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.
