Disputing a declined NAA flag on the whose to blame for the US government shutdown question

Question

I have twice flagged this answer, first with a NAA flag, and secondly with a custom flag. The response to my custom flag was that it is a valid answer because it challenges the premise of the question. I don't think this is a good reading of the question or answer.

So to start: the question asks for the logic the Republicans (including the President) use to blame the Democrats for the current US government shutdown. A classical valid answer would attempt to try to explain Republican logic for the Republicans. A question-premise-challenging answer would have to challenge the premise that Republicans are actually blaming the democrats, showing they blame someone else, or blame no one. This answer does neither.

This answer has three sections. Lets consider each in turn.

The first section, titled "19th December, 2018" considers the first senate bill. It says that several conservative media entities blamed Trump. This section does not discuss the response of Republican party officials or elected politicians to the failure of the bill to pass the house, so I cannot see how it can answer either the question of Republican blame, or challenge the question's premise.

The second section, title "20th December, 2018", explains Trump's reasons for not accepting the previous senate bill. It then explains that the House's bill did not pass the senate, noting it would need 60 votes, more than the 51 the Republicans possessed. This could be implicit evidence that the Republicans blamed the Democrats for not passing the the bill and therefore causing the shutdown, but it's pretty flimsy. I think that it does not really contribute to a valid answer. It states the facts of the votes, but does not attempt to contribute to the question of who the Republicans are blaming this shutdown on. Is it blaming Trump for not accepting the senate bill, or the Democratic Senators for not passing the house bill? Both seem equally possible to me, so I don't know how the mod who declined my flag can be so certain this is a premise challenging answer. If you have to rely on what the answer implies, then it simultaneously supports the premise of the question and refutes it! Nonsense!

The third section, titled "3rd January, 2019", describes the new Democratic house bill, which was blocked by Republican senate leader Mitch McConnell. Does the author intend this to imply that the Republicans accept blame on themselves for the shutdown? Does the author intend this to imply that the Republicans blame the president for not accepting a compromise bill from a Democratic house? Does the author intend this to imply that the Republicans blame the Democrats for passing a bill, perhaps intentionally in bad faith? I don't know. I don't think anyone other than the OP does either.

This answer lays out the facts of the three bills, but it does not clearly answer the question either by explaining who the Republicans blame, or by refuting that they're blaming anyone. I cannot see how it's a valid classical answer or a valid premise challenging answer.

Furthermore I think the OP's behaviour has been very unhelpful, having stubbornly refused to elaborate. They apparently consider their answer a premise challenging one, so it should've been pretty straightforward to edit the post to explain who the Republicans do blame (or that they blame no one.) But I can't see much evidence of a genuine good-faith attempt to actually address the issue of who the Republicans blame.

Answer 1

I agree that it does not completely answer the question. I have left a comment explaining what information I felt the answer lacked. However, how well an answer is answered is a qualitative concern which is meant to be addressed through appropriate commentary suggesting how an answer might be improved and voting.

Flags are really only supposed to be used in cases where a post should be deleted:

What happens when I flag a comment?

In addition to bringing the comment to the attention of the moderators, a sufficient number of flags on a single comment will cause it to be deleted automatically. The number of flags required for deletion varies based on the number of votes on the comment, as well as the content of the comment itself.

Similarly the flag guidance itself states:

not an answer This was posted as an answer, but it does not attempt to answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.

However that does not seem to be the case here. The help center's deletion guidelines indicate that answers should be deleted if an answer is:

• commentary on the question or other answers
• asking another, different question
• “thanks!” or “me too!” responses
• exact duplicates of other answers
• barely more than a link to an external site
• not even a partial answer to the actual question

Most of these provisions do not have any evident applicability. You might try to argue that it is just commentary, but it contains facts which could be construed as reasons for why what happened happened, which may or may not be reasons the republicans hold the democrats blameworthy. That is information characteristic of an answer than a comment, which is primarily supposed to be reserved for improving the post under which it appears.

Also the answer includes relevant information which could be used as the basis of an answer, so it is at least a partial answer to the question if nothing else and granted impunity from deletion for that reason too.

Indeed, how to write a good answer in the help center suggests that if you are having the same problem that you should:

Help us find a solution by researching the problem, then contribute the results of your research and anything additional you’ve tried as a partial answer.

It stands to reason that people who do not know the complete answer may contribute their findings as an answer. Somebody else may use those findings as the basis of a better alternative answer if they believe the existing one is inadequate.

If in the help center you click through to usage guidance for not an answer, then click on the canonical answer to the duplicate question it ultimately leads you to this answer to How Do I Properly Use the "Not an Answer Flag" which seems to verify these assertions at a cursory glance.

It seems to be that declining the flag was the appropriate course of action, and this probably would have happened on English Language & Usage too to be honest, predicated on what I have seen moderators mention there before. They only delete posts which do not even attempt to address the question in any way whatsoever, except for discriminatory action against single line answers (which this is not).

Answer 2

As long as it's an attempt to make an answer, the not an answer flag will usually be declined. This is the case even if the answerer misunderstood the question and posted an answer to a slightly different question.

The reason for this, I think, it that interpreting the question, and making the answer in the form the OP needs, is a thing that people who are not subject matter experts(and some who are) can get wrong. That includes moderators. Moderators are not the deciders of correctness. If an answer is wrong, or if you think it misunderstands the question downvote. If you flag it as not an answer, that flag will usually get declined.

Answer 3

There is essentially only 2 ways to interpret the gist of the question itself. Either it is a rant (which would make it off topic), or it is an inquiry made in earnest.

The author of the question plead ignorance of the topic. So from that perspective, the facts outlined in the answer help to illuminate the topic.

However, the question's author didn't ask "what are the facts which would help me better understand the situation." They didn't ask for facts which would help them make up their own mind. They asked for "logic" which could be used to arrive at a certain conclusion. The question was later edited to ask for "arguments" which would lead to the same conclusion.

This answer is considered good by many up votes because it does shed more light on the situation at large, but that wasn't the question.

What I find particularly telling is not the number of up votes the answer received, but the fact that it was accepted. There is little doubt that the answer does not answer the question either in its original form or in its edited form. In fact, the answer started out by explicitly saying that it would not answer what chain of reasoning could lead to the conclusion claimed by the Republicans nor what chain of reasoning could refute the conclusion claimed by the Republicans. I do realize that the answer's author believes that the question was using the word "logic" colloquially, but that belief is irrelevant because it assigns a motivation to the question's author rather than addressing the question as written. In other words, such assumption reads more into the question than what is there.

This answer may be a good answer to some question, just not to the one which was asked. It may be deemed high quality content, but that doesn't make it an answer to the posited inquiry.

And yet, the answer was accepted. And herein lies the rub. If the question's author accepted an answer which didn't answer the question, but which only provided further evidence, it is reasonable to assume that the question's author didn't make a genuine inquiry. The answer was accepted because it validated the question author's frame of mind. Yes, this does seem like I am trying to read someone's mind, but I am doing something else. I am saying that any time that an answer is accepted and it does not answer an inquiry posited in the question, it must be seen as a question's author validating their own previously-held beliefs. This isn't the only possibility, but in the context of political discussions, it is the most likely possibility. And, therefore, it must be treated as the most plausible one.

And such behavior is a fairly common in political discussions. People are personally invested in their politics. So seeing their egos validated does please them and they do want to reward those who please them with positive feedback. However, this site tries to shun away from validation in favor of elucidation. At least, that is the stated goal.

Regardless of whether the question was originally asked as an earnest inquiry or as an attempt to rant (a la "Republicans just don't have a leg to stand on amiright?), by accepting the non-answer answer the question's author turned the question into rant.

If the question and the answer are separated as suggested in JJJ's answer, both the quality of the question and the answer would be improved. The question would again become an actual question (rather than what it looks like now -- a rant). At the same time, this answer would then be answering an actual question rather than look like a validation of the questioner's ranting.

Answer 4

Here's what I consider to be the most-important part of the question:

If Republicans had a majority in the House and the Senate at the start of the shutdown, and also have control over the executive branch, what actions by the Democrats could give the Republicans a logical reason to place blame on them?

^{(Granted the question has been edited to be more clear about this, but that's what I always understood it to be asking)}

The body of the question doesn't really ask about logic. It asks about factual actions that could give Republicans reasoning to place blame. That's what I aimed to do in my answer, provide facts and facts only about the notable actions related to the shutdown. If those facts make it logical to blame someone, I consider to be a subjective question which I leave the reader to decide for themselves.

The only place that asks for logic is in the title:

Through what logic are Republicans able to say that the current American government shutdown is “the Democrats’ fault”?

I consider that to be a rhetorical question which may not be directly answerable. Is it asking for the logic Republicans use? If that's the case, then which Republicans, who may have a variety of reasons? Is it asking if it's logically sound for Republicans to blame Democrats? That's also quite subjective.

Generally I consider titles to be a summary of the canonical question in the body. In some cases, that summary may not be 100% clear. I think this title may be setting some people up for a certain expectation from answers, which may be the source of some confusion. I would maybe edit it, but I don't want to step on other answerer's toes

Answer 5

This answer lays out the facts of the three bills, but it does not clearly answer the question either by explaining who the Republicans blame, or by refuting that they're blaming anyone. I cannot see how it's a valid classical answer or a valid premise challenging answer.

I agree with this assertion. On the other hand, I think it would be a waste to delete the answer as it does provide a good timeline. Perhaps the moderators could create a different question (on the timeline of events) and transfer it to that question?

This practice is also outlined in the Help pages regarding deleting a question with a good answer we don't want to delete:

Before voting to delete, please check whether there are any good answers; if so, then the question should be flagged for moderator attention as a potential merge candidate. We don't like to lose great answers!

Answer 6

Think of it this way: you want to single-handedly get an answer you didn't like to be deleted, while 68 people (including the OP) found it useful and upvoted it. No mod in their right mind would support you on this. Otherwise, imagine what happens if a mod acts on your flag: in all likehood they will instantly receive a flag and/or a meta post from the author asking to restore the answer, with a lot of support from people who liked it. What do they do now?

Downvote posts you don't like. Feel free to explain in a comment why the post isn't up to your standards. Just don't expect everyone to have the same standards as you.