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Just recently the "Very Low Quality" flag was removed. From Is there any reason to keep the "very low quality" flag? If not, can we remove it immediately? If so, can we rename it to something correct?

The site setting has been updated to no longer show the Very Low Quality flag.

answered Aug 4 at 15:52

However, the accepted guidance for How do I deal with non-English content? states:

  • Answers not written in English should be flagged as "very low quality", although "not an answer" will also work.

And from Meta Stack Exchange, Do posts have to be in English on Stack Exchange?

What should I do if someone else makes a post that is not in English?

If someone makes a non-English post on a site other than one in the above two lists, or in a language different from the site's accepted languages, first, check to see if it's spam. A small portion of wrong-language posts are actually spam, so be sure to check for that.

If it's not spam, vote or flag to close it as "Needs details or clarity" if it's a question, or flag as "very low quality" if it's an answer.

How should I flag non-English answers now? If deleted for not answering the question is the right answer for Stack Overflow, should both meta answers be updated, or just the Stack Overflow meta?

(Just to be clear, I'm not objecting to the removal of this flag. Previously, the only thing I used "Very Low Quality" for was non-English answers, so as long as the FAQs are updated to explain what to do with them I will not mourn its loss.)

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  • 5
    I simply downvote them. If I cannot read the answer, or understand the answer, then I don’t consider it to be helpful. Our guidelines specifically indicate questions and answers must be in English. You can always raise a custom moderator flag. Commented Aug 8, 2025 at 16:25
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    "although "not an answer" will also work." That seems to address the problem; use a NAA flag. Commented Aug 8, 2025 at 16:27
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    @ThomA - that's what I figured also, but I didn't want to update the FAQ on my own without community buy-in. And I'm not sure if the change was made across the network, so I don't know what to do about the MSE FAQ. Commented Aug 8, 2025 at 16:28
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    Not an answer is great. It'll push it into LQA queue and be dealt with. Commented Aug 8, 2025 at 16:29
  • What if the answer is in English, but a lot of macros were used? Commented Aug 8, 2025 at 20:34
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    a lot of macros suggests lisp, which is a speech impediment, not a foreign language. Commented Aug 8, 2025 at 23:42
  • @ChristophRackwitz not VBA? Commented Aug 10, 2025 at 2:10
  • that does not lend itself so nicely to the joke Commented Aug 10, 2025 at 8:10
  • VLQ was finally removed? Wow! That's a milestone over a decade in the making, I'm flabbergasted. Now it's high time for the next milestone; actually documenting the NAA flag correctly and without ambiguity. Not An Answer VS Not an Attempt to Answer, for starters. Commented Aug 12, 2025 at 9:37
  • "Not An Answer VS Not an Attempt to Answer" looks to me like a distinction without a difference. what difference could there be? -- a non-answer attempt: "an attempt was made" may be laudable but cannot save content if that content is below the standards we must have in order for this place to work. -- a non-attempt answer: can there be an answer if the author didn't attempt to answer? what would that look like? Commented Aug 12, 2025 at 18:39

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Deleted for not answering the question is the right choice.

An answer that's not in English cannot possibly answer any question posted on an English version of Stack Overflow and must be deleted. And flagging as "deleted for not answering the question" will push it into LQA queue so it will be dealt with.

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    I edited the SO FAQ. Not sure about the MSE FAQ. Commented Aug 8, 2025 at 16:51
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    After a bit if thought, I changed the language in the FAQ from "Answers not written in English" to "Answers written in some language other that English". I don't think the answer was intended to address code-only answers one way or the other, and the prior language might have been readable as covering code-only answers. Please roll my change back if objectionable. Commented Aug 8, 2025 at 18:03
  • I've updated the MSE FAQ to point to this post. Commented Aug 11, 2025 at 23:12
  • True, if you are in the camp of NAA meaning "Not An Answer" rather than "Not an Attempt to Answer". It'd be so much less ambiguous if there was a dedicated "Not English" flag and deletion reason. Especially since that is such a core rule of the site. No mental gymnastics needed nor possible. Commented Aug 12, 2025 at 12:48
  • one difference in this with deprecated VLQ flag is, what happens if non-English answer gets translated. With VLQ, edits automatically dismissed flag (as helpful) but with NAA that does not happen and flag keeps hanging on a (now proper) answer. As a result there may be unfair declines when a moderator declines such flags. If this grows into a noticeable problem then we better add a dedicated "non-English" flag similar to one of the custom close reasons Commented Aug 26, 2025 at 17:42
  • @gnat A moderator sees that the post was edited after flagging and they should check the revision history. Of course it's easy to miss but this still seems better than silently discarded flag upon a minor edit. Commented Aug 26, 2025 at 18:52
  • @Dharman this is extra load on moderators compared to what we had with VLQ. At this point I don't really mind because there is no data about such load yet. I merely point that there is a chance for this to become a problem Commented Aug 26, 2025 at 19:09
  • @gnat That was already the case before. Nothing has changed in the way moderators handle it. We just got rid of a confusing mechanic of the VLQ flag. Moderators preferred when users used NAA flag for non English posts instead of VLQ. Commented Aug 26, 2025 at 20:22

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