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Just got over the big 10k and I'm reading up on what's my rights and responsibilities.

There's a list for viewing New answers to old questions in the moderator tools. When does it come in handy? Do we suspect that a new answer is more prone to be a faulty/plagiaritic?

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    "When does it come in handy?" Finding NAA and VLQ posts. You can easily spend 100 flags a day in that list.
    – Rizier123
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 21:02
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    And what is NAA? I'm guessing VLQ is something like very low quality - is that correct? Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 21:14
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    Congratulations for reaching 10k. NAA = Not An Answer, VLQ = Very Low Quality. See the help center.
    – Glorfindel
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 21:18
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    A common type of answer appearing in that list is people asking a question like "did you ever find the solution" or "i'm having similar issue X and stuck on Y".
    – user247702
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 21:27
  • @Stijn But those are comments not answers. Does the list presents even comments? I'm not sure I follow... Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 21:59
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    @KonradViltersten That is the point. Many times you find answers like that in that list containing such content which qualifies as not an answer and such can you flag them.
    – Rizier123
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 22:45
  • @Rizier123 Right. I realized that I've been a happily unaware consumer of some great cleansing but 10k+ users. See the comment I made to the answer of Tunaki. Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 22:58
  • You don't need it. chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/111347/sobotics Moderation tools are here.
    – user6820627
    Commented Dec 26, 2016 at 0:41
  • For abbreviations like NAA, VLQ, etc. we have a glossary. Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 22:23
  • "Do we suspect that a new answer is more prone to be a faulty/plagiaritic" - The listing is for new answers, not new users.
    – Rob Mod
    Commented Dec 27, 2016 at 22:24

1 Answer 1

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Yes, we do. New answers to old questions have a significant more chance of being problematic than other answers; they generally are of the form "Thanks!!" or "I have the same problem!", which is a typical non-answer and should be flagged as "Not An Answer", then deleted. It's also a great list to find spam, plagiarism, new answers that are duplicates of old answers, the same user copy-posting an answer everywhere or even, if you look more closely, lots of voting fraud and robo-reviewers. Additionally, it's also a great way to edit some good, new, answers into shape; most of these are from low reputation users (≤ 100 of reputation; just right now, page 1 has more than 50% of them for example) and improving their contribution is a great way to welcome them.

It isn't to say that this doesn't happen on new questions, but when an old question is updated, it receives a lot less attention (everyone focusing on the front page of their tags), and therefore, things pass through without much review. I'm pretty sure that 90% of my (~35k) helpful flags are from posts in that list. In fact, there are so many of them that there is even a bot that was developed to help with detection and report in chat suspicious answers for review. I used to use all of 100 flags daily for lots of consecutive months before this.

The bottom-line is that that moderator tool provides a (sadly, very crude) way of reviewing new things that are posted on the site. And it needs all the persons going through it as it can get. There is on average 1 new answer to an old question every 30 seconds, and a given new answer to an old question likely needs acting on (again, page 1 right now, consisting of 20 answers, would need at the very least 4 edits and 4 NAA/VLQ flags...).

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    First reaction - "what are you on?! I haven't seen any 'thanks' as answers, only comments". Pause... Revelation... Someone (like you, for instance) has been clearing the crap out my view without me realizing it. Darn... Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 22:03
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    @KonradViltersten Prepare to see quite a bit of crap :)
    – user247702
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 22:50
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    @KonradViltersten a more graphic image of what you will get into perou.co.uk/photos/2085.jpg
    – Braiam
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 23:52
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    @Braiam Well, I could technically speaking bounty away a 100 of my rep and re-become unable to get into that. But some things, once seen, can't be unseen. That pile being an example of such. Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 0:33
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    It's worth mentioning that low rep users cannot comment, but many find out they can add an answer, which, to them, is the only option to commenting, even if out of context and inappropriate.
    – acelent
    Commented Dec 26, 2016 at 9:02

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