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I recently passed the threshold of $2000$ points and hence have access to more review queues (Low Quality Posts and others).

Some of those posts are answers, which I am asked to "judge". Sometimes I consider them not to be an answer (I don't mean mathematically wrong, just not an answer), and hence flag them as such.

Fact is, most of those answer flags are declined by other users. Sometimes people leave a comment about it (thing that I appreciate a lot), saying why they declined it, but that in my experience has happened to be more a personal opinion rather than a reason to decline.

Examples:

  • flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention
  • flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer

Note that the first item is not only an opinion, but also wrong, since it was not a moderator flag.

I don't mind very much having some rejected flags. The issue I have is that I am torn about what to do. I personally don't flag answers by my own initiative, I do so only when they are brought up to me by Review Queues. And often, they are declined. Now, the temptation is just to skip all Answers reviews, or just to lie and say "Looks OK". I don't think this is the way the community would like me to help with moderation, but I feel forced to do so.

What should I do? Keep getting declined flags or just close my eyes when wrong answers appear, given that other users don't like those kinds of flags?

P.S.: I did not include links because I am not interested in people discussing specific posts. This is a trend I have noticed and I know it has been noticed by other users I have talked with. If you really want them, let me know.

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Whenever you get a comment with declined flag, that means it was declined by a moderator. There are no comments with flags automatically declined by review.

The VLQ and NAA flags are dual-purpose: they feed the Low Quality queue, but they are also seen and can be handled by moderators. The rules are a bit complicated and are described here.

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  • $\begingroup$ Sorry, I mixed up different kinds of reviews while writing the post. I edited. I assume the instances I was referring to happened with FP or LA (I just started reviewing more after 2k, given the notification on the top right of the page). $\endgroup$
    – Silvia Ghinassi
    Dec 1, 2015 at 2:47
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Before anything else, if you feel that you cannot or do not want to give accurate and honest reviews (i.e. if you want to lie as you call it and hit 'looks okay'), then don't review posts. You might look at the top right of the UI and see a number, and feel inclined to lower that number. But you must remember that maintaining high quality is much more important than lowering a number.

That aside, your question here is quite different. Reviewing questions from the Review Queues does not lead to flags, and the responses you mentioned in your question here are from flags, not reviews. Ordinary users do not have the ability to give the reply ...only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention. Only moderators can do so.

I would add that the not an answer flag should be used only for posts that are not answers. If a user were to give an answer like

I'm also interested in this question. I was wondering, can we use this to find the minimum of $x^2 - x + 1$ too?

then you should flag it as not an answer. Merely being mediocre doesn't typically merit a flag.

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    $\begingroup$ First Posts and Late Answers review queues do lead to flags, especially LA review where flagging VLQ or NAA is frequently the right move. (It's true that LQ review does not involve flagging.) $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Dec 1, 2015 at 2:13
  • $\begingroup$ @NormalHuman Ah, you're right. $\endgroup$
    – davidlowryduda Mod
    Dec 1, 2015 at 2:15
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the explanations. I am aware of the use of the "not an answer" flag and I try to use it in the way you describe. Sorry if I mixed up LQ with LA and FP in my post. I wasn't planning to lie, the point is that I felt uncomfortable feeling led to. $\endgroup$
    – Silvia Ghinassi
    Dec 1, 2015 at 2:51

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