Introduction
This guide demonstrates how to moderate answers to questions posted on the Answers Forum.
Who Can Moderate Answers?
Answers is a community-based feature that invites all community members with 100+ reputation to participate in the voting process for moderating answers to posted questions.
Before action is taken, each option for moderation requires a certain number of votes from individual users in the community.
If necessary, site users with Moderator or Administrator privileges can always override pending votes and make an immediate moderation decision.
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Navigate to the page containing the question with the answer that you want to moderate.
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Click on the Options menu in the top-right corner of the question box.
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Select Moderate from the drop-down menu.
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This option is only available to users with reputation over 100 points, privileged site users, and the user who posted the question.
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Five community user votes are required for the answer to be accepted as the solution to a question.
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To accept a solution to a question, click on the Accept as solution button.
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This labels the solution as the selected answer for the question.
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Five community user votes are required for an answer to be removed as spam or offensive.
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To remove an answer that is spam or offensive, click on the Remove as spam/offensive button.
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This deletes the post and docks the author's reputation 100 points.
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This should be used as a last resort. Reputation is too hard to come by to punish someone for a one-time or innocent mistake.
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Five community user votes are required for the answer to be removed as duplicate or off-topic.
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To remove an answer as duplicate or off-topic, click on the Remove as duplicate or off-topic button.
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This deletes the answer and makes it invisible to normal users.
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Three community user votes are required for the answer to be switched to a comment.
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To switch an answer to a comment, click on the Switch to a comment button.
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This changes the answer to a comment when someone posts an answer that is not really a solution to the problem.
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This is typically done when someone posts saying they have the same issue, which really contains no helpful solutions.
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Switching the answer to a comment bumps the question to the top of the activity queue, which benefits everyone.
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Three community user votes are required for the answer to be switched to a question.
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To switch an answer to a question, click on the Switch to a question button.
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This changes an answer to a question when a user (who might not understand how things work quite yet) posts another question as an answer on someone else's question.
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The user now has a chance to receive a response. It also gives users more opportunities to share their knowledge.
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If there is not enough information to answer the question, it is better to remove it so it does not clutter the site.
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Three community user votes are required for the answer to be switched to update to a question.
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To switch an answer to update to a question, click on the Switch to update to question button.
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This turns either a comment or an answer to a question into an update to the original question.
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If you posted the question or have Moderator or Administrator privileges for the site, you will see the Force vote to pass? checkbox under the moderation options.
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To force a vote to pass, click the Force vote to pass? checkbox.
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Checking this box means that you are using your privileges to bypass the additional votes required to complete your moderation selection.
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