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This is discussing a new answer to a new question (3 hours old at writing this)

I flagged this post before it was the accepted answer. The flag was declined, I assume as it was accepted as an answer.

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Essentially this answer says:

I faced similar problem last month while implementing navigation drawer in Android Studio.

I saw this blog post on Android Navigation Drawer:

"insert link"

I hope it will answer your queries. Best of luck :).

A mod made this comment to me in chat:

Please be careful when you flag an accepted answer as NAA because by definition an accepted answer is an answer that solved the OPs problem. So its liek deleting an answer that is not an answer that solved the OP's problem (feels like Joey tribbiany)

Should link only accepted answers remain on the site?

marked as duplicate by Tunaki, Yvette Colomb, Community Mar 19 '16 at 13:20


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    I was about to ask a similar question, as I was in the exact same situation on the exact same post. I would just like to add that "by definition an accepted answer is an answer that solved the OPs problem" is not always true, especially with newer users, some of whom might think they're obligated to accept an answer, or might accept one just to be "nice". Indeed, in this case, given the comments on the question (not to mention the question itself), it would seem that the linked page didn't actually address what was really being asked. – Mike M. Mar 19 '16 at 15:51
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    @MikeM. and the link may have solved the problem, but down the track may not be there and so be of no help to anyone. I probably shouldn't have voted to close it as Jon Clements was getting the mod to explain. – Yvette Colomb Mar 19 '16 at 16:05
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    True, true. Yeah, I'd like to hear the rationale. I only recently started flagging link-only answers as NAA, as previously I'd thought there wasn't an appropriate flag option, until I came across a meta post from Shog that pretty much said that that's acceptable. Before, I'd just downvote, and hope the user would delete it on their own. – Mike M. Mar 19 '16 at 16:10
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    @MikeM. there's this also meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/318952/… – Yvette Colomb Mar 19 '16 at 16:13

I think the flag is declined wrongfully, probably because the answer got accepted before your flag was handled.

In similar cases from the past I learned that moderators only see the answer without context. As a regular reviewer you and I know that context is key when reviewing.

The moderators can't spend that much time on each and every NAA flag so they probably go for the option to decline if the answer contains anything that looks like a keyword, that is an hint of an attempt to answer.

I have had some success in the past to use a custom flag instead. I explain why I didn't use NAA as the lack of context might misguide the judgement. Specially with flagging accepted answers you might want to follow that strategy.

If you really want to prevent declines keep your flags away from accepted answers (which you did) and use down votes, a comment to nudge the OP, maybe an edit (but in this case I didn't see an option to summarize that blog post) and evaluate the question if that needs attention.

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    @MsYvette I've deleted the answer and notified the mod who handled that flag about this post should they want to pop by and give their rationale. – Jon Clements Mar 19 '16 at 12:44
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    (@MsYvette just don't forget that we're not infallible and we mis-click/possibly make a wrong call now and again. If we get one wrong here or there - we feel bad about it, but don't forget that if we get a "Why was my flag declined on..." meta post - we've got the other 2k+ flags that we've handled successfully - even if we assume 5 a day wrong - that's still 99.9975% correctly handled) – Jon Clements Mar 19 '16 at 12:53
  • @JonClements my actual question is, are they supposed to be deleted? as I now they hit the mod queue, but a mod said to me in chat the other day, they don't like deleting accepted answers. – Yvette Colomb Mar 19 '16 at 12:59
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    @MsYvette normally we don't like deleting accepted answers as it's been useful to someone (more specifically the OP) - in this case - I can't see how it'd be useful to others without being edited to include relevant information to the answer itself. – Jon Clements Mar 19 '16 at 13:14
  • @JonClements another user has commented above the question, perhaps the mod concerned would like to write a comment as the question is closed? – Yvette Colomb Mar 19 '16 at 16:06

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