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Since I recently gained 20k privileges, I wanted to make sure that I use my new found internet "powers" productively.

After spending some time searching MSO, MSE, and the Help Center, I haven't found very clear guidelines on how and when to best use delete votes on answers. If the information is already posted somewhere, pointers are very welcome. I did read the "When should I vote to delete an answer?" section on https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/trusted-user, but it does not provide enough detail to answer my specific questions below.

So far I was fairly busy flagging really bad answers, following the site guidelines as well as I could. The types of posts I typically flagged (mostly as NAA, more rarely as VLQ) included the common:

I like nachos with cheese.

The answer by Joe worked for me.

I have the same problem, has anybody found a solution?

jjkeiaikjdnknkckjkuioieajkdkndlkjie

Now that I have the additional option of casting delete votes on answers, what should I do with those (non-)answers?

  1. Still flag, as before.
  2. Cast a delete vote. I understand that I can only do this for downvoted answers. But as far as I can tell, it doesn't say anywhere that the downvote can't be mine...
  3. Both flag and vote to delete.

Based on my understanding, flagging as NAA has the advantage that it puts the answer into the LQ review queue (unless a moderator intervenes), where it gets the attention of reviewers, and can quickly gather the remaining "Delete"/"Recommend Deletion" votes to actually be deleted.

I was initially wondering if a delete vote by itself would also add the answer to the LQ review queue. But based on my interpretation of the following recent question/answer, that does not seem to be the case:

Is there a delete queue similar to a close queue?

If my understanding is correct, flagging as NAA would be more productive for these types of answers. Is that true? Otherwise I would rely on other trusted users stumbling over it, or seeing it on the Moderator Tools page.

And if flagging these answers is still the best option, when should I use delete votes? For answers that do not meet the criteria for NAA, but are worthless for a different reason?

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  • 1
    (at other site where I have 10K) I feel a bit better when I see deleted by <trusted user>, moderator than when there's only moderator listed there. It matters less when content is blatantly, obviously delete-worthy but still. Seeing trusted users "signatures" makes me feel like moderators aren't alone in curating content
    – gnat
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 13:20
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    Related: How many 20kers use the LQRQ? tl;dr: is better just to flag them and use your votes on questions.
    – Braiam
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 16:14
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    I flag and delete. If others delete before it gets to the LQ queue then it's kicked out. Otherwise, other people in the queue can fill in the rest of the delete votes, or a mod can delete as well.
    – Ben
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 16:36
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    @Braiam That's an aspect I hadn't considered. I only have 15 delete votes, but 100 flags. I haven't delete voted on questions much (might do more so now that I'm less restricted). But delete votes are definitely much more limited than flags. I often flag more than 15 answers a day. Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 5:22

2 Answers 2

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So I once did a little study on this and found at the time that applying delete votes was less effective than flagging for moderator attention. The problem was visibility, in that the only place other 10k+ users would see these was in the delete votes tab of the 10k tools.

However, that was before the review queues came into action. With the recent change that "not an answer" flags feed into the Low Quality Posts review, the idea is that the community should be able to delete these without the involvement of moderators. It's pretty easy for anyone to see "I like turtles" non-answers and be able to act on them.

The problem at present is that the Low Quality Posts review queue is jammed up with flags on questions so that these answers aren't getting reviewed like they should. There's a strong case to be made that with Triage and the Close Votes review queue, questions are being handled elsewhere and should be moved out of this queue. I believe that if we converted the Low Quality Posts review queue into Low Quality Answers, you'd see the community be able to handle almost all of these without moderator intervention. (As an update, Shog9 now states that questions will no longer appear in the Low Quality Posts review queue.)

That's not to say there'd be no value in flagging at that point. "not an answer" flags are what brings posts to the attention of moderators and the review queues, so if you come across them outside of these, feel free to flag them. I'd just like to see the community be more empowered to handle these, instead of moderators.

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  • There was once upon a time when 10k users had visibility into the NAA and VLQ flags... and also come in with various votes (delete, close) to be able to handle them. But we don't have that anymore to be able to help out.
    – user289086
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 16:29
  • @MichaelT - In practice, that didn't work well. Most people just blindly piled on flags within that queue in an apparent attempt to farm helpful flags, and few people actually took the action of voting to delete things there. The review process seems to be directing people to take more focused action, and the voting allows for non-10k users to also have a hand in deleting problematic content.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 16:34
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    From my experiences elsewhere, the only times I flagged but didn't do a corresponding appropriate delete vote was when that vote was probhibited by the system - namely up voted answers and questions. The review queues, while good, have been a source of problems in the mismatch between the VLQ flag and the LQP queue (the LQP is described to have a lower bar) and cases where mods have undeleted posts acted on in LQP because they weren't VLQ.
    – user289086
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 16:40
  • While the LQ queue sometimes grows to a few 100 entries now, it still seems to have fairly low latency. Everything seems to typically be processed within a couple of hours at most. So I'm not overly concerned about flagged posts being stuck in the review queue. I would still be in favor of having only answers in the queue. Reviewing different types of posts in the same queue is always slower because you have to check the post type first, and apply different criteria depending on what it is. Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 17:28
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    @RetoKoradi - I'm seeing many "not an answer" flags persisting on clear non-answers for over a day and a half, at least if moderators don't step in. There are currently 420 "not an answer" flags showing as active in the moderator queue. The review queue should be able to handle these, but the time it takes to deal with questions in this queue is causing them to sit there for far too long. I think a more focused review queue would burn through these.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 17:49
  • My "recommend deletion" reviews can actually get things deleted, but "recommend close" only casts a close flag, and so doesn't actually resolve the problem. I've started just skipping questions in LQP, at least until I hit 3k. Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 22:20
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    Very small sample size, but 6 hours ago, I flagged 10 bad answers. 5 were combined with a delete vote, 5 were not. All 10 were deleted within 5 hours: 1 deleted by owner almost immediately, 6 deleted after 2 hours with help of a decisive mod delete vote (3 of which included a delete vote from me, 3 of which I only flagged as NAA), 3 deleted with help of the LQ review queue after 3-5 hours. So a moderator stepping in did accelerated the process, and the latency of the queue was kind of high, but not terribly high. Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 12:02
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    @RetoKoradi - This change yesterday might be helping out with that: meta.stackoverflow.com/a/288387/19679 . Only answers should appear under Low Quality review now. Let's see if this helps.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 15:59
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Good question; I never really knew either.

Part of me says that flagging is just noise since you can delete it yourself. But you can't: you can cast a vote if the thing has enough downvotes but then you also need friends to cast more votes.

So I guess flagging as NAA and casting a delete vote if possible is the way to go.

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