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I (and a few other people) flagged this answer as Not An Answer. This is the full text of the answer:

This quote is a paraphrase of Luke 12:48 where Jesus says "to whom much is given, much will be required"

The question - What is the context of the quote “With great power comes great responsibility”?- however is looking for the first instance of the quote in the universe. Specifically:

However, was the quote also present in the comics?

This does not answer the question asked. Why were these flags declined and the post not deleted?

declined - flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer

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    UPDATE: It's now been deleted by the community via review.
    – Mithical
    Commented Sep 28, 2017 at 17:35
  • @Valorum you seem to be misunderstanding the intended use of the "not an answer" flag. As we've never had a meta on this site specifically about it (to my knowledge, I've not worked through the whole backlog yet) it goes by the main site policy (which I don't have a link for but paraphrased no is the case) that wrong answers are STILL answers. Whether we agree with this or not is our of our hands, NAA is purely for comments or gibberish and the like, not answers that are simply wrong as stated in the flag comment
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Sep 28, 2017 at 22:58
  • @Edlothiad - I've always taken it to mean "Is an answer, but not one that actually answers the question asked" - For example if you asked the names of the Fantastic Four and I responded with a rant about how dumb Dr Doom is.
    – Valorum
    Commented Sep 28, 2017 at 23:03
  • This would be another case, that is not a wrong answer, but not an answer at all. This is merely a wrong answer.
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Sep 28, 2017 at 23:04
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    @Edlothiad - Unless OP can give a solid explanation why he feels that a bible quote is actually the progenitor of Peter's line about "great responsibility", it's not an answer, just a thing that's kinda similar.
    – Valorum
    Commented Sep 28, 2017 at 23:05
  • @Valorum - nope. It's an answer. It's a bad answer. But an answer.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 18:52
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    @DVK - it does not answer the question asked though. An attempt to answer the question does not automatically make something an answer. In this case they provided the original source of the quote, but the question wanted the comic source. It did not answer what the question wanted.
    – Mithical
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 18:56
  • @Mithrandir - yes, that's what differenciates a poor answer from a non-answer.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 18:57
  • @Mithrandir Attempt to answer =/= answer, yes - and "not an answer" flags are for things that don't even attempt to answer. It says so right there in the flag description.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 19:06
  • @Rand - I think you'll find that there's room for disagreement on that.
    – Mithical
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 19:23
  • @Mithrandir The comment you link to seems to be drawing a distinction between "answers that do not actually answer or even address the question" and "posts that aren't attempts at answering", but to me those seem to be the same thing, and both fall under (my understanding of) what the NaA flag is meant to be used for.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 19:47

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The post did attempt to answer the question.

The NAA flag is always a fickle mistress... I would always recommend the LQP flag if it is available. If not, flag as NAA at your own risk, as many things (including this answer) do attempt to provide an answer.

An attempt at an answer is generally all that is required by SE standards. Even though this post did not follow the instructions of the question it was indeed an attempt; therefore the NAA flag was not appropriate.

The extra step of flagging as NAA was probably not necessary.

That being said, you probably should have just voted to delete the post without flagging it. As discussed here a "wrong" answer can and should be deleted if it is of low enough quality. The post did have a negative score, which is why it was eligible for deletion in the first place and having a look at the edit/review history it seems you did vote to delete.

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    "As discussed here a "wrong" answer can and should be deleted if it is of low enough quality." - um, no, that's not what it says there. The exact quote (from a then mod) is "I'd recommend a downvote and a comment indicating why it's wrong." - not deletion. The next highest-voted answer there also concurs.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Commented Sep 29, 2017 at 11:36

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