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In general I like the new Flagged Posts feature and have been actively using it.

One thing I noticed is that there is a reasonable volume of questions coming through flagged as very low quality, when you take a look at the offending post it usually just requires an edit. This question: How-To debug Mono xsp cryptic runtime errors is a good example - it was flagged as low quality by one person, but after a quick code edit by someone the question becomes very clear. It seems to me that the flag is used a little too willingly.

If at any point I was to flag a disagree, what would happen? If i disagree but don't fix the question, then some other lazy people also flag it as low quality (or it has accumulated some more flags before i flag a disagree), what happens - do I lose flag weight? Does a mod look at the question before closing/deleting or do they simply rely on the flags? Or is there some automation there to do it for the mods, once enough flagging takes place the question gets closed?

Should the existing flags be wiped (with no penalty) once an edit is made?

This Meta question: Add a warning to the “low quality” flag option suggested an addition to the text of the low quality flag, which was duly made (and has evolved still further). However now that any user can suggest an edit maybe the use of the flag should be restricted to higher rep users.

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    Wow I wouldn't think so many people at SO would have such high standards, if they themselves can't adhere to them in their own posts.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 4:32
  • Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/90158/…
    – PengOne
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 4:48
  • @BoltClock - apart from the minor typo in the title, how are the questions unclear? Or have i misinterpreted your comment?
    – slugster
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 5:36
  • Well, the post you initially cited has indeed come to merit the low quality flag again. It looks like the original poster edited it to ask an entirely new question, and in the process, destroyed the efforts of the editors.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 5:51
  • @Cody, ouch, what a crap example that turned out to be. That question is indeed better off closed.
    – slugster
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 6:24
  • I particularly like the way that Waffles phrases the problem here: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/93595/…
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 6:27
  • "Does a mod look at the question before closing/deleting or do they simply rely on the flags?" - we'd be very, very bad moderators if we didn't look at the stuff that's flagged for us to look at.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 12:28

1 Answer 1

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I violently disagree -- that question is indeed Very Low Quality, because as asked it amounts to:

I got this exception, what do I do?

[massive unedited, unformatted stack trace]

That's extremely lazy on multiple levels. How would you "salvage" a post like this through editing? By reading the user's mind?

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    you are right to a point, however i would say he is asking "how (or where) do i start trying to interpet this stack trace?" I would pick that English is possibly his second language, and even a quick edit made the question clearer. While still somewhat lazy, it's a valid question. This isn't the only one though. People are using the flag too readily instead of trying to edit the question.
    – slugster
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 5:31
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    @slugster what edit is possible here? It is literally "I have this exception, what do I do?"
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 5:34
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    And Jeff, that still doesn't answer the question: Should the existing [low quality] flags be wiped (with no penalty) once an edit is made?
    – slugster
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 5:34
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    @slug no, because this question isn't salvageable and should never have been asked in the first place. Note that it is now (correctly) closed.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 5:36
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    I agree, no further edits are possible after the initial one, at which point we prompt the OP for more details. I should probably have collected a few more of the examples i've seen over the last couple of days.
    – slugster
    Commented Jun 12, 2011 at 5:39

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