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David Z
David Z
4:58 AM
@Chair I think the appropriate response in these cases is to downvote the answer and flag requesting deletion of the comments (or moving them to chat).
Editing something into an answer which goes against the author's intent is definitely not the way to go.
You could always ask them to make the edit themselves but as you say, they're unlikely to accept it.
 
user351417
5:23 AM
@DavidZ It's sticky in this case, because one can't really be sure that it's against the author's intent. They did leave very suggestive points in the answer, including "Physicists are refusing to believe that..." (or words to that effect), and the comments are also straightforward agreements that it's non-mainstream.
 
user351417
The bigger issue is that if I edited a non-mainstream notice in, it may look like an attempt to undermine the claims of the answer (actually such an act kind of is an attempt to decrease the credibility), and that's something the author would not appreciate.
 
David Z
David Z
Maybe better to think of it like this: don't edit something into an answer unless you're quite confident that it agrees with the author's intent.
As a general rule, anyway.
And for anything that undermines the credibility of the answer, it's a priori quite likely that it disagrees with the author's intent.
 
user351417
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that there's no possible edit that won't inject my disbelief into that, and although the author would agree with what I'm saying about it being non-standard, s/he would not appreciate the words I choose to describe to situation.
 
David Z
David Z
Yeah. Plus even if the author believes it's nonstandard, there's probably a reason they chose not to mention that in the answer. "Intent" includes that kind of reasoning too.
 
user351417
But they did admit that it's non-mainstream! Saying that the physics community does not agree is practically the same thing.
 
user351417
5:28 AM
Can't moderators delete such stuff? It's not the situation which has come up on meta about how mods shouldn't decide factual accuracy. In all those arguments, the person being accused of writing non-mainstream stuff argues that their content doesn't contradict common literature.
 
David Z
David Z
Well, I mean, we can delete anything, but it's generally considered abuse of moderator powers to delete things because they're incorrect.
Or maybe I should say "inappropriate use" instead of "abuse".
 
user351417
Technically, in those arguments, which are about dark matter, we don't know if the author's incorrect. I can't find any extensive literature about supersolid dark matter at all, and there is no evidence that WIMP theories are correct.
 
user351417
The issue is that the author isn't forefront enough about how non-mainstream their answer is.
 
David Z
David Z
Sure, but that definitely sounds to me like a reason to downvote, not to delete.
 
user351417
Okee.
 
user351417
5:35 AM
Maybe when moderators move such comment discussions to chat, can they mention "the discussion about whether or not this answer is mainstream physics has been moved to chat"? It'd be more helpful for future readers, and it reflects a somewhat neutral tone
 
David Z
David Z
We can try sometimes, although it's quite a bit more effort to look over the comment discussion and try to figure out what the topic is, then come up with a comment that summarizes the topic in a neutral way.
 
 
2 hours later…
user351417
7:31 AM
@DavidZ That's alright... I get that mods have other stuff going on. Would it be appropriate to flag the mod's comment and ask for it to be changed to a certain specific thing? That's easy for me when I've been observing the discussion or participating in it. Or I could simply add another comment below mentioning what's there in the chat.
 
David Z
David Z
Adding another comment describing the content of the chat seems like a good idea.
Flagging and asking for the autogenerated comment to be changed (I'm guessing that's what you mean?) is probably not the worst thing, but flagging for mod attention is generally meant for things that non-moderators can't deal with on their own, and in these cases you do have a reasonable way to deal with it, i.e. posting that comment.
 
user351417
8:15 AM
That makes sense. Thanks!
 

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