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up vote -1 down vote favorite

I'm talking about this answer:

Check for DIVIDED BY ZERO conditions. If any.

and this answer

The segfault and the apparently garbage usecount value indicates your smart pointer object isn't a valid object. Do you have a reference to a smart pointer object that was declared on the stack and doesn't actually exist any more?

To me, it's clearly not an answer because:

This was posted as an answer, but it does not attempt to answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.

and from How should I get started reviewing Late Answers and First Posts?, I emphasized what I think relevant:

Is a misplaced comment or vote (anything that just asks the OP if they still have the problem, thanks someone for helping, confirms that a posted solution worked, is nothing more than a diagnostic to help get to the actual problem for an actual answer to solve, or similar):

  • Flag as Not An Answer (NAA); if possible, comment to tell the user not to do that again.

But someone had declined the flag:

flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer

That answer is not a technical inaccuracies or a wrong answer. It's just a comment (irrelevant comment, though)

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1  
The question is "guess what's wrong with my program." That's a guess. – Will 1 hour ago
    
Yeah, we might have to refine that NAA description for that faq. Because that's not quite accurate for how NAA are handled in reality. – ryanyuyu 1 hour ago
    
Possible duplicate of When to flag an answer as "not an answer"? – Tunaki 15 mins ago
up vote 10 down vote accepted

Addressing the second one: I have minimal experience with C++, but I feel comfortable rewriting this:

The segfault and the apparently garbage usecount value indicates your smart pointer object isn't a valid object. Do you have a reference to a smart pointer object that was declared on the stack and doesn't actually exist any more?

as this:

The segfault and the apparently garbage usecount value indicates your smart pointer object isn't a valid object. Check that you aren't using a reference to a smart pointer object that was declared on the stack and doesn't actually exist any more.

This is a far-too-common mistake - just because something is phrased as a question doesn't mean it's not an answer. We're human, we can infer a potential solution from a pointed question.

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But isn't it still a diagnostic to help get to the actual problem – Danh 1 hour ago
    
@Danh that's misleading phrasing in that FAQ. I've updated that FAQ to better target true cases of NAA. – ryanyuyu 1 hour ago
    
@ryanyuyu That makes more sense – Danh 1 hour ago
1  
Yeah, it's part of other NAA discussion, but diagnostic stuff too often is enough of an answer that NAA flags are invalid. Downvotes (and possibly VLQ) are much more appropriate. NAA must be totally obviously not answers (like "Thanks", or "I have a new question"). @Danh – ryanyuyu 1 hour ago
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I was disappointed that this answer wasn't phrased as a question... – Servy 1 hour ago
    
@Servy isn't strange you find disappointed in vey small things :P – Pavneet Singh 57 mins ago
up vote 7 down vote

This:

Check for DIVIDED BY ZERO conditions. If any.

is an attempt at an answer. It's not a very good answer, and so should be edited/down-voted/commented on. Once it's been downvoted high rep users can (if they wish) vote to delete. It's not something that a moderator needs to be involved with.

However, it is a borderline case. Yes, it probably should be a comment, but it's also valid as a, albeit bad, answer. On another day or with another mod you might have got a different result.

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However, in the Low Quality Posts queue, people also vote to delete with comment that answer is not an answer because it should be a comment. Do you think that is the proper comment in LQP? If yes, then what is the different between NAA in LQP and NAA flag? – Danh 1 hour ago
    
@Danh This is a borderline case. Yes, it probably should be a comment, but it's also valid as a, albeit bad, answer. On another day or with another mod you might have got a different result. – ChrisF♦ 1 hour ago
1  
@Danh you may also find that since that flag puts it into a community review queue first (it only appears in the mod queue after a certain amount of time) - the result could also have differed... The community are generally (from my experience at least) a bit more inclined to vote to delete/recommend deletions in such cases - mods generally go by "is it utter beep, unsalvageable or definitely should be a comment" then delete - otherwise - we tend to leave it. – Jon Clements♦ 1 hour ago

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