13

I was going along doing some editing and whatnot on the main site when I hit a question that just looked so ugly quality-wise that I could not think of how one might be able to edit it back into something that made sense. The specific question I'm referring to is https://askubuntu.com/questions/72254/upgrade-problem-during-ubuntu-11-10 . In the original version posted, the beginning seemed extremely vague, and was followed up with a clearly modified log file; the whole question also had no formatting whatsoever.

I never felt a need to do so before, but I wondered if this was the kind of situation the "very low quality" flag was meant for:

it needs ♦ moderator attention

very low quality

This question has severe formatting or content problems. This question is unlikely to be salvageable through editing, and might need to be removed.

I thought about it, then decided to try flagging the question and see what happened. (I flagged the first revision by the way, just to be clear on that.) Some time later, somebody else came along and apparently had a better idea than I on how to clean the question up. I still don't think it's a great question, but I would not have flagged it after the new edit, and it didn't surprise me too much to see that my flag was then rejected:

very low quality – 11 hours ago declined - flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention

So all in all, this has got me wondering: when, if ever, should the "very low quality" flag be used? I find it hard to imagine now a situation in which this would be a good idea, so perhaps some examples or guidelines would be helpful.

3
  • Having recently gotten the same message from the mods, I've had the same question. I'm sure there is a lot of subjectivity here, and I assume our overworked mods are not going to spend forever on these judgments, but I'm of the opinion that it's not a very useful flag as currently constituted.
    – belacqua
    Oct 28, 2011 at 0:33
  • @belacqua I agree. The flag seems to cover just situations where either an edit or flagging as offtopic would do just as well. I'm just wondering if there are any special situations that would call for it. Oct 28, 2011 at 1:21
  • This post has an incorrect answer afaik
    – Zanna Mod
    Aug 27, 2017 at 20:52

1 Answer 1

2

It appears that this option for flagging has been recently removed from the flagging menu. I'm interpreting this to mean it was not a good option to use and was removed for that reason.

1
  • 1
    Actually, now that the option has been removed from the flagging menu, I'm wondering whether this question should be flagged as Too Localized. Nov 4, 2011 at 6:59

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .