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Once in every while, I come upon an answer which is determinedly wrong (highly upvoted critical comments, knowledgeable users can easily determine the erroneous nature).

Such gibberish should have no place on this site, and should be deleted -- particularly if its poster is irresponsive to the critique.

Until today, I thought that the Very Low Quality flag was exactly for this purpose, and that it inserts the post into the Low Quality review queue (where a "Recommend Deletion/Delete" option is available). But now one of my flags was declined, stating that "it is not something that should be dealt with by moderators".

What, then, can I do to propagate deletion of such low-quality content (while I'm sub-20k)? Particularly, how can I make it go through the LQ review?

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    $\begingroup$ I am almost certain that at some point I remarked that flagging something as LQ should add it to the relevant queue immediately. I also think that if a post is being downvoted (without an upvote) twice in ten minutes then it's probably of very low quality, and should be added to the review queue. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Nov 22, 2013 at 10:01
  • $\begingroup$ AFAIK, it's a bot who inserts posts into the Low Quality review, based on several factors (spam detector score, length, too quick or too late answers, getting downvotes and no other attention, ...) $\endgroup$
    – yo'
    Nov 22, 2013 at 10:42

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Very low quality flags are for posts that have severe formatting errors and/or written so poorly that it is not understandable.

If you can understand the post and determine that it is in fact a wrong answer, it is not low quality. It is just wrong.

Contrary to your assertion, I do not think that all wrong answers need to be deleted. In fact, having an incorrect answer which accrues negative votes (showing that the community decided that the answer is unhelpful) and upvoted critical comments (pointing out where the answer went astray) can actually be a learning moment for other readers.

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    $\begingroup$ I am not saying that all wrong answers should be deleted. But I don't expect posts relying critically on errors like $\frac1{a+b}=\frac1a+\frac1b$ to provide a learning experience for anyone (save the poster, perhaps). But thanks for your answer. It's just a bit awkward to have similarly-named flags and queue not having to do with one another. $\endgroup$
    – Lord_Farin
    Nov 22, 2013 at 11:16
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    $\begingroup$ You seem to assume that the low quality queue has to do with correct and incorrect answers. I do not think so. The intent is, I think, to help identify posts that are poorly formatted/written which may be edited by other users to make better, or if not salvageable be deleted. The quality has nothing to do with the elegance of the solution or the correctness of the solution. The items automatically inserted into the low quality queue, for example, are stuff that are very short, link only answers, and some other voodoo that software can check for. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong
    Nov 22, 2013 at 11:24
  • $\begingroup$ Once you are 20K, you can vote to delete answers with score -1 or lower, and other 20K users can follow it up if they keep an eye on math.stackexchange.com/tools?tab=delete&daterange= and agree with you. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong
    Nov 22, 2013 at 11:30
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    $\begingroup$ Ah, another instance of SE re-coining of terms. On the SE premises, "quality" means "editorial quality", not "content quality". I'm growing tired of this idiosyncrasy. If even actively moderating 10k'ers like myself get confused, it's time to consider the idea that things might not be clearly worded. $\endgroup$
    – Lord_Farin
    Nov 22, 2013 at 11:38
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    $\begingroup$ So, basically, if I see a very poor answer (content-wise), I can do nothing but comment, downvote, and perhaps recruit 20k'ers in chat. Would a "request for delete votes" meta thread be permissible? $\endgroup$
    – Lord_Farin
    Nov 22, 2013 at 11:40
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    $\begingroup$ I (personally) really don't see the utility of a "request for delete votes". Why are you so insistent on deleting those answers anyway? The visual clue (grayed out answer if sufficiently downvoted), the number of downvotes, and the number of upvotes on the critical remark should already be a good clue for any reader that that answer is not to be taken seriously. The whole StackExchange model is based on good questions rising to the top and bad questions sinking to the bottom (but not discarded!) based on community self-moderation (i.e. voting). I guess I just don't share your vision of... $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong
    Nov 22, 2013 at 11:46
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    $\begingroup$ ... what should and should not be present among answers on this website. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong
    Nov 22, 2013 at 11:46
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    $\begingroup$ It's just that some posts of the type "I made this mistake and it makes this question have this trivial answer" or "I misread your question" are so far from being useful that there is zero merit in retaining them (and indeed, most are quickly deleted once this is pointed out) -- hence I think that it's better to remove them. Particularly when a question's answers are exclusively of that type, as people are more likely to visit questions without answers. Deleting the answer is then a service to the question. But I guess we can agree to disagree. $\endgroup$
    – Lord_Farin
    Nov 22, 2013 at 12:21
  • $\begingroup$ @Lord_Farin but why should we be having a flag (which is intended as a tool to notify moderators) place posts into a review queue? If you think there is an issue that justifies deletion, just post it into the C.R.U.D.E. chat or the constructive feedback chat. That'll get it fixed. $\endgroup$
    – user64742
    Apr 30, 2017 at 4:29

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