Meta Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for meta-discussion of the Stack Exchange family of Q&A websites. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Often new users post one-liners with unrelated questions/comments as answers to existing questions where I'd like to vote "close as not a real answer". They come in several flavors:
What to do with these kinds of answers? Just downvote? Flag for moderator attention?
About me, I go with an explaining comment which usually goes like:
Hello, welcome to Superuser(SO/SF). Please check the FAQ (http://superuser.com) about the way this site works. This site is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions to be asked and answered.
Then you add the appropriate explanation, depending on situation, like for example
If you want to ask a new question, do it by clicking "Ask Question", to be in a separate question.
Or
If you want to answer to someone else, do it as a comment under his question. Commenting requires 50 reputation, review the FAQ about the reputation system.
Etc.
And bottom line:
If what you want to write doesn't answer the question, don't post it as an answer.
Keep in mind that the way this site works is not obvious to new people, so I think an educational approach is the preferred way to handle things..
In reference to a new user asking his own question:
They can edit the original question and add an additional information section. I try and leave a comment to the OP that this would be a better solution than adding an "answer".
The low reputation OP can leave comments on their own questions, just not other people's questions.
In reference to a new user answering other questions:
It only takes 50 reputation points to comment. You are given the privilege of commenting once you have been on the site for some time and learned some of the rules and procedures.
Downvote, comment and flag for moderator attention.
Generally, if a new user posts something that actually helps the question along in some way, even if it should be a comment, I say is fine, since they are trying to help, and have just not been on the site long enough to get the reputation yet. Otherwise, for everything else, inform the new user and if its bad enough, flag, downvote, etc.
On the first category:
Things that should be in comments instead of answers
I do not think these should be routinely deprecated. Users with rep < 50 cannot leave comments. If the comment is germane or seeks to elicit relevant additional information, especially in response to questions that are not, to someone knowledgeable in the field, well-stated and with all the necessary information to allow a good answer, they should allowed, if not encouraged.
The answers that should be comments, are usually people that don't have enough rep to leave comments. If I see one of these, from a user who (now) has enough rep to add comments, I will leave a comment for them to delete that "answer".
You can't close an answer, unfortunately. Your correct course of action is to just flag the post. If it's rampant on a given question, flag the question itself and inform the mods of the answer issue.
I just had to do that this morning over on StackOverflow, and it was cleaned up within minutes.
