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It seems that one-line answers, even when they are linking to a page with a good solution, are increasingly frowned upon.

If the reviewer is unable or unwilling to edit and expand the answer to a full paragraph, what flag should be used in the reviewing?

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One line answers themselves aren't necessarily bad. "To fix this foo the bar" is an answer. Not the most descriptive answer, but is one. Don't flag these. I don't downvote these, but you are free to if you really feel you should. I don't see any reason why.

When an answer is nothing but a link and some text, e.g. "yo, check out my blog for the solution [link]" then it should be flagged as "not an answer". A quick any easy way to test this is to imagine the answer without the link. Does it still try to answer the question? For example:

You need to foo the bar, see my blog [link]

This is an answer. If you remove the link most of the answer is still there. This meanwhile:

to fix this see my blog [link]

is not an answer. If we remove the link no useful information remains.

I find Shog9's illustration of this to be quite helpful:

illustration

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  • If not reviewed from the review queue: Very Low Quality.
  • The review system has a "link only answer that is not spam".

I would also advice to comment about it how answers should be made an actual answer.

Editing the answer and including contents of the the link though ... don't.

If it is the only answer I myself might/would include an answer myself.

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    Why are you against editing to include the information from the link? I feel that's often the best solution.
    – terdon
    Mar 26, 2016 at 20:48
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    @terdon sooooo from now on I'll only post link-only answers and you edit the information in it to make it a good answer.
    – Rinzwind
    Mar 26, 2016 at 21:51
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    If you do it, I'll just downvote, you should know better! :P If a new user does it though, I will often edit in the relevant details myself. That is good for the user since it shows them how things should be done (and gets them some rep, showing them that this is how rep is gained) and good for the site since the answer is vastly improved. I can understand not wanting to do it or considering it not worth the effort, I just don't see why you would discourage other people from doing so if they chose to.
    – terdon
    Mar 26, 2016 at 21:53

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