According to this post, we should be flagging link-only answers because an answer should actually contain an answer.

With the above in mind, I have flagged several answers as "link-only" answers and, recently, a lot of my flags have been declined - a few of which were then deleted by a mod afterwards (hence, myself thinking the flag was actually a correct one).

I flagged this answer twice. It is the definition of a link-only answer. Both flags were declined. Am I doing something wrong with my flagging? Edit: and after flagging this answer twice and posting on here, it has now been deleted. It originally contained a single word which linked to the php manual.

This one had no evidence to support not being a valid answer, then was deleted afterwards by a moderator.

This answer I flagged a while back was disputed. This should be converted to a comment in my opinion, but then I'm just following what I read from the posts at the top of this question - am I interpreting this incorrectly?

Finally this answer was also, imho, more worth being a comment - the flag was declined, then the answer was deleted.

Basically, am I interpreting the meaning of a "link-only answer" wrong? Perhaps I shouldn't be flagging those answers above... am I doing the right thing questioning this on meta (I have only made one other meta post before)?


migrated from Apr 18 at 13:29


For that first answer, if you remove the link but keep preg_quote() would it answer the question? I think it does, so that makes it an answer. If it read 'look here' and then link to the doc it would be an NAA. –  rene Apr 10 at 9:40
I think it would be a very poor answer indeed and would downvote it; considering the accepted answer is the sort of answer we want on StackOverflow. –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 9:42
I agree on that... –  rene Apr 10 at 9:43
So we agree that, in it's current state, it is a link-only answer then, and both flags should have been accepted considering the answer in it's current state - not what it could be? –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 9:45
There is not a general consensus about how link-only answers should be flagged. That post you reference is only an opinion, not a policy. If you follow the link for "This question already has an answer here:", you'll see different opinions. –  Pablo Apr 10 at 9:46
No that is not what I agreed on. I agreed on that it shoud be downvoted because it is not a great answer and the other answer that explains more should get an upvote. Flagging the answer as link-only is not correct. –  rene Apr 10 at 9:46
@rene So, in it's current state, the answer cannot be defined as link-only. Please could you explain this to me? According to shog, the answer would need to include more than a link - shog's also explains an argument to look at (I wouldn't say that is a link-only answer either). –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 9:47
The answer to the question is preg_quote() which is correct. That it is decorated with a link doesn't make it a link only answer. –  rene Apr 10 at 9:50
The correctly marked answer provides a link and also answers the question. The other one doesn't. Quite frankly, I flagged because I believe that answer should not exist. And now, it doesn't exist because it has been deleted, and my flags should not have been declined. –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 9:52
There is no flag for it should not exist. The only option to express that is to donwnvote. Flagging as NAA is not correct hence your derclined flags. But maybe Gordon want to explain why that valid answer was deleted... –  rene Apr 10 at 9:56
This one was deleted by the community, not by a moderator. And this one was converted into a comment, not just deleted. –  Amal Murali Apr 10 at 9:57
^ Great to see. Should I be flagging as "other" and suggesting a conversion to a comment in this circumstance, or is this implied and up to the moderator to think of? –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 10:00
If you do flag a link only answer, make sure that you downvote it. Flags on answers that have received only upvotes, even if link-only, are generally declined/disputed. –  devnull Apr 10 at 13:19
@devnull I did not know this was the common thing to do, thanks. –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 13:22
@Jimbo I learnt it the hard way. In this case, the only possibility of a flag being rejected is that the OP updates the answer after observing a downvote and improves the post. Look at the revision history of this answer, for instance :) –  devnull Apr 10 at 13:26

2 Answers 2

up vote 7 down vote accepted

The first one is definitely not an answer. It doesn't matter that removing the link and leaving the link text only would still give the OP a clue what to look up. The answer is insufficient and does not attempt to provide context or an explanation why it is right. That makes it subject to removal. We expect answers to be answers with a certain degree of quality. Throwing single words or function names at people is not good enough. Also, there already is a somewhat higher quality answer giving the same solution, so keeping the flagged one doesnt add any value to future visitors.

The third one is also valid in my book, since it requires you to go off-site to find a solution. We want solutions to be on the site. The answer should have been a comment. To be an answer, it should cite the relevant parts of the off-site resource instead.

Same for fourth one.

Also see

Why were the flags declined, then? –  Amal Murali Apr 10 at 10:00
@AmalMurali because mods are people. too –  Gordon Apr 10 at 10:01
@rene yes, delete. because the solution is already given in a better answer so there is no point in keeping the one-word answer around. It's just clutter. Quoting shog's answer: "if it turns out they're just not that useful, they should probably still be removed" –  Gordon Apr 10 at 10:07
@Gordon Do we delete bad answers when there is a better one? First notice I have. –  Pablo Apr 10 at 10:23
@Pablo That wasn't why it was flagged. It was flagged as a "link-only answer", which it was. Then sound judgement and common sense were used to decide that the post didn't belong there. –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 10:26
@Jimbo would an answer that contains only "preg_quote()" without any link be an answer? It would be a bad one, but it would be an answer. Adding a link to an already valid answer can't possibly turn it into a link only answer. –  Pablo Apr 10 at 10:32
@Pablo No, it would be downvoted until deleted given enough views by intelligent humans who care about StackOverflow - the same outcome. However this is a moot point: speculation about what an answer could have been does not enter into this as we cannot tell the future. The answer indeed existed as a single-string link with no extra information or explanation. It was a link-only answer. It was deleted as a link-only answer. That's pretty much it. –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 10:39
"We expect answers to be answers with a certain degree of quality. [...] keeping the flagged one doesnt add any value to future visitors." Yet mods have always refused to remove factually incorrect answers. –  Stijn Apr 10 at 10:54
Additionally, lots of people have experienced declined NAA flags because even the most rubbish answers that attempt to answer the question are answers and should not be deleted. Is this a change in policy? –  Stijn Apr 10 at 10:57
@Stijn I didn't state that it was factually incorrect. I stated it was a "link-only" answer. It's pretty obvious that it was a terrible answer and it was removed as a link-only answer. The fact that it was a terrible one is irrelevant standalone - except that wasn't used as a reason for deletion on it's own - it was used in conjunction with the fact that the answer was a link-only answer. Common sense was used to bring to the two together and the answer was removed as a link-only answer, with the fact that it was a terrible one backing this up (again, not as the sole reason). –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 11:37
@Jimbo my comment was directed to Gordon and what I wrote was in the general sense, I wasn't saying this specific answer was factually incorrect. –  Stijn Apr 10 at 11:41
@Stijn I know. I was saying that it wasn't deleted solely because of factual in-correctness to refute the question of a change in policy. –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 11:51
@Gordon the question askwed "is there a function", and the answer replied with a function name. Yes, the answer could be better, and yes, there was already a better answer, but claiming that it wasn't an answer is just wrong. It very clearly was an answer to the question, and I really don't see a reason why it should be deleted. We have the voting system to separate bad answers from good ones, not deleting. –  eis Apr 27 at 14:30
@eis because it didnt meet our quality standards. –  Gordon Apr 28 at 6:31
@eis just answering the question is not good enough. Quoting our post notice text: "We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer; explain why your answer is right, ideally with citations. Answers that don't include explanations may be removed." - and this one was removed after carefully weighing the context. –  Gordon Apr 28 at 8:00

Escaping a String for Use in a preg_ Regular Expression

Whole content:



This is not a link-only answer. If you remove the link, you get


(or actually, “preg_quote() from the standard library”) which is a poor answer (it doesn't explain how to use preg_quote), but an answer nonetheless.

There is another reason to delete this answer: it's redundant with another answer which also mentions preg_quote with more advice. If you flagged this answer as “link-only”, it's to be expected that your flag was declined; moderators only see the flagged post unless they go looking for more, and a “link-only” flag doesn't tell them to look for more. If you had flagged the answer as “low quality and fully redundant with Escaping a String for Use in a preg_ Regular Expression”, that would have told the moderator what to look for and given a proper reason for deletion. Maybe the answer was deleted because someone else cast an appropriate flag.

Was closed and deleted by the community. No idea what you mean here.

Twitter Bootstrap - how to center elements horizontally or vertically

Whole content:

This is a great post about centering horizontally and vertically:

This is a textbook example of a non-answer which should be deleted. You can't do anything about disputed flag: that means a user with 10000 reputation saw it in the (now-defunct) 10k flag queue and cast an “invalid flag” flag. The workflow for canned not-an-answer flags has very recently changed, so this situation will not happen again under the same process.

Event Bus implementation question

Whole content:

Hi I did a porting of event bus of guava google's project to .NET.
I saved it at github : .

This is a non-answer — kind of link-only, but that's not the sole problem: the question is a specific debugging problem, and the answer doesn't say anything whatsoever about said debugging problem. You should definitely flag this as “not an answer”.

Why do I keep seeing "if you removed the link"? That's like me saying "if I added an explanation"; which equates to "if I changed this answer to be something else that it currently isn't". This is just not a point at all imo. In the state that it was, it was a link-only answer. Where's the logic here? –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 10:44
@Jimbo The way to tell a link-only answer is, if you remove the URL (but keep the rest, e.g. the text inside the <a>), is there anything left? If you're left with “preg_quote()”, there is information there. If you're left with “This is a great post about centering horizontally and vertically:”, there is no information. –  Gilles Apr 10 at 10:46
I was under the impression that it's logical to assume an answer that contains a link, and only a link, is by definition a link-only answer. Because it is an answer, that contains only a link. Why are we still discussing the answer being something that it wasn't - "if we remove this or otherwise alter it, it changes to become something that isn't an link-only answer". Fine, but the answer was not altered - it existed as a link-only answer. Your argument could apply to absolutely any question or answer that could be altered to fit the FAQ but wasn't. –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 10:48
"If you remove the link href, the answer will have merit and no-longer be a link-only answer". Well of course it won't be one any more, because you've altered it! I flagged it before it had been altered (it wasn't altered at all actually). I don't flag for what could happen in the future to make a question or answer change from an invalid state to a valid one. I really do not see any logic in your point. –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 10:53
@Jimbo a link only answer is not an answer that only contains a link. It is an answer where there is no information that answers the question in the answer if you don't follow the link. –  Pablo Apr 10 at 10:58
@Jimbo You're misreading what I wrote. This has nothing to do with editing. The test is, is there content apart from the link? As a flagger, the onus is on you to explain why an action should be taken. If you flag an answer with “I like turtles”, this is not helpful, even if the answer you're flagging deserved flagging for another reason. –  Gilles Apr 10 at 11:17
@Gilles I think you're taking the flagging example to the extreme toward your side - I did not flag as "I like turtles", I flagged as "Link-only answer". Which if we agree is 50/50 correct (even though I personally think it's 80/20 in my favour), and the mod sees that it is obviously a terrible answer, the onus is then on them to make the right decision. I believe they made the wrong one. Twice. And this is further backed up by the fact that the answer has now been deleted by another mod. –  Jimbo Apr 10 at 11:20
@Jimbo We're saying take away the link because what happens if the link breaks? Then if there's no other content, there's nothing for you to understand, therefore, delete those answers. –  hichris123 Apr 10 at 14:16
@hichris123 And I'm saying that the link existed as a link-only answer requiring common sense and not blindly following a set of rules for deletion - hence I flagged as a "link-only answer". Which has now been deleted by a mod with common sense as such. –  Jimbo Apr 11 at 14:01

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