How are such non-answers ok? Flag declined!

Question

I recently reported this answer and to my surprise the moderator saw no problem with this answer.

The reason for declining the flag was that "flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer".

I see several problems with this answer

1. It doesn't actually answer the question and is beyond low quality as it is off-topic. Moderator classed it as 'technically wrong' but this is beyond inaccurate imo.

It is actually just a random statement about something unrelated to the question!

2. It explicitly makes the unsubstantited claim of other answers being incorrect.

The other answer here, btw., has nothing to do with share of merits, but answers question on giving (of things) toward certain.

3. It doesn't address the tags of the question, even if one spends time looking for the answer in the link.

4. It links to a german site owned by the person who posted the answer. Imho answer appears to be spam-like linking to a website, which is a rather common attribute of the user's posts which are hardly intelligible.

5. I would say that the formatting of the link fails to meet community guidelines

Excerpt;

In my experience, posts with links are not downvoted if all these conditions are met:

• you paraphrase the content of the linked item (possibly omitting details or examples)
• you identify the author (yourself, MSDN, etc)
• someone could benefit from the answer without reading the linked item at all
• you include information to let the reader decide if clicking the link is worthwhile

For example:

You can use the CircularLabelsStyle custom property for this, for example:

  chart1.Series["Series1"]["CircularLabelsStyle"] = "Circular";

I blogged about this last year, with some sample code.

The other extreme, an answer that says nothing more than "here" or "read this" or "please read" and is a link, I will not just downvote but flag as not an answer, and I don't care whether it's the definitive documentation from the owner of the technology, another question on the same SE site, or just a blog you wrote yourself.

I hope these issues are addressed because trying to look for value in such answers & links, trying to have them mended, let alone having to raise the issue on meta is a huge waste of time and puts me off from using the service. If this goes then i probably misunderstood what the point of raising a flag is.

You say 'flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer' but 3 top reasons to raise a flag is it being

1. Spam - primarily promoting a service
2. Rude or abusive - such that it is inappropriate for respectful discourse
3. Not an answer - doesn't attempt to answer the question

I think this answer is arguably all three of those.

Answer 1

It doesn't actually answer the question

I think you're right. The questions asks, "What did the Buddha say about this?"

The answer doesn't seem to answer that. Instead it:

• Explains what merit is
• Explains how to share merit
• Explains why to share merit

It does add some information for the avid reader. For example it gives the term Pattānuppadāna and given that you can find references of your own, for example here:

Though in the older texts very seldom mentioned (e.g. A.VII.50), it is, however, a widespread custom in all Buddhist countries. It is presumed that moral merit, especially that acquired through giving alms, can be transferred to others, apparently for the reason that one's own good deeds may become to others, especially to departed relatives and friends reborn in the ghost realm, an inducement to a happy and morally wholesome state of mind.

Transference of merit is advocated (though without mentioning the term patti-dāna) in the Tirokudda Sutta (Khp. and Petavatthu) and its Com. (Khp. Tr.).

It is one of the ten 'bases of meritorious action' (puññakiriyavatthu, q.v.), called there pattānuppadāna. (App.).

See 'The Doctrine of Reversible Merit by F. L. Woodward. Buddhist Review (London), Vol. I (1914), p. 38.

It explicitly makes the unsubstantiated claim of other answers being incorrect

That's a reference to this answer -- it's a reasonable comment, that the quote in that answer is about sharing wealth.

It doesn't address the tags of the question, even if one spends time looking for the answer in the link.

The tags are "merit" and "reference-request".

It certainly addresses the topic of "merit", much less so the "reference-request".

As I said previously I think there are some useful references in the linked content, though you have to do a tiny bit of work to make the reference useful.

Imho answer appears to be spam-like linking to a website

Most of my answers link to one of a handful of web-sites (ones I'm familiar with), and some of my answers link to other answers on this site. I assume Samana Johann is doing something similar in referencing the sangham.net site.

I don't consider it "spam". Spamming is:

• "Unsolicited messages", usually for commercial reasons (and often via email)
• "Usenet convention defines spamming as excessive multiple posting"

However this post isn't "unsolicited" (because it's posted in answer to a question someone asked), and it's not "excessive multiple posting" (because he hasn't been posting the same answer in reply to multiple questions).

I would say that the formatting of the link fails to meet community guidelines

Yes it's a "link-only answer" and is in that way far from ideal.

A fix would be to edit the post, to quote a relevant extract from the linked content -- that might be better than deleting the post, given that the post may be helpful -- I'm reluctant to delete it just because of how it's formatted.

I'm also reluctant to make the edit, partly because it's late on Sunday and I'm posting here on Meta instead, and partly because he has views about copyright and I don't want to trigger more complaints about Stack Exchange using a "CC BY-SA 4.0" license, technically I don't have permission to repost here what he write there -- and though I could argue that my doing that would be "fair use" I don't want to risk an argument.

Rude or abusive

No I think he was posting out that the other answer might be taking its quote out of context -- which is fair enough, encouraging the reader to re-read the quoted text with a discerning eye -- I don't think the way he did that was rude or abusive.

The other answer here, btw., has nothing to do with share of merits, but answers question on giving (of things) toward certain.

I suppose the phrase "nothing to do with" could be milder:

By the way, the quote in the other answer here wasn't about sharing merits -- it's about making merit by sharing wealth (and with advice about different kinds of making wealth).

But I don't try to read "tone" into Samana Johann's posts, I'm lucky if I can understand it literally.

If you read the examples though of Unacceptable Behavior I don't think he's posting like that.

Answer 2

First, regarding Stack Exchange policies on answer deletion vs. downvotes:

The moderators will definitely delete answers which are:

• Spam (which of course, is unrelated to Buddhism)
• Rude and abusive content - this may include rude criticism of other Buddhist schools
• Not an answer - usually meant as a comment, or a new question, or it is completely unrelated to the question (e.g. question asks about meditation and the answer literally talks about Buddha statues)
• Clearly off-topic - e.g. 100% Christian preaching or 100% Muslim preaching
• Very low quality and unsalvageable - severe formatting or content issues like completely unintelligible posts, rambling, gibberish
• Completely in a non-English language

All non-deleted answers are expected to:

• Not meet the answer deletion criteria mentioned above (i.e. spam, rude and abusive content, not an answer, clearly off-topic, very low quality and unsalvageable)
• Be on-topic i.e. most or all of the answer is related to any mainstream school or tradition of Buddhism (including Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana and sub-schools like Zen, Pure Land, Ch'an, Madhyamaka, Yogachara, Sarvastivada, Sautrantika, Kagyu, Nyingma, Dzogchen, Nichiren, Secular Buddhism etc.)

All on-topic answers which are technically wrong or inaccurate should be downvoted and not deleted. The Stack Exchange policies are quoted below.

According to this Meta SE answer for the question "How does deleting work? What can cause a post to be deleted, and what does that actually mean? What are the criteria for deletion?", the criteria for answer deletion is:

For answers, any post that is not an answer (should be a comment, doesn't answer the question, etc.) should be deleted. Answers that are wrong or that dispense poor advice should be downvoted, not deleted.

These are general guidelines; some communities in the network may uphold more specific reasons to delete posts or not. For example, on Puzzling.SE, answers to a puzzle without explanation are subject to deletion, and some technical sites will delete answers which are not only wrong but also harmful when tried.

So, this means we can add additional criteria for deletion, if we have extremely good reasons.

Also, according to this Meta SE answer for the question "Why shouldn't I delete wrong answers?":

"Wrong" as in "completely unrelated to the question"? Go ahead and delete those.

"Wrong" as in "yes, that will solve the problem, but that's a bad idea"? Those should be downvoted. Think of it as a lesson - showing a bad solution can be helpful as well, especially if it's an obvious solution that others may gravitate towards and/or when accompanied by an explanation (say, in a comment) of why it's a bad solution.

"Wrong" as in "this doesn't solve the issue, but it an obvious attempt at providing a solution" is trickier. The appropriate action here would depend on what the answer actually was. In most cases, I would go with downvoting as well or, frankly, not voting at all.

What is a good answer that should be upvoted?

• Technically on-topic, correct and accurate, with elaboration
• Addresses and answers all parts of the question
• Related to the tags of the question. For e.g. if the question's tags include only theravada and pali-canon, then the questioner limits the scope to Theravada and Pali Canon only.
• Preferably substantiated using scriptural quotes or commentaries or the opinion of experts, but this is not strictly required as the poster could answer using his or her experience and expertise. Please see this answer for the Buddhism Meta SE question "Is “opinion based” a reason for closing a question?"
• Answers to questions requesting for references (and tagged using reference-request) should include relevant references

Flags should be used for answers meeting the criteria for deletion above, and not used for answers that should be downvoted.

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Regarding the user's own websites, the policies are stated in "Does SE have a policy about linking to one's own research, sites, and blogs?".

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For the specific answer in question:

The answer in question was written by Samana Johann, whose command of the English language is very poor. His native language is German. I believe he is a Theravada Buddhist monk based in South East Asia.

Oftentimes, Samana Johann's answers are good or at least meaningful, as also opined by moderator ChrisW in this comment. Usually, many of his answers go in the direction of "the other answers explain what you're asking, but you've got your priorities wrong. This is what's better to focus on ...... because ......"

However, due to his lack of fluency in English and very awkward articulation, what he meant to express in his answers is often unclear and needs to be improved significantly. I myself have edited a number of his answers to make them clearer, if I managed to understand them myself.

So, for the flag, I decided that it looks more like a technically wrong or low quality (but not very low quality) answer than completely off-topic. It looks at least 40 - 50% on-topic, but the articulation in English and grammar has to be improved tremendously. It's not completely gibberish.

In any case, we don't intend to punish users for their poor command of English. We also have other users who write very good answers, but their command of English is poor, because English is not their first language. In this case, we would like other users to improve their answers by editing, but such edits should not change the original intention of the author.

Hence, I decided to give Samana Johann the benefit of the doubt and decided that this answer is meant to be downvoted rather than deleted. Also, it should be edited for improvement, and a disclaimer should be added to state that this is the user's own website. A summary of the website should be added to the answer, although I don't understand what it's about at the moment.

In summary, I feel, "the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater" for this answer.

Of course, I welcome the other moderators to give a second opinion on this answer.