Questions tagged [not-an-answer]
Content posted as an answer that doesn't actually answer the question at hand may be flagged "Not an Answer". Note *bad* answers are not eligible for this kind flag.
201
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Are wrong answers non-answers? [duplicate]
Suppose I ask, "What is the best way to add two numbers with my pocket calculator?" and someone answers "jQuery." That answer is obviously wrong, but it is technically an answer; ...
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10
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1
answer
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When NAA includes rude language - red flaggable?
I know that the general rule for rude language is to edit it out if possible rather than knee-jerk red flagging it just for a few swear words or inappropriate terminology. So, for example, a post,
...
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30
votes
2
answers
287
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Expand LQ review comment for "me too" non-answers with advice about "follow post" feature
The "follow post" feature is convenient for users having the same problem as asked about in the question.
Currently, the system generates the following comment for those who post non-answers ...
- 11.3k
-22
votes
3
answers
182
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Judgment of "not an answer"
When a “question” is actually four questions, none of which can actually be answered, should saying so really be deleted as "not an answer"?
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1
answer
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Explain reason for "not an answer" flag [duplicate]
This is about my following declined but helpful flag.
History:
I saw an answer which almost copy-pasted another answer and I decided to flag that.
In my first flag, I chose not an answer option, as ...
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2
votes
1
answer
71
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Is there a way to migrate a non-answer to a comment/question edit?
This question is in some ways the inverse of Add a feature to migrate a comment into an answer .
A mistake I see many new users make on their questions is to respond to comments on their questions by ...
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votes
2
answers
118
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How is anyone *helped* by deleting relevant questions added to a post? [closed]
I recently viewed a question that was nearly identical to a question I have (requesting AppleScript solutions), and there were at least three helpful responses.
My question is essentially the same--...
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5
votes
2
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Does Meta have a different standard for NAA?
There is an answer here (screenshot) which does not attempt answer a question and instead posts a joke in response to a whimsical bounty message. Several people flagged it as NAA and it quickly ...
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2
answers
281
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Is the answer “Don't do that” an acceptable response to a “how do I” question? [duplicate]
Hold up!
before you click that button to report this question as a duplicate of this, consider that not only is that question 10 years old, but is also fairly non-specific, and doesn't make good use ...
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6
votes
1
answer
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The new flag dashboard doesn't include the reputation of the user whose post is being flagged
Having the reputation of the user whose post is being flagged is a useful piece of information - especially for "not an answer" flags. If the user has less than 50 rep - i.e. a new user - then they ...
ChrisFMod
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-11
votes
2
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104
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Are link based answers ok if they link to other Stack Exchange Answers?
Is it ever ok to provide an answer to a question that's essentially a link only answer to another Stack Exchange question or answer?
Often I do this when
The answers of the other question could be ...
- 139
10
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1
answer
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What happens to NAA flag on a local meta?
As far as I can tell, when an answer on a main site is flagged as "not an answer" it enters the low quality posts review queue.1
What happens on per-site metas? On meta sites the only review queues ...
- 15k
1
vote
0
answers
61
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I comment on answer why NAA and flagged but my flag is declined [duplicate]
Regarding this post, I flag NAA and comment on that post.
How your answer is different from above answer
The post is deleted, but my flag is declined. Why?
- 4,776
12
votes
3
answers
424
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Should a custom flag be used instead of the "not an answer" flag when the answer isn't a blatant non-answer?
There appears to be a bit of a dispute going on in the FAQ answer here. On one hand, a group mostly consisting of Stack Overflow moderators says that if it isn't immediately clear that an answer isn't ...
2
votes
2
answers
86
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How do I ensure a poor answer doesn't get bounty if it's the only answer? [duplicate]
I feel like someone made a comment as an answer on a question with a bounty just so they could reap the "auto bounty" since they are the only answer on it.
I've flagged the bad/useless answer (as a ...
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votes
2
answers
126
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FATFQ (First Answer the Fine Question) [duplicate]
This question is not a duplicate, it is not about right and wrong answers and questions, it is about whether an acronym for sloppy answers to good questions would be useful, and I propose one that ...
user350947
19
votes
2
answers
508
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Your answer is in another castle Part 2: can we stop the confusion about NAA flags and posts that tackle a different question from the one posted?
DISCLAIMER: This is not yet another post trying to discuss what NAA posts are and / or answers to different questions are NAA. What this post is trying to do is to find a way to stop people for having ...
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19
votes
2
answers
225
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What constitutes an answer on Meta?
We have plenty of guidance about what constitutes an answer on a main site. However, Meta is very different from main sites (as we all know), and I don't know of any "Not an Answer" guidance ...
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1
answer
119
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Can we have a "plea for attention" LQP comment?
These are the auto-comments that I can post for a self-answer:
I recently saw a non-answer by the question author that was something like this:
plz, i can haz ancorz?plz
(Okay, it had a bit more ...
- 2,847
2
votes
0
answers
107
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Introduce answer-deletion reasons [duplicate]
Proposal
When flagging an answer for deletion or voting to delete an answer, users are opted to select a reason for deletion from a list or enter a custom reason (much like when flagging/voting to ...
- 27.4k
4
votes
2
answers
187
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Should I flag obviously wrong answers as NAA? [duplicate]
I came across some scenarios like these:
Case 1: Obviously not true
Q: Why does the sun rise and fall every day?
A: Because the Earth self-rotates.
A2: Because the sun orbits around the ...
2
votes
4
answers
175
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How to deal with non answers? Automated ways preferred
I have started reviewing posts recently and I notice a pattern with people who can't comment because their reputation is 1.
They will click answer and ask a question there something like here:
...
- 157
8
votes
3
answers
411
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Is it a bad practice to make assumptions in order to answer a question?
There are always going to be those low quality questions that have a few gaps in the question and are quite often down-voted for this reason.
A few times I have tried to understand these poor (often ...
- 223
8
votes
2
answers
187
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How to flag link-only answers / what happened to the very low quality flag?
I ran across an answer on Stack Overflow that is a link only answer. The link in the answer is dead.
Normally I would have flagged this as very low quality (VLQ), but the flag doesn't exist anymore. ...
- 4,534
10
votes
1
answer
67
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Warn new mobile users not to ask questions as answers
When a new user tries to post an answer, they are warned not to ask questions as answers. The text of the warning is pretty good (although I think it could use some ALL-CAPS BOLD instead of subtle ...
user315433
6
votes
2
answers
76
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Should answer be flagged as NAA if the OP has already stated they don't want to use that solution?
Imagine the following situation:
User X has a question. Being a frequent user of SE, he knows that he should always to do some research before asking his question, just in case his question has ...
- 6,838
4
votes
1
answer
42
views
Allow custom flagging a post after (a still pending) flag as VLQ/NAA
I have flagged an initial version of a post as Not an answer, which at the site seems okay, since it was more a comment (user uses an outdated browser which isn't supported and doesn't allow adding ...
- 91.3k
36
votes
1
answer
313
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Make VLQ and NAA flags equivalent to a negative review in the LQ queue (if the flagger can access that queue)
Reason
It is my understanding that casting a very low quality or not an answer flag on an answer that already has received such flag only affects the flag statistics and the number of positive ...
- 27.4k
3
votes
0
answers
94
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Difference between answer and comment [duplicate]
What is, here on the Stack Exchange platform, the difference between an answer and a comment? I answered a post (first post) and somebody told me it was a comment not an answer, even though it sounded ...
- 131
3
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2
answers
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Is an answer that is unrelated to the question still an answer?
Say I post a question about distributed locking using the Win32 API and somebody replies with a post about the semantics of the Perl range operator. Is that still an answer, or is it something that ...
- 3,745
7
votes
1
answer
104
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Allow users to review NAA / low quality answers they have flagged themselves
I have a feeling that outside Stack Overflow and a few of the other largest sites at many times of day the number of 2k+ users that actively flag and process review queues is quite limited. I have an ...
- 6,228
3
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answer
555
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Is it okay to dispute the premise of a question? [duplicate]
In the limited number of questions I have asked on Stack Exchange, I have had several comments and answers that are not answering my question, but are instead saying that I should be asking something ...
- 337
8
votes
1
answer
232
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Reorganise the LQ, FP and LA queues to have one queue about improving and guiding and one about deciding deletion
TL;DR: Split the low-quality queue in two, separating posts with possible quality issues (autoflagged posts) and posts that may need to be deleted (NAA, gibberish), as having both of them together ...
- 27.4k
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votes
2
answers
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accepted-answer is not-an-answer? [closed]
I'm aware that it could be me be missing on something here, but... but... what?
Later edit:
Yes, I'm aware of most of the points raised in answers and comments. The thing is I'm a regular user who ...
- 131
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votes
1
answer
78
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Renaming "Your Answer" to "Your Solution"
Answers aren't meant to answer posts, but provide solutions. Working through any of the {First Posts, Late Answers, Low Quality Posts} queues makes you realize random surfers not familiar with the ...
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3
votes
1
answer
73
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How do I prevent a bounty from being auto-awarded? [duplicate]
I currently have a question with (what I feel is) a very large bounty. While the question has received some excellent attention, there is only one answer of (in my opinion) somewhat low quality. As ...
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16
votes
2
answers
193
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What happens when I flag a posted answer as “not an answer”?
What happens when I flag a posted answer as not an answer? Is the answer put into a review queue? Or will it be deleted?
- 1,477
10
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1
answer
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As a moderator, am I supposed to handle NAA flags or let the reviewers do it?
NAA flags have been feeding into a review queue for a while now. I understood that post to mean that except in egregious cases we moderators should let the community handle it, just as we prefer that ...
- 180k
33
votes
0
answers
165
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Change "Your Answer" to "Your Answer to this Question"
Many new users use the "Answer" section to answer another answer. It seems they (reasonably) assume the Stack Exchange sites work the way many forums and Facebook work: a chronological sequence of ...
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1
vote
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Why was my flag disputed? [closed]
I am aware what does disputed flag mean. I have flagged an answer as not an answer, because in my opinion, it does not answer the question, at least not in a way that it would help the OP and I think ...
- 1,088
2
votes
2
answers
40
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Should I also comment when flagging an answer?
It is clear that the main goal of flags is raising moderator attention to a possible issue and helping with the general clean up tasks. I was wondering how important is to educate new users as to how ...
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1
answer
47
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How should I review no-answers? [duplicate]
Since this morning I can make reviews in SO. I got a question which is answered with a no-answer, what should I do rather than commenting the user to ask this as a question?
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Why don't we treat rubbish the same as spam?
Spam gets fairly heavily punished - 100 reputation penalty, if I recall correctly, and the content itself gets hidden in the revision history.
Now if we just have some rubbish:
...
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4
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1
answer
36
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Why are the Low Quality deletion reasons not available outside of the review queue? [duplicate]
When I'm browsing questions and I come across an answer that fits one of the Recommend Deletion reasons from the Low Quality review queue, I'm not able to flag the answer with one of those reasons.
...
- 7,989
8
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1
answer
120
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"Not an Answer" isn't blocked after flagging
I have noticed this for some time, but never wanted to ask, until now, where I had to do some flagging.
As opposed to the Spam, Offensive and Moderator Attention flags, where after signaling, the ...
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1
answer
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Why a link-only answer flag declined? [duplicate]
I flagged this one as "not an answer":
VS2008 Unit Tests: How to include a message with a "success"
My flag got declined:
declined - flags should not be used to indicate technical ...
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2
answers
113
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Flagging "You're missing...." answers
After this incident, I became more careful whenever I flag or review flags.
I have flagged an answer which should be a comment instead, even if it solves the problem and the question itself should be ...
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3
answers
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Your answer is in another castle: when is an answer not an answer?
I think we can all agree, this sucks:
If you've been around a little while, you've probably encountered hundreds of answers like this in various forums, some of them even marked as "The Answer&...
- 440k
4
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2
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54
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Canned flag decline text?
I recently flagged this answer (since deleted) to https://stackoverflow.com/q/22181012/1281433 as not an answer, since it appeared to be the question's poster attempting to add some context to the ...
- 2,833
12
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1
answer
375
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Sanity check on NAA flag?
I was wondering if a sanity check might be possible regarding this answer, which I flagged as NAA.
Per my understanding of NAA, as well as the text under the flag itself, it is reserved for answers ...
- 1,112