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My answer to a proof verification question is about to be deleted. The only question posed by the OP was: "Is my approach correct?"

I made the effort of checking that the OP's solution was correct and told them that it looked fine. The closest thing to justification that I received was this comment:

I think your post could be improved with some additional explanation about why the user's approach is correct - perhaps doing the problem another way to confirm the answer, or more justification about what's going on, or something like that. The essential problem with these sort of "yes" responses to solution-verification questions is that it's just the word of someone on the internet for this with no backup or reasoning, and that's notoriously flimsy. I sympathize with your predicament ("it's clearly right!") and I'm not voting to delete yet.

(Emphasis mine.)

I understand that this has been discussed on Meta previously here. But it is not made plain that answerers who do not follow the advice given by Quid should or could have their answers deleted.

Quid's answer appears to place more stringent standards on an answer given by someone with low reputation than high reputation. If it is felt that a confirmation given by a low-reputation user is not sufficient, then why can this not be achieved more simply by a high-rep user leaving a comment confirming agreement?

And what incentive is there for a user to verify a proof given by an OP if there is a risk he will discover that the answer is correct and therefore must add additional content, beyond what the OP needs and is actually asking for?

Part of what led me to give such a short answer was that I wanted the OP to have some satisfaction in a job well done. I didn't feel like picking apart minor flaws in presentation.

Is Quid's answer there still considered valid by the community?

Do you agree with the commenter that an answer that merely confirms that the OP's solution is correct (when that is what was asked) ought to be deleted?

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    $\begingroup$ Quoting quid's answer: "Anybody can post "This is correct." If this is of any value at all depends mainly only on who said it and possibly the score. This is not optimal for an answer. An answer should be able to stand at least a bit on its own. It should not just give the binary information in/correct but also addres the "why."" $\endgroup$
    – Arctic Char
    Jul 30, 2020 at 8:30
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    $\begingroup$ I think quid's comment is that if a short answer like "this is correct" has some value (at all!), the value comes from the answer-er and the score of that answer. But even when the answer-er has high rep and the answer has a high score, the answer is still not optimal. $\endgroup$
    – Arctic Char
    Jul 30, 2020 at 8:34
  • $\begingroup$ Concerning not having incentive to answer solution-verification question, this comment gives you a good suggestion. $\endgroup$
    – Arctic Char
    Jul 30, 2020 at 8:55
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    $\begingroup$ "Quid's answer appears to place more stringent standards on an answer given by someone with low reputation than high reputation." No. Everyone should be held to the same standards, irregardless of reputation. If someone posts an answer and the only way you can find to judge its correctness is the rep. of the answerer then it is a bad answer! (I mean, that is why theorems have proofs, right? So we can verify their correctness.) $\endgroup$
    – user1729
    Jul 30, 2020 at 9:01
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    $\begingroup$ (Incidentally, there do not seem to currently be any votes to delete the linked answer. Although I do not know how the review queue works for deleting answers.) $\endgroup$
    – user1729
    Jul 30, 2020 at 9:06
  • $\begingroup$ Relevant review task completed $\endgroup$
    – Arctic Char
    Jul 30, 2020 at 11:30
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    $\begingroup$ We've been over this recently. quid's answers to both questions are relatively highly upvoted, indicating that these answers represent the community consensus, which (since this is a community moderated site) means that this is as close to policy as we have. "Yes, this is correct" is not a sufficient answer. $\endgroup$
    – Xander Henderson Mod
    Jul 30, 2020 at 13:21
  • $\begingroup$ this post is also relevant. $\endgroup$
    – lulu
    Jul 30, 2020 at 15:24

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And what incentive is there for a user to verify a proof given by an OP if there is a risk he will discover that the answer is correct and therefore must add additional content, beyond what the OP needs and is actually asking for?

Hopefully no incentive, or really a disincentive. In my view "check my work" questions and "yeah it's right" answers aren't great content for the site, so people will only post them despite the disincentives when they've got a really compelling reason to do so.

I know it sucks when you expend the effort and get nothing for it (especially when you're first starting out here), but the community is set up to direct our work towards some things and away from other things. And I've found that there's usually a good explanation from the old-timers as to the what and the why.

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