When should moderators use post notices?

Question

One of the few things a ♦ moderator can do that regular users can't is add post notices to questions and answers. For reference, the current set of notifications are:

• citation needed
  This post does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

• current event
  Post is related to a rapidly changing event.

• insufficient explanation
  We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer: please explain why you're recommending it as a solution. Answers that don't explain anything will be deleted. See Good Subjective, Bad Subjective for more information.

(Here are examples of citation needed and insufficient explanation in action.)

I've never had a need for the middle one, but I suppose there could be some discovery of a manuscript or whatnot that might get asked about. I'm often tempted to slap the other two on posts fairly regularly. Answers from new users are pretty likely to fall under the domain of "insufficient explanation" if they are longish and under "citation needed" if shorter.

Personally, I think moderators should use these notices often in tandem with more specific comments. But I can see scenarios where these notices could drive away new users.

What do y'all think? Should we be liberal or conservative with post notices? Why?

Answer 1

Hermeneutics, Religious Studies, Linguistics, etc., these all fall within the realm of the "Humanities." Humanities is the study of the human condition in all of its forms and expressions. Since we are all engaged in this study together here on this site, I'd prefer to see comments, downvotes, and VtDs as means of ensuring quality (in that order). These "post notice" things are dehumanizing since they serve no other purpose other than what appear to be a highlighted, anonymous comment. As a mod, you've disconnected from the community and have chosen not to engage on equally human levels. A web QA board is already impersonal enough, to strip away further levels of humanness and personality from it just seems to grate against the goal of the site.

Please don't mistake this as a plea for blind acceptance of everything - I think that if you check my comment and chat histories you'd see that I'd be first on the soapbox when it comes to pressing for academic rigor and clear research and thought patterns. But I own it. I want people to know that I'm the one who's pressing them for this and I want to engage that person in their endeavor to learn.

EDIT

Thinking on it a bit more, I think that a "post notice" could serve well to summarize a documented conversation (preferably in the comments) that may be too long for future readers to engage in reading. I see this as an extreme fringe case, but I can't say "never."

Answer 2

As a new user I am always grateful for the gentle instructions in the comments, and for the edits.

I think I might find such a notice as discussed here rather discouraging.

In general, a comment seems sufficient to move things toward an improved direction.

I'm sure it is convenient to post a notice rather than take the time to type a comment, especially one like the first that addresses a common occurrence. However, I do not doubt that the added effort will pay off in the long run so long as you still make the expectations clear.

I think it unwise to:
a) use these notices for convenience.
b) to delete a post without first directly warning the author that the post is about to be deleted.
c) use this notice on a post that you do not intend to delete. To do so would be an empty threat and would undermine the weight/authority of the notice.

I think the only appropriate and necessary use of such notices would be when:
a) the original contributor is no longer responding to other prompting;
b) AND an edit will not fix the issue, (determined through Meta community review).
c) AND it is undesirable to delete the post, but certain that the community will delete the post if alterations are not forth coming. (see b above)

By this time there is no shame brought on the contributor that they have not brought on themselves. If they are no longer around they will face no disgrace either.

NOTE: Warnings that the post may be removed should be accompanied by a deadline.

Answer 3

Like you said, the middle one isn't much use to us, but I think the other two can play a roll here.

Personally, I use the things a lot over on [Christianity.SE]. I don't think they substitute for other forms of communication, particularly comments on posts. However, they do serve as an official re-enforcement on the idea. I often add a citation needed banner to posts that have been commented on by our users requesting sources for unbased claims. We do not require sources, but we do require that material can be sourced if challenged. It is quite common for somebody to throw up an opinion answer as if it represents some larger doctrinal tradition. If these don't pass the litmus test, please often comment and flag them. If I am responding to flags and find people have already commented, I often add a post notice rather than straight up deleting the message. This gives the OP more time to respond to the request for sources and puts an official stamp of approval on the request. It also basically tags all these posts. Later one can review all the posts with notices and decide if the OP has responded to pull down the notice or if they have not, to consider deletion.

I think it could work must the same way here, but I would be careful to first explain the issue with the post and request specific sources in a tailored comment before slapping a post-notice on.

Answer 4

From Bounty Reasons and Post Notices (emphasis mine)…

We liked this idea of explanatory text associated with bounties so much, we extended it to also apply as a general “post notice” to locked questions like this one on Stack Overflow, and we allow moderators to apply (in some rare cases) arbitrary post notices to individual questions and answers, as you can see on Skeptics.

… I think the intention of post notices was that they should be used in exceptional situations only.

They are a means of communicating to other people (not the OP) in a clear recognizable way the reason for the action (eg locking) or the problem with the post, so they make particular sense on high-traffic posts such as on questions attracting many 'me too' answers. For the purpose of communicating to the OP, I think it is preferable to make a personal comment, and on a site like this that seems to me to be the most appropriate action (rather than both comment and post notice) in the large majority of cases.

Answer 5

I had to literally write the answer to an FAQ to get here, but I think I know how to answer my own question. In effect, post notices are a last line of defense against answers that fail to go into sufficient detail or make assertions that are not sufficiently backed up.

1. Comment. Ideally ask an interested question.

2. If you are thinking of a downvote, this is the best time to do so. Withhold an upvote until the problem is fixed.

3. Ideally someone will edit the answer into shape by adding citations, details, or logic. Please do not remove unsourced material at this time.

4. If no edits are forthcoming, we wait for the question to go fallow. As long as people are actively working on it or thinking about working on it, adding post notices is probably a bad idea. We are a slow moving site because of our topic and it's ok to give people space to fix problems with their posts.

5. When it becomes clear that no fix is forthcoming, analyse the Q&A page. If there are no good answers, it's possible there was something wrong with the question and it should be closed with an eye on deletion (if warranted). If there is at least one good answer with a higher score than all the bad answers, we might leave well enough alone. If the answer is just plain bad and not fixable, we ought to delete it. If the comments are sufficient to correct the issue, we might consider editing them into the answer—especially the author's own comments.

6. If the best answer (or answers) has some good information, but either not enough to answer the question or contains controversial and unsupported assertions and if the author has shown they will not fix the problems (either because they are unwilling or because they have left the site), then the moderators should consider adding a post notice. If a notice is added, a clear comment from the moderator should be added too. This should serve a similar purpose to the mod messages that accompany suspension. (We haven't had any of those yet, thankfully.)

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I have a few concerns about this:

• How long should the wait in step #4 be? At a minimum, we need to know that the author has seen steps 1-3 and had time to process them. I suppose a week is plenty long.

• How will we remember to come back to answers to do step #5? The normal workflow of the site does not facilitate waiting.

• Should we ever follow through with the implied threat to delete annotated answers?

• Do we need a custom post notice?

But overall, I think this procedure could help us deal with answers that are helpful, but which don't meet our (admittedly high) expectations.