Should I flag an answer that seems to specifically attack people by their beliefs

Question

A question was asked about someone with X (not important for discussion) beliefs, who, in order to further their beliefs, was attacking their friends.

An answer was posted whose main purpose (as far as I can see it) was to belittle and shut down anyone with the same X beliefs.

I'm trying not to be biased against the beliefs of the answerer, and all the people who have upvoted it. However, not only does it barely answer the actual question*, the answerer seems to be intentionally trying to get people with X beliefs upset**. Should an answer like this be flagged? It seems to break multiple rules on the "Be nice." help page.

Clarifications

*The following is an excerpt of the end of the question:

I'm searching for a way to ask her to calm down without having to cut our ties with her entirely. I've already tried asking her to stop treating us like garbage when our opinions differ but nothing works.

Is there any way for us to get her to become less aggressive about her opinion?

This answer doesn't provide any methods of conflict resolution besides "cutting losses". Most of the post is rehashing the events listed in the question to make X beliefs look like the root cause.

EDIT: This has been changed, it no longer says to cut losses, but to continue doing what the asker said they did in the edited question. (with more derogatory comments targeted towards people with X beliefs)

**The following is an excerpt from the end of the answer, after edits were made:

Don't whine, don't be passive-aggressive. Don'i imply. That's the tone I used in this post. It does triggers whiners (see comments below): this is a good sign a healthy dose of ugly brutal truth has been delivered.

Notes:

I tried to be as unbiased as possible in this question, but just in case I missed something, or to get a clearer picture of the situation, I recommend reading the question and answer.

No responses to this question should need to mention the beliefs. This isn't for discussing whether the beliefs are wrong, but whether the answer is appropriate for this site.

Answer 1

YES.

This answerer in particular has a pattern of politically aggressive posts which have many hallmarks of trolling.

Even worse, the user then takes to excessive comments to invite discussion, in order to further ridicule entire spectrums of political beliefs, while bragging about "tricking" "liberals". I have seen a number of very similar posts, where extreme positions are taken in an answer in order to attack a tangentially related political position, laden with pejoratives and broad, gross characterizations, right down to comments bragging about "tricking" people into "revealing" themselves through their votes and comments.

This creates and encourages what I believe is a very hostile environment, and it is a real problem.

It is also somewhat ironic, because this site is supposed to be about improving interpersonal relationships, and baiting, insulting, and over-generalizing are (speaking very generously) signs of poor interpersonal skills.

It is incredibly disappointing that so many people seem to be voting based upon their political opinions rather than the quality of the answer, and I fear for the long-term viability of this site if such petty sniping becomes more important than providing high quality advice.

Answer 2

You can and should flag any answer that you consider objectionable in any way, using your common sense, site awareness and general sensitivity as a responsible member of the community. Number of flags will influence the outcome of posts.

The problem for us is not the content or tone of the answer as such, or even whether you ought to flag it, and I have not formed a personal opinion about this answer: what concerns me most, relative to your this meta question, is the fact that that answer got so many upvotes (31 and counting, not -6 which one might think it should score, going by your question: my best-scoring answer here, though not to this question, has collected only 22 upvotes).

This is the community saying that this person has written a very good answer, and even if it hit the Hot Network Questions (HNQ) list, from which random users can upvote but not downvote, that is no excuse and those upvotes remain valid anyway.

Experienced user @NVZ points out that overly 'generous' upvoting mainly from HNQ creates a self-multiplying 'positive feedback loop' that is called the 'bandwagon effect.' Thus a post that hits HNQ can easily collect many upvotes within a short period of time.

If those upvotes were ill-considered and downvoting was not an option for HNQ users, then members here ought to be balancing them with an equally large number of downvotes as there is no other way at present to prevent a bad post from looking like a very good post to unwary readers!

Another answer by another user to another question similarly collected a large number of upvotes despite containing explicit, derogatory and inflammatory statements about a particular community. [Although I flagged that answer for that reason, no action was taken by the moderators: however I absolutely don't want to dispute it or discuss it here.]

But this upvoting pattern is what worries me.

Clearly we are not casting enough downvotes.

Answer 3

to quote from the answer

I'm using her external observable behavior to get intel about her internal thought processes.

Simply put this is never a good technique and almost always use to support personal biases. In fact the answer goes on to predict the actions of the person in question.

I'm biased, and as such I'm not sure my answer to this should even be counted. But yeah I'd flag it. the level of prejudice & assumption about the person alone, not to mention the fact the few 'solutions' that are promoted amount to shaming & manipulation ( and are even admitted to as such ).

Is it an answer? yeah it is, but it's not a 'nice' one.

Is it possible for people to write answers that I disagree with, even answers I may find repugnant for their ideology but that could still pass the 'be nice' tests? yes it is...

In fact, much as I'd hate to, I would have to point out that it would be possible for the answer to be rewritten that broadly passes such a test.

Answer 4

I have something to add to this discussion; although not a direct answer. Just my observation. May or not be true. This applies to any such answers.

I see that a lot of the OP's words were removed by edits done by other users. It removed a lot of the controversial wordings from it. It changed OP's original intent, is what I'm saying.

Edits should improve posts, sure. But that does not mean that we put words into OP's mouth or remove words the OP used to convey their thoughts.

If it was a bad advice in the post, downvote it to show disagreement, not edit out the OP's lines.

It would not have received this many upvotes if the original words of negativity were still in there.

If a user were to bad mouth somebody in a post, removing out those lines would not help matters. If the post deserves a downvote or deletion, do it, not edit out its original intent.

Answer 5

If something makes you uncomfortable, flag it.

The moderators will deal with the rest.

As a moderator on another site, it's really helpful when people flag stuff that makes them uncomfortable. This gives me data about what the community thinks is problematic. I would assume that is the case for all Stack Exchange sites.

Answer 6

Should I flag an answer that seems to specifically attack people by their beliefs?

Maybe...

I'm being lazy at the moment, so I'm not going to go digging through many Meta posts. Especially since I'm not even sure it's on this site. What I remember reading about these situations is that you can either flag or edit, but not both. Now, that could have been a spam-centric situation, and probably was, but it still seems like the best approach to follow.

If your evaluation of the post is that it deserves a flag, in this case Rude/Abusive, then by all means raise the flag. This is still a small site, and the mods probably get to read most posts reasonably soon after they arrive. That will not be the case forever, and the flags help them find where there attention is needed. You can also view a flag as a special kind of vote, one that gives, takes, and costs, nothing in rep. It's not an absolute thing, such as a decisive mod delete might be, it's just your way of saying that "you" think the post is out of line.

On the other hand, if you think the post has some merit, despite its defects, editing it might be a better option. If you can edit the post, at least enough to remove the "not nice" part(s), then it won't require intervention by the mods, it improves the site, and might even help the OP see a better way to present their information without the material you found objectionable. When you do edit the post, don't raise a flag - you've already removed the problem, and done so faster than a flag probably would have anyway. If the OP does a rollback on your edit, however, then raise the flag and move on. There's no point in getting involved in an edit war. Let the firefighters deal with that instead of exposing yourself to the risk of getting burned in a flame war.

Like the Tour page says this site is "built and run by you", not the mods. The mods (when acting as mods rather than users) should only have to do things that we, the users, cannot do.

Answer 7

Well, hello ;)

I like to write stuff that makes people think, and it seems to be the case here, as evidenced by people taking the time to start a thread commenting my post. This is quite the honor!

To be honest, I was surprised the answer was not censored sooner. But it achieved its purpose, so everything's fine on my book.

I could plead the fact that I'm French, and thus every offending thing I said could be due to my bad English... but that would be the easy way out, so I won't. Although some culture shock may have been involved in the events, as evidenced by some heated reactions.

Now, please don't think I was angry or lashing out or anything of the sort. This wasn't the case.

Important point: I speak bluntly because I don't want to lose my time or the readers' by wrapping it in pretty fluff. We're all adults, I presume. Please don't mistake this for rudeness.

Now, answering MacKenzie,

A question was asked about someone with X (not important for discussion) beliefs

This hits the ground running.

This sentence entirely misses the point. The beliefs of the person we're talking about, were the starting point of the conflict between her and the asker, and are thus very much relevant here, in fact they were the core of the question.

Now, perhaps you will argue for moral relativism: all belief systems are equal and worthy of consideration, and one should not criticize others' beliefs.

Thus, I use logic: you shall not criticize my belief system, since you just preached it is as good as any other... The problem with moral relativism is that, if you are true to yourself, then you got to walk out of the debate because (by definition) this philosophy does not allow you to pick a side.

There is no escape to this argument, barring hypocrisy. This is why I don't do moral relativism.

Example 1: Person A likes orange and curry, person B likes blue and steak.

Both are right, these are subjective opinions. This is not moral relativism, merely personal subjective taste. Unless a vindicative Vegan chooses to bring morals in by lecturing B about being such a bad person.

(Note: we're talking food tastes and already there is a fight).

Example 2: Person A likes carrots and classical music, while person B favors processed fat, high fructose corn syrup, punk rock and cocaine.

Both are right... unless the law forces person A to pay for B's healthcare (and lets B mug A for a shot of coke), in which case we have a problem.

We still haven't begun to tickle some serious politics, and already people are punching each other.

Some belief systems are okay, some are wrong, some are evil. It is alright to say it, because it is true. I prefer to use objective, factual and verifiable historical records like number of murders, standards of living, condition of women, etc.

For example, looking at historical data, fascism and communism kinda look bad. So do most religions. Western democracy looks pretty good, and so do others.

Clarification: if someone tells me "you should not judge" then I will do them a favor, and pretend to be a sincere nazi for the next five minutes so they can practice their "not judging" attitude. I have found this very effective and fun, although it has a cost, as I then have to drink unhealthy amounts of alcohol to forget the things I had to say while pretending to be a nazi. In case you have any doubts, I despise this ideology.

I'm trying not to be biased against the beliefs of the answerer, and all the people who have upvoted it.

• cough *

Now switching to English Student:

what concerns me most, relative to your this meta question, is the fact that that answer got so many upvotes

Thank you for considering hard facts. I like hard facts because they can prove me wrong, and then I learn something new.

This is the community saying that this person has written a very good answer

Now, we're hitting an interesting point.

But this upvoting pattern is what worries me. Clearly we are not casting enough downvotes.

I agree. As you said, through their votes, people expressed they liked my answer. However, you disagree with them, which you are entitled to, no problem here, and no offense.

But you then miss a step by saying "Clearly we are not casting enough downvotes;" This does not consider why people upvoted, and would rather be a "sweeping under the rug" strategy. Also, upvotes earn me +10, while downvotes cost me much less, so overall my reputation still profits.

So, by writing this, my reputation increased, by a lot. Quite interesting.

I advise you make the next step, and attempt to understand why so many people upvoted, in fact enough of them to shoot this into the "Hot Network Questions", which was quite fun to watch.

I know why they upvoted. I engineered the reply specifically to trigger such reactions, and it worked as designed. I would explain now, but I'd like you to really understand why, and the best way to achieve this is to request you use the scientific method: propose any hypothesis, and I'll update/comment.