Why was my comment flag declined? (I flagged an answer in a comment)

Question

A moderator encouraged us to bring such issues to meta, so I'm writing this question.

Background

A What Should I do? question was asked and I voted to close it. Then the following happened:

1. A user wrote an answer
2. The same user cast the last VTC
3. The answer received a DV and the user deleted it
4. The user copy-pasted their answer into a comment underneath the question

_{Update: The comment is gone now.}

We are not supposed to write answers in comments, so when I noticed the comment, I flagged it as no longer needed, but my flag was declined.

Why was my flag declined?

I hope for feedback so that I don't flag comments that are considered okay by moderators in the future. This causes just unnecessary work for everyone involved.

Answer 1

I believe you are referring to me as the moderator who declined the flag. So I feel compelled to post here.

Some preliminary remarks:

• Users are encouraged and welcome to flag anything they think is flawed for one reason or another. But that does not guarantee that everyone will agree with you or even each other. Part of that population is the moderators. I found it as no surprise when I had some of my flags declined on other sites. I find it as no surprise that it is happening here.

• Almost nothing here is straight black and white. Everything here is always some shade of grey. Where that cut line is between what’s acceptable and not acceptable varies by person. I’m afraid that is going to be the way it is here. I fully expect that will be the case in the future as well.

Some notes (and opinions from my point of view) regarding this question:

• The question was eventually put on hold as primarily opinion based. So this question has some aspect to it that makes it borderline at best. So now there’s a good chance that answers and comments are likely to have this quality as well.

• A user posted an answer that was not well received. I’m trying not to be too specific here so that this post at least may have some lasting value. The person who posted this may have agreed with the DV’ers, perhaps because the answer was simply two sentences.

• But they saw value in their desire to help, so they applied the two sentences as a comment. The notion that, since it was an answer at one time, it can no longer be a comment is simply not so. In all likelihood the very reason that it was a poor answer (two sentences) makes it a candidate to be a fair comment.

• I personally saw the comment as a genuine desire to help. The OP stated “Any advice is welcome”. Recognizing this statement makes the comment quite possibly relevant – and that is just my opinion. The comment was flagged “No longer needed”. I declined it because of the rationale above.

• Another moderator did not interpret this comment that way, and they deleted it. Personally, I fully realize the borderline nature of this question, so I have no disagreement here.