Can you provide the link of the question?

@Pandya Unable to find the Q. It may have been deleted. Other SE's do not allow for deletion of questions that have answers AFAIK.

Since the question is deleted now, there is nothing to do with your deleted answer on that question. So, this question is also obsolete.

@Pandya Let's try to answer my question anyway for future reference. For information, the answer to the Q in question was deleted before the Q itself.

Yes, I remember reading your answer. The question is Why Saibaba is worshipped as a deity in Hindu temples? which is now marked as duplicate. Ideally, your answer should have been moved under the other question as part of "merging"

Keshav clearly mentioned about giving source in comments

This site has got worst moderators. bear with it.

@Bїt If you have some serious concern then kindly provide the proper explanation , so that problem can be resolved. As this hate speech not going to help anyone.

@moonstar2001 If you have any source for you claim , i will merge you answer with the main question.

@AnkitSharma There are a ton of answers out there which don't have any references at all from 2014 and 2015 with lot of comments (with upvotes) asking for sources. How long do you wait before deleting those answers? If you are selectively deleting answers, the whole review process is a complete waste of time! One mod leaves a banner when an answer lacks citation. Another simply deletes the answer. We need some consistency here!!!

@AnkitSharma IMO, the correct thing to do in this particular case is first merge moonstar2001's answer with the other and then leave a banner there asking for citation. Deleting is not the solution unless you adopt the same technique site wide.

@sv. consistency can't be achieve by mods only, high rep user can always support in that. That answer placed with comment before it's deletion, it was not straight deletion and during the first year there was not much rule made and citation-less answer did got entertained that doesn't means we should allow them. And even if the person have citation he can always ask for revival of his answer.

@sv. I don't know how well is to ignored mod messages and after taking action, accusing them for being rude. And it's not first time either.

@AnkitSharma Only mods can delete answers, convert incomplete answers to comments, or leave banners. High rep users cannot. The issue of consistency I pointed is clearly about the actions of mods when it comes to deleting answers vs. leaving banners vs. warning users that answers are subject to deletion. Maybe the 3 mods need to discuss b/w themselves and adopt a single method - maybe post a question here on meta and ask users to vote b/w the 3 methods you guys seem to follow. As I can tell from your actions, clearly, there is lack of communication between the mods.

I think @KeshavSrinivasan would be the best person to answer it, since he is the one that closed it. If I were to guess, its because you failed to respond to his comment that 'You should cite sources'. Moderators are trying their best to keep their site clean. If an active user such as yourself fails to respond to his concern (that there are no sources), it is up to him to take measures to ensure quality is taken care of. But that's my guess. Good luck

@sv. I don’t see point in dragging everyone and asking every mod before deleting an answer when the user giving no importance to mod message, even when he is old user and know stuff. Before complaining is it not better to act first rather then ignore?

@sv. high rep user can edit post, they can post downvote, deletevote etc, they can also leave comment to guide poster too. And converting answer to comment have limitation, comment length doesn't allow much text, so converting long answer into comment is useless

@AnkitSharma I understand in the early days of the site 'citations needed' rule was not enforced. But my concern is about other answers lacking citations that are several months old which are still lying around not converted to comments or deleted - after the rule was adopted. Why selectively delete answers? It would appear as though you are targeting certain users!

@sv. there is not partiality or selection but for new user sometime more time is given to understand stuff but if old user do this then it's ignorance. Second, if you still feel any answer is not competent enough then everyone is free to flag it for moderation. But it's need to be done together.

@AnkitSharma Like I said, my issue is about consistency b/w diff. mod actions. Old or New user don't matter, IMO. When do you decide if a user is 'old'? You give a weeks time to OP to correct an answer? I'm all for citing sources in answers, but when an answer lacks citation, I think a banner is more appropriate than simply deleting especially since the 3 mods all behave differently when it comes to enforcing that. Also you should do a separate post and clarify this - who's a new user and who's an old user and when did this 'citation needed' rule went into effect officially etc.

@sv. But that answer specifically had the comment from a mod, i don't know how hard it was to read that?

@AnkitSharma Similar comments have been left on ton of other answers yet no action has been taken - not deleted, not converted to comments. Why? Why selectively delete answers? Why not apply the same rule for everyone? What's going on??

@sv. what about when same user do it repeatedly? And whenever some action is taken, time to sling some mud on mods?

I am not agreeing on selective deletion either and i do not support it neither other mod

But some things can slip from mod that doesn't means to stop cleaning

@AnkitSharma Like I said, other high rep users like myself cannot do any clean up when some of the mod actions are not clear.

It's time for all of us to work together, to clean this site to make it reach graduation

@sv. I am already planing few meta post for the similar topics

@AnkitSharma I agree, but we should be more liberal before we graduate and deleting answers is not the best thing to do.

some similar discussion

@AnkitSharma I can't tell but it's probably you who adds a citation banner on some answers. Maybe other two mods should follow the same practice.

Problem is people here using meta only to complain rather then to make some resolutions or suggestions

@AnkitSharma I always leave suggestions :)

@AnkitSharma No matter anyone actually follows or not :P

hahahahaha

@AnkitSharma If an "old" user is not providing answers, a banner citation will probably force them to update the answer or they may not simply care. At least other users reading that answer are made aware it's not a good way of answering questions.

@AnkitSharma I don't think giving a warning and then deleting the answer 2 days later is a solution, we don't have very many active users answering questions here. So need to use sound judgment there.

@AnkitSharma That's all I had to say. Thanks for your time :) Bye...

@sv. Quality is the thing, which will make us attract new user or to reach graduation.

So even if we have less answer, that doesn't means we should compromise quality

@Mr_Green "The question itself about worshipping modern saints is off-topic on this site because it is clearly not related to Hinduism." - you alone don't get to decide that. It's based on voting and other users' opinions also. Also you should not mix both issues. Also take a look at the discussion here:

@AnkitSharma @moonstar2001's answer was much better than ton of answers out there (lacking citations) which are not deleted yet. Let's look at all of them vs. picking on one user and try to defend other mods' actions.

@sv. Two wrongs don't make a right. If there are other answers that are worse than moonstar2001's answer, they should be deleted as well. Moderators are only human, we don't catch everything. That's why we rely on users to flag content for us. If you see an answer where the user was asked to cite sources and the user did not do so, please flag it.

@sv. And I wholeheartedly agree with @AnkitSharma's statement we shouldn't sacrifice our standards of quality just to increase the number of answers. It's only by insisting on standards of quality that the site will become a place that more people will want to visit. The whole point of insisting on citing sources is so that when a user reads an answer on the site, they can have the confidence that they can easily verify that the answer is correct if they want to.

@sv. And there's absolutely no inconsistency in how different mods enforce the rules. None of us just delete answers right off the bat without first giving the user an opportunity to add sources. (The only exception is when an answer is really short, in which case we may convert to comment immediately.)

@KeshavSrinivasan The inconsistency I'm talking about is the way in which answers without references or sources are handled here.

@KeshavSrinivasan @AnkitSharma seems to use a banner and leave it at that. @Mr.Alien uses a warning to force the user into providing references. While, you, you give a warning and delete the answer.

@KeshavSrinivasan I prefer the banner better than what you seem to be doing.

@KeshavSrinivasan @AnkitSharma I don't think flagging new answers is going to do any good when there are tons of answers for the mods to work on already. You can run this query and sort by date, there are at least 100 answers (in 2016 alone) that have been flagged already. So the question is why are onlt @moonstar2001's answers targeted here?

Flagging the same answer twice is a complete waste of time, IMO, once to leave a warning and later to remind the mod to actually delete it.

This is an example from Jan 2016 .. hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/10046/2995

@sv. There's no inconsistency. All the mods follow the exact same procedure: whether in the form of a banner or the form of a comment, we ask the user to cite sources. And then if at a later date if we find that the answer hasn't been edited to conform with the rules of the site, we delete it.

@sv. The fact that someone told the user to cite sources doesn't mean that they flagged the post. What we generally do is look at the list of flagged posts, and take action where appropriate. Now of course if we happen to see posts that are problematic, we may take action, but for the most part we rely on the flagging system.

@sv. I think part of the problem may be that you're only able to see the comparatively small number of posts we haven't deleted, as opposed to the large number of posts we have deleted.

@KeshavSrinivasan What do you think of flagging twice? It's a waste of time, IMO. I flagged a lot of answers, but very rarely any action is taken on them. But @moonstar2001's answers are dealt with without fail :)

@sv. I assure you that moonstar2001's answers aren't treated any different than anyone else's. The only way in which we treat users differently is that if a brand-new user posts an answer, we may give them more leniency.

@KeshavSrinivasan What about the query I gave above? Why do we need to flag any further when there already ton of answers without any citations?

@sv. Like I said, two wrongs don't make a right. The fact that some problematic content exists doesn't mean that other problematic content should be ignored. And flagging is how problematic content gets to the attention of moderators.

@KeshavSrinivasan It's not the issue of two wrongs. I agree that we have to continue flagging. But what are we going to do about already flagged answers? Are we going to use the citation banner on all of them?

@sv. If you see an answer where the user has been asked to cite sources, whether through a comment or through a banner, and the user has not made the appropriate edits, then please flag the post.

@KeshavSrinivasan My point is, flagging the same answer twice is a waste of time. Once to go thru the review process and then a month or two later flag again so it can be deleted. The query I gave you already lists all such answers. Why to flag again? Pointless, isn't it?

@sv. Well, it's not pointless at all. If no one flags it, then it may stay up because no one notices that it's there.

@sv. Like I said, how mods generally do their job is to look at the list of active flags and see whether any flagged posts require action.

@KeshavSrinivasan It is both pointless and a waste of time. I'll explain how. First someone flags a new and incomplete answer. A bunch of users review it and ask for references. Then nothing happens for a while. Who has the time to revisit those same answers and flag them? So it is redundant that way. I think mods should do the 2nd clean up job, they should not rely on users to flag over & over. Complete waste of time, IMO.

@sv. Now mods are humans, so we make mistakes from time to time. So if you flagged a post and for some reason your flag was mishandled, then I don't have any other advice to give you other than to flag the post again.

@KeshavSrinivasan Think you are missing my point, see my above comment.

@sv. Well, for the most part flags are handled properly. In any case, users shouldn't just post a comment "You should cite sources." Along with the comment they should also flag the post.

@KeshavSrinivasan But then your policy is to allow new users to fix their answers. This is where it gets really complicated and defeats the whole purpose of flagging.

@KeshavSrinivasan So you are essentially expecting users to flag the same answer twice?!

@KeshavSrinivasan What I'm saying is, you should not expect users to flag a second time, you should probably keep a list of flagged answers and revisit them yourself. Or use the query and revisit those answers. That's what I would do. Expecting users to flag the same answer twice is expecting too much.

@sv. Our policy is to let all users, new and old, fix their answers. The only difference is we may give brand-new users a bit more time to do so. So here's the sequence of events: a user posts an answer without reliable sources. Someone sees the answer, writes a comment "You should cite sources" and flags the post. Then a mod sees the post, leaves the flag open, and then when enough time has elapsed and the user has not made the required edits, the mod deletes the post and closes the flag.

@KeshavSrinivasan See this comment made by a mod when I flagged an answer.

Should be converted to a comment? – sv. May 6 at 22:30 helpful - Not required, you can format the post in a better way and ask for references :)

@KeshavSrinivasan What exactly is this "enough time has passed" - 1 week or 6 months?

@KeshavSrinivasan You can see my flags here: hinduism.stackexchange.com/users/flag-summary/2995

@sv. "So you are essentially expecting users to flag the same answer twice?!" No, under normal circumstances, one flag will be enough. It's only in the rare occasions that a mistake is made that another flag may be necessary.

@KeshavSrinivasan The mod comment was in response to my flagging this answer: hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/9400/2995

@KeshavSrinivasan I can confidently say mods here don't agree on when to delete an answer or convert it to a comment.

@KeshavSrinivasan The reason maybe that, one mod is more liberal than other, so clearly there is inconsistency.

@sv. We do agree about when to delete and convert to a comment. It's just that we make mistakes from time to time. We're human.

@sv. I see that the vast majority of the posts you've flagged have been deleted. So mistakes are relatively rare.

@KeshavSrinivasan This answer already has a comment asking for references from 2015 and I flagged the answer on May 6, yet the mod asks me to leave another comment. Crazy or what? :P

@sv. "What exactly is this "enough time has passed" - 1 week or 6 months?" Well, there's no hard and fast rules, but generally for established users of the site a few days' time is enough. For brand-new users we may give a bit more time. Anyway, you don't need to worry about any of that, as soon as you see a problematic answer you can leave a comment and flag it. And then we can deal with the flag at the appropriate time.

@sv. Again, it's called "being human".

@KeshavSrinivasan I'd say all mods need to "be human" then, i.e., leave @moonstar2001's answers with a citation banner. Deletion doesn't justify some of the other mods' actions like the example I pointed out.

@sv. Well, like I said, two wrongs don't make a right. The fact that we've made mistakes in some cases doesn't mean we should make more. In the vast majority of cases, we handle things correctly. We're not perfect, but we do the best we can. And we're always trying to improve, so I appreciate the feedback.

@KeshavSrinivasan As I said earlier, I don't believe all mods here are on the same page when it comes to deleting an answer or converting it to a comment. Some will leave both 'new' and 'old' users' answers alone with just a warning, while others delete it.

@sv. Well, as I said before I think part of the issue is that you're only seeing the posts we don't delete as opposed to the posts we do delete, so in some ways you have an incomplete picture of what we do. Like you may be surprised to learn that in the past three months, I'm not even the moderator who has deleted the largest number of answers.

@KeshavSrinivasan I'm all for asking for sources and using citation banners, but deleting should be last option. Old or New users. Some answers are obvious cases for deletion. But my main issue is not those answers but answers which seem to be correct but lack references.

@KeshavSrinivasan All I'm saying is whoever made the above comment on my flag would not have deleted @moonstar2001's answer in this case. But you chose to delete anyway.

@KeshavSrinivasan "Not required, you can format the post in a better way and ask for references :)" - that is not human error, the mod here I believe is being more liberal. And I believe it's @Mr.Alien who made that comment who went on to edit the answer later.

@KeshavSrinivasan So I don't think @Mr.Alien would have deleted @moonstar2001's answer. There are so many others to delete, that is where mods should spend more time, not on answers that are borderline-lacking-references.

@KeshavSrinivasan Thanks for your time. I think I conveyed my point sufficiently.

@sv. Well, the thing is, the reader may not be able to readily whether an answer without sources is correct or not. That's the purpose of requiring sources, so that the reader can have some confidence that they can easily verify the correctness of an answer on this site. And we do use deletion as our last option, only when the user has made no effort to fix their answers. Sometimes, when a user responds that he is busy right now but will add sources later, we even give him more time.

@sv. I assure you that all three mods have deleted countless posts which don't cite sources. But we're human, and from time to time we may forget the rules and the like. There have been time when I too have not followed the proper procedure. It happens. But it's very rare. There's no need to focus on a single flag, in the vast majority of cases all the mods enforce the rules properly.

@sv. By the way, it's important to keep in mind the difference between the purpose of moderation actions and the purpose voting. The purpose of moderation is to make sure that posts conform to the site's standards of quality, for instance requiring sources, prohibiting plagiarism, requiring that answers be in English, etc. The purpose of voting is for users to decide, out of the answers that do meet the site's standards, which answers are correct or incorrect, which answers are good or bad, etc.

@sv. So even if an answer seems correct to me, that doesn't mean we should necessarily leave it up the way it is. For instance, I am staunchly in favor of the caste system, but I have deleted plenty of pro-caste system posts that don't cite sources. Enforcing standards of quality is important to giving the site a reputation of being a reliable source of information. And anyway, deletion isn't final, if a user wants to add sources to a deleted answer they're welcome to do so.

@sv. In any case, like I said, I think the mods here do a really good job, but we're always trying to improve, so I appreciate the feedback.