I had a flag on a link-only answer declined several minutes ago:     not an answer – dasblinkenlight 6 mins ago   declined - A link only answer is an answer - just a bad answer and should be down-voted rather than flagged. (emphasis added)   According to , flagging was the right thing to do. Has this policy been changed?
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Related:  (not a dupe, that's a feature request and was closed as a dupe of another one)        (old) post does indeed say that Link-only answers can be flagged as NAA, but there are a lot of posts like  which define Not An Answer is a way that it doesn't apply to link-only answers.  Can we get some up-to-date consensus on this? That link only answers are not allowed is .
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I keep finding broken links in posts, currently I add a comment in the hope someone will return to update it or if I find a link I edit the answer.   I imagine this will only increase over time so I wonder if there could be a standard way to manage this?  My idea is adding a new flagging reason like "contains broken links", then it will go to a review queue where people will be able to have a look and fix the broken links.
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I was just reviewing the  and I came across  and flag description:    The answer has been flagged as very low quality and then it also has a flag that says:     It's not an answer, or at least not to this question, however this was accepted instead of the real answer. – May 7 '12 at 5:53  × 4   Now I am in the review queue a lot and I don't recall ever seeing this before, is this an other flag that is being shown?  What is this unusual description that I am seeing?
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I as well as other users have flagged some of the recent questions about ads and tracking users, so people can have some forewarning before their information is all over the internet.  However, the flags have all been declined, with this canned response (at least on my flags):     flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention   Of course, this definitely needs moderator intervention, because normal users cannot add  to posts.  I'm posting here because I'm trying to get some perspective on this situation and why mods aren't letting users know about information that they may want to know.  Here are my two flags:  On :     [featured] -- this will be very important to a lot of users.   On :     Can this be [featured]? It's important and people need to see it (it involves fingerprinting). They also need to know to have an adblocker enabled.   Why have flags of this type been declined?
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Looking at my flagging history, I see quite a few (got 8 now) active ones dated as far back as August 9.  Sometimes a flag gets addressed almost instantaneously, other times it just sits &amp; wait there.  Is it because I tend to flag edge cases /debatable stuff (like  questions , or questions posting working code and asking for a code review, which is suitable for CodeReview.SE)? Or am I "flagged" as a trigger-happy flagger and my flags are just being ignored unless they're obviously warranted?  I'm sure it's only because there's too many flags and not enough flag reviewers (is that 10K+ users or just diamonds/mods?), but what would be a "normal" delay for a flag to be reviewed?  --  As I was tagging this question, the  tag came up as a suggestion; this makes me wonder, have I shot myself in the foot? Where can I see my "flag weight" and what's an ok value? Lastly, what can I do to "flag better"?
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I flagged a post and (choose one)   my flag was marked as helpful, yet nothing was done my flag was marked as declined, yet the post was deleted/edited/closed   Why?
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When flagging an answer there doesn't seem to be an option for duplicates. Is there an etiquette for this, or nothing in place?  If there is nothing in place can I suggest a flag as duplicate option. It seems rather annoying that people just rep hunt by duplicating previously stated answers, with changes that are limited or non existent.  I think the only use case where this might cause upset is when someone has genuinely submitted an answer, and someone else has just submitted theirs as they have been writing.   In this scenario, where the time between answers is short and a factor, then perhaps a 'merge' function could be introduced. Which then assigns joint authorship, splits the reputation for the answer and allows an editor to take the best of both duplicate answers.
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Earlier today I flagged this  using the following flag option:     Questions asking us to recommend or find a tool, library or favorite off-site resource are off-topic for Stack Overflow as they tend to attract opinionated answers and spam. Instead,  and what has been done so far to solve it.   If you look at the edit history, shown below, I interpreted the original post's title and body to mean that they were asking for another utility, like SlowCheetah, which is why I flagged it with the rule I stated above.  In addition, I try to do my best to also inform the user that their post does not meet the standards of the site by leaving a comment as you can see on the post.  The poster acknowledged the feedback and updated their question, rendering my flag now invalid.    Ultimately, my flag was declined, which harms me because as we all know declined flags work against a SO user's total flag count:  Reference:      How many flags do I have?      When you start out, you are allotted 10 flags per day. This number may increase to up to 100 flags per day:      You get one bonus flag per 2000 reputation.      You are awarded additional bonus flags when you flag correctly - one bonus flag for every ten net helpful flags (helpful flags minus declined flags).   I only have 8 declined flags, and IIRC, 4 of those are because of situations just like this. So is it fair to negatively affect a member's total flag count, when the flag at the time of submission was accurate?  As such, I propose a new flag status like "Inapplicable', which when used does not affect total flag count, or something similar to this, so that situations like this do not negatively affect a user's flag count.   I understand I still have to have faith that a reviewer or moderator will see the post for what it was at the time the flag was submitted, but at least by adding this option, you provide reviewers and moderator's a means to take action in a fair manner.  I want to continue flagging questions and helping posters as much as I can, I just don't think it's fair to members that spend a lot of time flagging and helping members, to risk reducing their flag count just because of a shortfall of the system and because, let's be honest here, not all moderator's can act at the same level of objectivity, we all have differing viewpoints and interpretations.  I suppose this bothers me more than other issues I've come across on the site because I flag posts to help keep the site focused and free of poor posts and yet receive no reputation for these types of efforts.  The only positive thing you can reap are a few badges, &lt;sarcasm&gt;yay!&lt;/sarcasm&gt; or a negatively impacted flag count.  Just doesn't seem fair IMHO when my affects contribute to increasing the quality of posts which is just as important as contributing a quality answer IMO.  And to add, this isn't the first time this has happened to me and many other members of the site.  And yet, nothing has been done about it. Perhaps as a community we start spending a little bit more time little details like this to help keep people feeling positive about their efforts, especially those that aren't measured by reputation.  Thank you for your time,  Cheers.
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First time I had to use the offensive flag. The answers were obviously offending/spam but it took quite a while to delete them. I was interested in how long it actually took, because an off-topic question posted later got closed much faster.  Instead of finding this information, I noticed the offensive (and also spam) flag's description is formatted very different. It also contains less information.      "flagged as" seems redundant - I know that I flagged it, and I'm on the flag summary page after all. The normal flagging doesn't tell me that. It is Helpful, but a normal flags are helpful. (fixed) There is no information about the time I flagged it. The normal flag's "helpful" text contains a tooltip showing the time of it's acceptance, the offensive/spam flags don't.   I like that it's red, but I think the format should be more like that of the other flags. It should show the time somewhere.
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I don't think anyone wants to be the thought police, and I'm particularly wary of censorship on a part of the site that is a user's personal self-statement, and is a little off the beaten path.  On the other hand, I'm also concerned that we may not want a site where clicking on a user to see their other posts would expose folks to racist or other bigoted terms that almost everyone would agree are inappropriate for civil discourse.    Don't forget the "be nice" rule".  Note that I don't want a "flag user" rule, which I know has been beaten to death already, and further think that swears and semi-inflammatory opinions, etc. should generally just be ignored - I'm only asking about terms that provoke serious emotions around racial, religious, ethnic, or sexual orientation issues.  What, if anything, is the appropriate response in such cases?
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Currently, if an answer is marked as "Very Low Quality", we are only given options to delete the post, or ignore the flag.  However, there are many times when the answer should be converted to a comment, but we can't, because the flag was wrong.  If an answer is flagged as "Very Low Quality", then I'd like to see the same tools made available for the post as if it was flagged "Not an Answer" (including , if it is implemented).  This would help the workflow considerably.  It should be noted that this is a technological solution to a community problem; we have people who are flagging posts that are not an answer as very low quality (and conversely, posts that are "Not an Answer" as "Very Low Quality", such as link-only answers).  Given that most flags are to be taken as an indication that something is wrong, and that we shouldn't nitpick over the type of flag (only if it was helpful or not, ), we should have access to all of the tools for an answer no matter what the flag is (because we aren't going to change the social conditioning, and rightfully so).
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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 &quot;The Answer&quot; by well-meaning1 forum admins looking to close a thread. We could try to enumerate the commonly-observed problems with it...  Link is probably broken If link isn't broken, it's spam If link isn't spam, it's to some broadly-related resource that the answerer found by pressing &quot;I'm feeling lucky&quot; when googling the question's title.  ...but the real issue here is that we don't know! Even if the link was originally pointing directly to the most awesomeest answer ever for exactly the question being asked, there's nothing in the answer itself to even hint at what direction we're being pointed in. Strip the markup, and this is what you're left with:  i think you should take The tutorial HERE! This will help you a lot  Is there even one tiny speck of information there? No. Even the title of the page being linked to would have provided something to go on, but that was entirely too much work. So let me be clear: this sort of response is not an answer. If you see this, flag it. Moderators, if you see it flagged, delete it. There's really only one valid exception to this rule, and that's when the question is:  Suggest me some tutorials where i can learn quick.  Don't get me wrong, it's still a bad answer - but when the question is kinda asking for bad answers this is to be expected. Close or flag the question and move on - this is much more efficient than hanging around to babysit it by deleting every crap answer that inevitably shows up. If you're still reading, you're probably getting really bored by now. &quot;Gee, Shog - answers that contain ZERO information are terrible, horrible, very-bad things? What shocking revelations will you share next?&quot; Yeah. It's really simple... Except, . See, the problem is that once you step away from black-and-white &quot;answers / doesn't answer&quot; decision-making, things get... Interesting. And all those other answers with links in them See, this is an answer:  And so is this:  Yes, they're both very short, and yes, they contain links. But strip the markup, and you still get at least a little bit of useful information. Does that mean these answers should forever hang around the site? No, not necessarily - if it turns out they're just not that useful, they should probably still be removed - or at very least, down-voted so that they rank below other answers. Just remember: if the text of the post contains an honest attempt at answering the question, then it is an answer - so don't flag it otherwise, and if you do, don't complain if your flag gets declined. Answers &amp; Apples If you're still confused, forget about answers. Think about apples instead:  Answers are just like that, but less tasty in pies.  1 By which I mean to say, &quot;criminally lazy&quot;
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In going through the review tool I often come across poor quality answers to poor quality questions. In particular, I will occasionally see questions that are simply asking for links to products, asking for tools, etc. Here are three examples that I've come across just this morning.        Clearly it's appropriate to go to the question and vote to close it (these are examples of not constructive) if they aren't already closed, but what should be done with the answers?    Should the answer be marked for deletion? Much of the normal reasoning for not providing link only answers is defeated if the question is simply asking for links. I'm tempted to mark them as 'looks good' for that reason, because it's the question that is flawed. Is that correct, or should I evaluate all answers as if they were responding to a quality question?
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When I visit a site I haven't visited (while logged in) for a while, I see:  Welcome back! If you found this question useful, don't forget to vote both the question and the answers up.  That's often intended behavior. But today I visited  and was shown that banner even though the question and all its answers are locked. Voting arrows aren't even shown on any of the posts on that page. I believe that banner should be disabled on pages where there is no post that can be voted on by anyone.
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Today I've helped flag a lot of spam for this: .  When I've visited my profile on WebApps to see my flag history of flag, the information about my flagging history was missing.  Note that these spam flags were my only flags on this site.    Normally, I should have more information like when I'm looking at my Stack Overflow account.    Is this a bug?
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I have often wondered at the practice on Stack&nbsp;Overflow, Server&nbsp;Fault, and the other sites where someone will ask a question and an answer will come in that says Look here: http://link elsewhere. Rarely will the link have exactly the answer necessary -- often it's an entire article -- yet these answers get voted up.  Why is that, exactly? I realize this is subjective, but my own thoughts are that one should try and give the answer (even if the answer is 'no, it can't be done' or 'no, I don't think it can be done' -- very different answers) and then if you have a link that explains it, go ahead and post it within the answer.  What does the community think about this?     For more information, see  in the .
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I flagged  five days ago because it seems off-topic to me. The question has been closed by a moderator few minutes after.  However my flag has not been marked as helpful (or declined, or disputed) in my flags summary page. It's just like the flag has not been taken into account (screenshot below).    Is a moderator can explain me?