9

The following incident happened in connection with this question:

  • A long-time user wrote a thorough answer, which got upvoted and accepted. However, there was a small error in two of the German sentences he gave; this was overlooked by several users at first, including me.
  • A new user noticed the problem. Apparently not aware (being a new user) that they could simply edit and correct the existing answer, they tried to comment and were stopped by the minimum reputation required for commenting on others’ posts. Instead, they pointed out the issue in a separate answer. They explicitly said it was not really meant as an answer.
  • After reading this comment-disguised-as-an-answer, I edited the original answer to correct the sentences. I also added a comment to the new user’s post, in which I thanked them for pointing out the problem, explained that they could/should have edited the post, and recommended that they now should delete their post. I also flagged it as “not an answer”.
  • In the meantime, the post had gathered a few upvotes. (Related Meta discussion: Up- and Down- voting on non-answers)
  • A moderator declined my flag saying “it is a valid answer”, edited the post to remove the part about it being meant as a comment, and deleted my comment.
  • Some more comments by different people were added and deleted and the post repeatedly edited. One of the arguments was that deleting the non-answer would lose the new user reputation. The last edit, after which the post got locked, turned it into something that could be considered an answer to the original question, but a bad one because it lacks all explanation and just repeats the main points of an earlier answer. It has therefore got some downvotes, too.

So I’m wondering: Should we go to great lengths to turn a non-answer, against the intent of the original poster, into an answer, just to avoid having to delete an obsolete post?

2
  • Take this answer as another example where community took an entirely different approach with an answer that was not really much more than a comment but did not come from a first time user.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 11:47
  • 1
    I actually fail to see any similarity ... Already the first version answered the question completely. Of course, the question isn't very interesting in the first place.
    – chirlu
    Commented Jun 24, 2015 at 13:42

4 Answers 4

11

No, we should not. It is unfortunate that the new user could not have gained any reputation this way, but deleting the answer after the issue had been resolved (so that it would not have made sense to convert it to the comment that it really was) would have been the right thing to do.

14
  • We do not delete answers we only delete non-answers.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 22:16
  • 1
    @Takkat you could act “professionally” as you like to say and understand “answer” as “comment posted as an answer”. Or you can act like an *** with moderator privileges.
    – Carsten S
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 22:18
  • The guide to delete an answer is "it does not attempt to answer" if it does but poorly then there is no harm done if we leave it alone. I really don't get the need for such a rush here.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 22:25
  • 4
    @Takkat, and of course you are a better judge of whether this was an attempt at answering the question than the author who explicitly stated that it should have been a comment.
    – Carsten S
    Commented Jun 21, 2015 at 22:26
  • No I can't judge this better than any of you but I will not abuse my moderator's powers to perform actions a user may not agree with. If they wanted to delete their upvoted post they are free to do so but we should not force them into this even less in case the post was upvoted and did not cause any harm.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 6:33
  • 4
    @Takkat: The "answer" from wamp IS a non-answer. At least two users flagged it as so, the OP himself claimed (in that part that you deleted) that it was meant as an comment, and, most important: Before you deleted more that 60% of it, is did not contain anything that did answer the originally question. You can choose: Act as a professional moderator and delete this non-answer, or act in the manner of a five year old Child (go and find yourself the english translation for »Trotzphase«). Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 20:16
  • 7
    @Takkat "I will not abuse my moderator's powers to perform actions a user may not agree with" Ok, if you see it this way. But then leave it as it is. Decline the flags, leave a comment that you will not delete the answer but that the OP is free to do so, and nothing more. Editing the post to turn it into an answer that it never was and never wanted to be was the worst thing you could do here.
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 20:47
  • @Matthias: I only deleted this content after I had explained why the flag was declined. The removal of the obsolete parts of the answer by an edit had to be done after the error was edited out and the OP did ot come back. This was also done to stop continued flagging and to stop off topic meta comments on that posts. It was in no way done to hide moderator actions which some people want to make us believe.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 8:08
  • Regarding NAA: 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. Source: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/225370/…
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 8:09
  • 7
    Where do you see an “honest attempt at answering the question”? The goal of the post was to comment on another answer in order to correct a mistake. The author explicitly stated this.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 8:12
  • 3
    @Takkat: »if the text of the post contains an honest attempt at answering the question, then it is an answer« 100% right. But in this case there never was an attempt at answering the question, neither honest nor accidentally or in any other way. The OP simply just wrote: »I would have written this as a comment if I could, but I can't. Hubert wrote this: [quote of faulty passage], but it should be this [corrected version of the same passage Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:41
  • @HubertSchölnast: let me say it again: this case here is an extremely poor example but is an example of a case where all moderation will fail in any case whatever we do... it was meant as comment but it also contained an answer to the question. The only reason I did not immediately hurried to convert it to a comment was that it already had 3 upvotes by the time the flag reached me. So I had my doubt to delete it. If in doubt rather not take too harsh measures. People produced considerable noise on that entirely harmless and irrelevant post. I had to stop that. Not more.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 11:13
  • 2
    @Takkat: You mindlessly repeat things like »it also contained an answer to the question« - But where is this answer? Nobody (except you) has ever seen it. Because it never was there. Go and read it yourself: german.stackexchange.com/posts/23996/revisions scroll down and open version 1. You will find: »I wanted to post this as an comment. This was wrong in Huberts Answer [quote] it should be [corrected quote]« After all your edits it now is: »[corrected quote]«. Is this what you believe is the original "answer"? A piece of text ripped out of its original context? Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 11:32
  • 3
    @HubertSchölnast I think we should discuss the NAA status of the answer in a separate thread. Here we have this aspect mixed up with the edit and delete actions that followed.
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 11:35
2

The underlying problem of the discussion is the often seen behaviour to try to buy new users by reputation and treating them like childs who wouldn't stand to lose a reputation of 30 points.

There is an intention to distinguish comments and answers. Wamp tried to be helpful but used the wrong instruments. What led some users to vote him up is not known, but probably just another buy-a-user-attempt. Instead of correcting the situation and saying: "Sorry, wamp, we need to void your fresh reputation" a complicated operation was started.

Unfortunately, user wamp refused to morph into a new superuser. I'm sure it will work the next time. ;)

6
  • 2
    I am sure with this attitude this will never happen. But the damage has been done with the first comment already. Instead of saying "... you should delete your answer ..." the far superior approach would have been to encourage the user to extend the answer so that it is standalone. It is not about buying new users, it is about welcoming new users, and I have made the experience myself, that this community is terrible at it. Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 9:14
  • 1
    Why can't you respect the intention to just do a comment? Just to conform to your standardards of welcoming somebody, this user has to transform his comment into an answer, while his intend wasn't to to do more than a correction to another post? Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 15:09
  • I do respect the intention of the user. I never questioned it. I was simply pointing out the that the initial comment was not very welcoming. I made the experience, that asking somebody nicely to do something, they are more often willing to do so. And I find nothing wrong with the approach to encourage somebody, especially when the user already made the choice to contribute something to this community. I see this is handled different here, and I respect that. But fortunately I do not have to like it. Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 16:48
  • The discussion is not and hasn't been about being polite in the communication to new users but you and Takkat seem to imply that the only way to be nice is, to turn the comment into a standalone answer, even if the user didn't react in over 2 weeks. I don't imply that you or Takkat didn't try to be polite but narrowing the discussion on the point whether the loss of reputation will lead to frustrated users is inappropriate. Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 17:18
  • I cannot recall that I ever sided with Takkat. (And I reject that implication.) I did also never state that turning the post into a standalone answer other than by the user herself or himself would be an appropriate action. I recognise that the discussion is not about being polite in comments - I simply wanted to raise a little bit of awareness and failed. I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience. Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 18:03
  • @Martin - マーチン : Can we continue this in chat (probably in german)? Commented Jul 7, 2015 at 21:28
1

Nachdem ich ziemlich sauer wegen dieses Vorfalls bin, darf gerne jemand anders meine Stellungnahme ins Englische übersetzen, oder von mir aus auch löschen. Bin das ja schon gewohnt.

Erstmal meine Antwort auf die gestellte Frage:

Nein. Nicht korrigieren, sondern löschen.


Ich möchte aber auch die Vorgänge, die zu dieser Frage geführt haben aus dem Gedächtnis wiedergeben. Aus dem Gedächtnis deshalb, weil der Moderator Takkat es durch seine vielen Löschungen von Kommentaren leider unmöglich gemacht, die Vorgänge wieder zu rekonstruieren.

Der User "insaner" hat diese Frage gestellt: How do you say "he will be on TV"?

Ich war einer der ersten User, der die Frage gelesen hat, und ich habe sie beantwortet. Da es schon sehr spät war, und ich schon ins Bett wollte, ist mir an zwei Stellen derselbe Fehler unterlaufen, der rund 10 Stunden lang aber keinerlei Reaktion hervorgerufen hat.

Der neue User wamp hat den Fehler bemerkt, und sich offenbar extra bei german.stackexchange angemeldet, um darauf aufmerksam machen zu können. Leider durfte er wegen der fehlenden Reputation keinen Kommentar verfassen, und ihm war nicht bekannt, dass er einen Edit-Vorschlag hätte machen können. Also hat er das Naheliegendste getan: Er hat seinen Hinweis auf meinen Fehler als Antwort gepostet.

Dabei schrieb wamp im allerersten Satz seiner Antwort diese Präambel:

Just wanted to add something to Hubert's answer, since I can't comment (not enough reputation) I'll just answer here.

Damit wird offensichtlich, dass wamp sein Posting nicht wirklich als Antwort auf die gestellte Frage gemeint hat, sondern nur auf meinen Fehler aufmerksam machen wollte.

Dennoch wurden andere User nun auf meinen Fehler aufmerksam, und drei von ihnen werteten diese »Antwort« hoch, vermutlich um zu bestätigen, dass sie nun den Fehler ebenfalls bemerkt hatten.

Der User chirlu hat daraufhin dann meinen Fehler dankenswerterweise korrigiert, und das Posting von wamp, wie ich glaube ganz in dessen Sinn, als "not an answer" gekennzeichnet.

Etwa eine Stunde danach (es war nun der Vormittag des nächsten Tages) habe ich dann wieder die Seite aufgerufen, und habe gesehen, dass ich einen Fehler gemacht habe, er inzwischen aber schon korrigiert war. Ich sah auch, dass da eine "Antwort" stand, die gar keine Antwort war.

Also schrieb ich unter dieses Posting von wamp, gerichtet an den Moderator Takkat, dass diese Antwort nun zu löschen wäre, weil der Grund ihrer Existenz (mein Fehler) nicht mehr existiert, und das Posting sonst nichts zur Beantwortung der ursprünglichen Frage beiträgt.

Dann hat Takkat gelöscht. Aber nicht die überflüssig gewordene Antwort, sondern meinen Aufruf die Antwort zu löschen, und aus dem Posting von wamp genau jenen Teil der Präambel, aus dem klar hervorgeht, dass das Posting nicht als Antwort gemeint war. - An dieser Stelle möchte ich ergänzen, dass ich mir nicht sicher bin, ob die Löschung des Präambel-Abschnittes geschah bevor oder nachdem ich meinen ersten Kommentar verfasst habe.

Takkat postete dann in einem Kommentar, dass er das Posting stehen lassen wollte, weil es bereis drei Upvotes erhalten hat.

Daraufhin wies ich in einem Kommentar Takkat darauf hin, dass es nicht der Verdienst von wamp sein kann, wenn andere den Fehler machen, dieses Posting hochzuwerten, obwohl es (außer einer Wiederholung eines - nun korrigierten - Teiles meiner 10 Stunden davor geposteten Antwort) nichts enthält, was hochzuwerten wäre. Gleichzeitig habe nun auch ich diese Antwort auf durch Klick auf "flag" als "not an answer" gekennzeichnet.

Zu diesem Zeitpunkt liegen also diese Tatsachen vor:

  • Der Poster wamp gibt klar zu verstehen, dass sein Posting nicht im Sinn einer echten Antwort gemeint ist.
  • Das Posting enthält auch tatsächlich nur eine Korrektur meines Fehlers, jedoch nichts, was die gestellte Frage tatsächlich eigenständig beantwortet.
  • chirlu hat das Posting als "not an answer" geflaggt.
  • Ich habe das Posting als "not an answer" geflaggt.
  • Ich habe den Moderator mehrmals ausdrücklich auf die eben genannten Tatsachen aufmerksam gemacht.

Die Reaktion von Takkat:

  • Er löscht alle Kommentare (die von chirlu, meine und seine eigenen)
  • Er löscht aus dem Posting von wamp nun auch all jene Teile, in denen dieser explizit auf meinen Fehler eingeht. Takkat lässt nur die Richtigstellung stehen, so dass nun das verbleibende Posting tatsächlich wie eine Antwort auf die gestellte Frage aussieht (was davor ja nicht der Fall war). Die verbliebene Rest-Antwort ist auch jetzt nur eine Kopie eines Teiles meiner Antwort, enthält also sogar jetzt, nach Takkats Überarbeitung nichts, was nicht schon 10 stunden zuvor in meiner Antwort gestanden wäre.

Da durch die Eingriffe von Takkat nun alle Tataschen verdreht aussahen, entschied ich mich, das ursprüngliche Posting von wamp durch ein Rollback wieder herzustellen. Am Ende ergänzte ich noch eine zweizeilige Begründung des Rollbacks, und fügte auch einen Kommentar hinzu, in dem ich versuchte, die von Takkat gelöschten Kommentare wieder nachzutragen.

Anstatt nun die Frage endlich ganz zu löschen, entschied sich Takkat die Macht-Karte zu spielen, und den von ihm präferierten Zustand wieder herzustellen und einzuzementieren.


Warum ich das auf Deutsch schreibe

Ich kenne die Regeln (vielleicht nicht alle, aber die wichtigsten), und ich halte sie in den meisten Fällen auch für sinnvoll. Dass in einem Deutsch-Forum so viel auf Englisch gefragt und geantwortet wird halte ich für wenig sinnvoll, wie hier klargelegt: What language should be preferred for questions? aber ich verstehe auch die Argumente, die im Meta-Forum Englisch verlangen.

Aber ich will mit dieser Antwort etwas offenlegen, was - so sieht es zumindest von meinem Standpunkt aus - der Moderator vertuschen wollte. Und meine Zielgruppe sind nicht irgendwelche StackExchange-Gurus, die darüber urteilen wollen, ob die Regeln für german.stackexchange unklar oder änderungsbedürftig sind. Denn darüber (also über Regeln) zu diskutieren ist der eigentliche Zweck des Meta-Boards.

Aber die Regeln sind in Ordnung wie sie sind, daran muss nichts geändert werden. Was - meiner Meinung nach - geändert werden muss, ist das Verhalten des Moderators. Und alle Personen, die dazu beitragen können sind der Moderator selbst und die Heavy-User von german.stackexchange. Also ausschließlich Personen, deren Muttersprache Deutsch ist, oder die Deutsch auf einem Niveau sprechen, dass dem eines Muttersprachlers nahe kommt.

Die Zielgruppe meines Textes spricht also sehr gut Deutsch.

Ich spreche aber nicht sehr gut Englisch (vielleicht gut, aber eben nicht sehr gut). Ich muss, wenn ich etwas auf Englisch schreibe, bei jedem dritten Satz ein Vokabel nachschlagen. Das mache ich gerne wenn ich es etwas schreibe, was anderen, die mich auf Deutsch nicht verstehen würden, weiterhilft. Und ich mache es auch gerne, weil ich dabei lerne und so mein Englisch verbessere.

Ich schreibe das hier aber nicht, weil es für jemanden gedacht ist, der mich auf Deutsch nicht verstehen würden. Also schreibe ich auf Deutsch und erlaube mir ausnahmsweise mal, jedoch mit voller Absicht, hier gegen eine Regel zu verstoßen.

Ich habe auch nicht vor, den Moderator bei irgend einer Obrigkeit, die ich nicht mal kenne, anzuschwärzen. So viel Vertrauen in ihn habe ich noch, dass er selbst über das Vorgefallene nachdenkt und seine Schlüsse daraus ziehen wird.

Wenn das wirklich jemand lesen will, der nicht Deutsch kann, dann übersetze ich das hier natürlich gerne ins Englische.

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  • 1
    Übersetz es dir selber! Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 7:08
  • 1
    Actually I do understand your post, and I got the message perfectly fine. Because of that I feel I am not the right person you may have wanted to address. Complaints about moderation should be sent to the Stack Exchange Community Managers team but please understand that most of them do not speak German. See meta.stackexchange.com/questions/28867/… for more information.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 7:46
  • 3
    +10 for writing German. It is much more important that every user here can express his/her thoughts as precisely and profoundly as possible than pleasing some mods or managers behind the curtains.
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 7:58
  • 2
    @Matthias: What’s the point of expressing one’s thoughts precisely and profoundly if those who need to understand them cannot?
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 8:18
  • 1
    @Takkat: Ich will mich nicht bei jemanden über dich beschweren, den ich gar nicht kenne. Daher sind diese Leute nicht die Zielgruppe, die ich ansprechen möchte. Ich will hier auch nicht darüber diskutieren, ob die Regeln von german.stackexchange zu ändern sind. Ich spreche dich an, und die, die german.stackexchange mit Leben erfüllen. Und von diesen Leuten sprechen 100% gut Deutsch. Mehr kannst du im Nachsatz meiner Antwort nachlesen, denn in den Kommentaren ist leider immer so wenig Platz für so etwas. Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 9:01
  • 2
    @Wrzlprmft Well, who is it who needs to understand? These ominous SE staff, or the community here, which consists of people who are either native German speakers (IMHO the vast majority) or people who understand German at least well enough to repeatedly participate in the site? If the writer is a native German speaker, and 99% of its audience can read German well enough (which is less demanding than to write, not to forget), then writing English is one translation too much. It's a superflu filter that urges you to restrict what you want to write to what you are able to write.
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 9:35
  • 4
    Another word on moderation: I do this voluntarily, I am not getting paid for it, I do not gain reputation or anything else from it, I spend hours of my free time with the only intention to make German Language an even better place, I try to respect community decisions wherever possible, and I try to handle flags qickly to the best I know. I am open to discussion whenever I had declined a flag erroneously but in this very case I simply fail to see any issue beyond a once helpful post where now deletion was disputed.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 9:47
  • 6
    @Takkat I've just upvoted your previous comment to underline the respect I have for the work you are doing here, and the effort you spend. Tahnk you for this! But I don't understand why you don't see that the only help that the post in question ever meant was to improve (namely: correct) Hubert's answer. And the post itself said that this was its intention. (And at least to my understanding: its only intention.)
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 9:53
  • 1
    @Matthias: I do not question this - the OP said they wanted to comment but they also added an aswer below their comment. This made it a valid answer, hence not eligible for deletion. It should really be not so hard to understand.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 9:59
  • 3
    @Takkat You see a comment and an answer below the comment. I see the whole post as the comment. The second part just states how the error in Hubert's answer should be fixed. I too think that this shouldn't be so hard to understand, but maybe we can only agree to disagree on this point.
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:14
  • 1
    @Takkat: Wo genau siehst du im originalen Posting von wamp irgend etwas, das einer Beantwortung der eigentlichen Frage auch nur ansatzweise gleich kommt? Wamp schrieb nur (sinngemäß und stark gekürzt): »Ich hätte das hier gerne als Kommentar geschrieben. Hubert hat diesen Fehler gemacht, so wäre es richtig.« Da ist keine Silbe einer Antwort vorhanden. Hier nachzulesen: german.stackexchange.com/posts/23996/revisions Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:15
  • 1
    @Takkat: »If part of an answer answers the question it should not be treated as NAA.« This is 100% correct. But this also means: If nothing in it answers the question (which is the case), then it should be treated as NAA. I am really picky on this because there never was anything that answered the question (at least until your multiple edits turned it into something that it never was before). Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:36
  • 3
    @Takkat So whenever I see an error in someone elses answer I can simply write my own answer saying Line 42 in the answer of XYZ should read "bla blub", and I can be sure you will not handle this as NAA?
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:39
  • 1
    @Matthias: example where I (not the community they may have a different view on that) deleted an upvoted answer or it did not happen.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 10:58
  • 2
    @Takkat: I never said that you added something. You massively deleted. Now I counted it: You deleted 70.3% of all words (45 out of 64, leaving 19) or 70.0% of all characters (219 out of 313, leaving 94; white characters not counted). It was before: »I wanted to post this as an comment. This was wrong in Huberts Answer [quote] it should be [corrected quote]« After all your edits it now is: »[corrected quote]«. So by deleting all the context you turned something, that was part of a correction, into something that NOW (but never before) looks like an answer. But it never was an answer Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 11:41
-4

Usage of the NAA flag

In case an answer was not an answer as it was further specified in the linked meta posts we should however not hesitate to flag them for deletion or conversion to a comment. The earlier the better to avoid an occasional upvote with above said drawbacks.

We should not try to "repair" such an answer by adding content to make it a valid answer but we may remove superfluous or obsolete content just the way we always do.

In case there is no dispute on the validity of such a flag we will continue to delete or convert them just like we always did in the past.


This specific case

In this specific case we received a flag for deleting a post as "not an answer". The post was written by a new user who put quite some effort into their answer to contribute by helpfully pointing to an error the already accepted answer had but also to provide an own answer to the question. It was a valid answer being more than just a comment.

This merits due respect and gratefulness.

We should not force a user to delete their upvoted post. If they don't do that we should not ask a moderator to delete their post instead.

From a flag for deletion we usually expect an answer to be harmful, rude, offensive, spam, just gibberish, or an abandoned poor answer that may clutter the site. All this was not the case here. In the contrary, at the time we received the flag the answer already had +3 upvotes and no downvotes indicating that at least some people deemed it helpful.

Deleting a post it is not a thing we take lightly.

Deleting this answer would not only have reversed the reputation this user had earned but it would also contradict the votes of at least 3 other up-voting users. I is my strong believe that a moderator should not use their power to delete a post if it there was any doubt. I recommended to wait for the OP of that answer to come back before taking further steps, as I had the impression we were not in a rush here.

Because the error of the other answer was resolved I however removed those parts of the answer pointing to this error for being obsolete. Then obsolete comments on this were also removed in the believe the issue was resolved.

To my surprise this was not the case. The post continued to receive flags and comments dealing less with the post but with the way it was moderated. Roll-backs of my edits and continued off topic meta comments eventually led to a lock of the post.

Flags for moderator are not a replacement for community moderation.

All moderators try the best they can to be unprejudiced and to protect the interests of all users involved. Because of this not all flags we receive will be validated, there always will be flags we will decline.

Sometimes and in this case such a declined flag may only just indicate that the flag came too early or that we have an issue that was better be moderated by the community, not by the binding vote of a single moderator.

8
  • 1
    Really? valid answer? Where? Second: »Deleting a post it is not a thing we take lightly." - But deleting 60% of it is ok? and deleting all comments is ok? Third: »We should not try to "repair" such an answer by adding content to make it a valid answer« But deleting 60% so that a non-answer becomes a copy of a part of an already existing valid answer is ok? Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 20:22
  • 4
    "but also to provide an own answer to the question" - No. It was very obviously only a correction of two phrases that Hubert gave in his answer.
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 20:40
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    "+3 upvotes and no downvotes indicating that at least some people deemed it helpful" - yes, they upvoted the answer as they would have upvoted the comment that this answer explicitly was intended to be. Do you always refrain from deleting comments that have 3 or more upvotes?
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 21:32
  • 2
    From a flag for deletion we usually expect an answer to be harmful, rude, offensive, spam, just gibberish, or an abandoned poor answer that may clutter the site – Or we expect an answer not to answer the question.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 5:37
  • 2
    the answer already had +3 upvotes […] indicating that at least some people deemed it helpful. – I think this is the source of disagreement here: Even with ideal voting behaviour, post score is not a direct reflection as to whether a post should be deleted or not. No question, the two are strongly correlated, but at times it makes sense to upvote a question that I vote to close, downvote an answer that “looks OK” or upvote an answer that I vote to delete, as it happened here: The post is very useful (upvote) but it is a non-answer (delete).
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 5:45
  • At the time the answer was posted we did not yet have an answer regarding the two erroneous sentences because of an error in the first post. This answer is what was given in addition to pointing to the error. Exactly this made it a valid answer. In addition we do not delete incomplete or poor answers to a post only because there was a better answer. I really do not think it was a clear-enough case to merit raising a flag for a moderator for immediate deletion. It makes me extremely sad that people apparently don't get the spirit behind my approach of gentle moderation.
    – Takkat
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 6:37
  • It makes me extremely sad, that the moderator don't get the spirit behind of what really is gentle moderation. Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 7:07
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    @Takkat You might have a point about not deleting the post immediately (though I hadn't seen this as a violation of gentle moderation), but not about editing it.
    – Matthias
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 8:02

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