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During the course of recent months, we've had discussions on the dichotomy between poorly written, low-quality content and welcoming new users who often post such content.

Today, one post strikes me. It has only a single thought within; its author is criticizing another answer on using термінУ versus термінА. No attempt to answer the question has been done. The original question was about reflexive verbs.

Our brilliant diamond Moderator has warmly welcomed the poster and… left it alone, probably hoping that the user has something to say someday in this post. Here's the comment written by the Mod:

Миколо, дуже дякуємо! Ми виправили текст. Однак, на майбутнє: такі зауваження краще або оформлювати в коментарях (натискаючи «add a comment» — щоправда Ви поки не маєте права писати коментарі), або напряму пропонувати виправлення (натискаючи «improve this answer» чи «improve this question» — це найкращий спосіб). Адже кнопка для відповіді («Post Your Answer») призначена для введення, власне, відповіді на запитання. Але все одно дякуємо!

Putting aside problems of "when to delete a half-baked content", this post is not half-baked.
It it totally useless as an answer and must be deleted.
Its content might be a source for edit in the original question (a single character, yes), but it does not count as answer at all.

In a healthy user community, this post would quickly collect its deserved down- and delete- votes and would be happily deleted over a couple of hours. Our community, however, is extremely passive, so the role of diamond Moderators is growing higher than on sister SE sites.

This is not the first case of such neglect of their responsibilities, and I think the Users' Community should say our word.

Question: How can we, as the Ukrainian.SE user community, convince our diamond Moderators act accordingly to the rules of Stack Exchange system? If you find this question too broad because the Mods have multiple responsibilities, let us focus on a single one:

Removing non-answers, e.g. posts that only criticize the question or another answer, but written by pressing "Post the Answer" button

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  • On the one hand, I agree that such “answers” must not exist on the site.
  • On the other hand, we should be welcoming to people.

So, my decision was to remove that “answer”, but to do it not immediately (first, immediate removal of the post may make a newcomer to feel uncomfortable per se, second, if a newcomer's post is immediately removed, they are unable to express objections and/or ask for clarifications (as a newcomer is able to comment only his own post; so he might be in a gridlock: having neither enough experience to write questions/answer nor enough reputation to participate in comments/meta)).

Maybe I am wrong, but that's what I would do in case of such well-intentioned mis-uses: (1) write a truly-welcoming comment that tries to correct the newcomer's behavior; (2) give the visitor a chance to reply the comment; (3) delete the post.

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  • Irrelevant. The OP is always able to see their deleted posts and comments within. Sep 15, 2020 at 20:35
  • Re: "(3) delete the post.", I've seen numerous times when low-quality posts remained forgotten. This increased dramatically after mid-2018. Sep 15, 2020 at 20:39
  • @bytebuster, “the OP is always able to see their deleted posts and comments within” — AFAIK, you are wrong and users cannot comment deleted posts.
    – Sasha Mod
    Sep 16, 2020 at 12:04
  • @bytebuster, “low-quality posts remained forgotten” — if you see such a post, please flag it. However, please, be aware that different people have different opinions about quality and sometimes you would misinterpret intentionally-left post as forgotten. Never-the-less, such contribution would be useful anyway.
    – Sasha Mod
    Sep 16, 2020 at 12:13
  • "if you see such a post, please flag it" — but I did! I voted to close. I voted to delete. I'm he top#1 voter on this site, top#1 flagger, and top#1 reviewer. By far. The problem is that after I committed my votes a moderator came and undone what I already did. Now you are suggesting me to redo it again. Not very fair. Sep 16, 2020 at 13:53
  • @bytebuster, voting for post closure/deletion and flagging it for moderator attention are somewhat different things. As a moderator, when I see votes for closure/deletion, I usually don't intrude (letting users to express their opinions themselves; 5 votes are needed for user-driven closure and 3 votes are needed for user-driven deletion; unless the case is really obvious); on the other hand, a flag for moderator attention is directed specifically to the moderators. What do you mean by “moderator… undone what I already did”?
    – Sasha Mod
    Sep 16, 2020 at 16:45
  • Sasha, so let's summarize what you're saying. (1) as a user and ex-Mod, I (alone or jointly with other users) closed/deleted a poor-quality/offtopic post; (2) you became a Mod; (3) you undo what I done (often, done not alone, but with the aid of the Community); (4) now you say "flag it to me". Flag for what? So that you reconsider your fiasco? Or simply -- Are. You. Serious? Sep 16, 2020 at 19:06
  • You want a flag? Okay, here's a clearly offtopic post. Asking for a professional service is offtopic here. That you have seen because you commented. When are you going to close it? Have you been waiting for something? Could you imagine a way to salvage it? Tell us. Sep 16, 2020 at 19:09
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    I think it is OK to let a post to stay two days before deletion by Mod. In case Mod forgot, downvoted questions will get deleted in 30 days anyway.
    – Yola
    Sep 16, 2020 at 20:08
  • @bytebuster, I was waiting for 1 day before deleting it. As I've said, I see two reasons: (1) not to make a newcomer to feel bad; (2) to allow them replying in the comments. If our site were very popular and had plenty of questions every hour, then it probably would be unreasonable to provide such a long gap; but in our case, I think, encouraging newcomers is vital; additionally IMHO it's better to make false positive decision than false negative one (i.e. if we're wrong and somebody wants to answer the question – let's not prevent them). (And I see that Yola says about 2 days.)
    – Sasha Mod
    Sep 17, 2020 at 17:23

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