potentially incorrect advise on Stack Overflow. As this incorrectness was seemingly correct, I flagged en mass, without giving it much thought (main reason was that I trusted the user. That trust has now evaporated. Trust comes on foot, but leaves by horse...).
However, after looking more carefully, most answers only needed a simple caveat to be fixed! (this has since been added).
After looking even more carefully, I noticed the factual inaccuracy was due to a generalization of the question by the same users calling to arms!
Clearly, I have been misled! Personally, I will be more critical of these 'calls to flag' in the future, but I hope I can shield others from making the same mistake!
All that ends well is well, and the answers now have the caveat and that makes them correct.
However, all the flaggin was completely unnecessary! Hence, a call of
Hey, I think these answers are incorrect, can someone fix them?
Would have been a lot better than
Hey, these answers are wrong. Go flag them!
This is an advice to be very cautious when 'subverting the system' in this manner!
Perhaps this needs implementation as policy or a mod tool, but I think being aware of the issue is a good start.
So, my main point is this:
Wouldn't it be better if people simply called for attention, instead of for flags? And if such requests of the 2nd nature are made, assume the first.
Should I flag obviously wrong answers as NAA? is related but not a dupe. That one talks about when to flag. This one talks about when to listen to people who ask you to flag.
