@XanderHenderson: I'm pinging you since you are the only moderator that seems pingable here, although it may have nothing to do with you. I do not understand the inscrutable response to my last flag on Math SE. It tells me to familiarize myself with the list of standard flags, which is meaningless since they didn't apply to the flag I raised, which is why I picked "in need of moderator intervention".
The flag response also tells me to read this, which instructs me to raise the flag I did because "that entire question and accepted answer clearly does not belong here".
This is why I hate flagging, because it often fails like this.
The level of trollish nonsense that is protected on Math SE is appalling, and the fact that we present this highly upvoted rubbish to all visitors makes me want to throw up.
@user21820 I handled that flag, I and I didn't expect that you were going to be happy with the way in which it was handled. Honestly, I spent a lot of time struggling with how to handle that post. Ultimately, I think that the problem is that it needs to be handled by the community, i.e. a standard "Not an answer" or "Low quality" flag needs to be raised.
@XanderHenderson I understand that such a flag on the answer is the usual way, but it only works for posts which do not have so many upvotes, and usually only with a <50% success rate.
I agree that it is problematic, but the fact that it has so many upvotes indicates that the community finds some value in it. I can't be a dictator, and overrule the opinion of the community.
It's not the opinion of the mathematical community for sure.
This is why there is a need for moderators to be actual mathematicians.
Because the HNQ-drive-by-voters do not know mathematics and will upvote anything with a huge pizza chart no matter how useless it is.
Let me put it very clearly: Telling anyone who cannot understand why 100% can be divided into 3 equal parts to think in base 3 instead is seriously damaging every mathematics student who reads it since they all look at the crazy high vote-score and think that the "Math SE community" approves of that answer. That is just dumb, and you know I'm right about that.
I agree that "think in a different base" is not terribly useful, and I suspect that a lot of the upvotes come from people who barely know what a different base is, and think that the answer is very slick and clever.
And I know you do not want to be a dictator, so I suggest that you get all the other moderators on the team to evaluate my point about the zero mathematical and pedagogical value of that thread.
But the check does not indicate that the answer is good, but only that it is good in the opinion of the asker. I can't overrule the asker's opinion, as much as I would like to.
I will take it up with the other moderators. In the meantime, if you can get a few close votes, I'm happy to cast a fourth or fifth vote.
@XanderHenderson While your last comment sounds reasonable, it is actually unreasonable based entirely on the way SE is designed. High-rep users are allowed to overrule the asker's acceptance of an answer as long as it has negative score.
The problem here, as we all know, is that this thread must have gone through the HNQ and hence got protected from high-rep users who could get rid of the wrong answer otherwise.
The problem is that if I unilaterally delete the answer or close the question, I know that there is a going to be a backlash. The counterargument that I foresee is that the answer is not wrong, so who are you to say that it should be unilaterally deleted?
@user21820 Like I said, I will bring it up. If there is consensus among the moderation team, I would be happy to see it go. That being said, I think that I am one of the more exclusionist moderators (i.e. I am more willing to delete than most of the others).
Yes, so I will wait for the outcome. I just want to make clear that I only flagged this special case because the vote-score on that thread had been mangled by the HNQ to meaninglessness.
By the way, I was glad when you said you spent a lot of time struggling, not because of the struggling, but because it meant that my flag wasn't outright dismissed (despite the canned response). =)
