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This answer I came across in a review is basically "You can do that with <Keyword>, see <link>". https://stackoverflow.com/review/late-answers/36798588

Not the best answer - the link might become invalid, so a bit of the content should be included in the answer directly. Also I think, not the worst answer: The link is useful, and even if it is dead, the small text it does include mentions a helpful android concept that the question and the other answer do not.

The audit expected 'edit' or 'recommend deletion'. I can see why editing is appropriate, but deletion seems to destroy some value here. The post is now deleted. I don't have sufficient priviliges to see if it was deleted by the community or the author.

I didn't come here to complain about the audit, but I did wonder what the rules on link-only answers are. To avoid the risk of a dead link, we delete the link? This does not seem right.

I found some previous discussion of this problem here: Where do we draw the line for link-only posts? and Mass removal of link-only answers also removes internal links and What to do with almost-link-only answers? that tell me I am not the first to discuss this, but none of these clarify the rules.

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    meta.stackexchange.com/questions/225370/… Commented Apr 1 at 7:26
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    Not an android developer, but which important concept does it mention? Compose seems to be a huge framework, the only detailed information is the "picture-in-picture" part of the link. Just stating a library name is (imho) not enough to qualify as an answer. Commented Apr 1 at 7:28
  • @yivi Thanks for the link, I don't know why I did not find that. So the rule is clear on deleting link-only answers, the question of deleting a particular mostly-link answer boils down to whether it can be useful with the link being dead. Commented Apr 1 at 7:31
  • I don't want to make a whole post discussing this particular audit even if I still disagree with its result. What is the proper process for this question? Delete? Close as dupe? Commented Apr 1 at 7:34
  • When you are satisfied with the answer/explanation in the linked post, you can close your own question as a duplicate. Deleting is also fine. Note, that the votes on meta do not affect your reputation, so you don't have to worry about the downvotes here Commented Apr 1 at 7:38
  • @BDL I tried to close as dupe but that does not work because the other answer is not on meta.stackoverflow but on meta.stackexchange - I instead decided to answer my question by linking to the other post so this QA does not stand out as unanswered. Commented Apr 1 at 7:55
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    It was one of the premises when SO was designed: previous programming sites had often failed because they ended up as collections of dead links. Spam is another concern. Even if it's not a link, a single line answer like man printf isn't really helpful and we don't have to worry about corner cases like "is there a grain of helpful info in there?" - crap is crap, just delete it. This isn't a crap museum where crappy answers must be preserved for future generations. Those who are concerned about why their crappy one-line answers are getting deleted should simply write higher quality answers. Commented Apr 1 at 8:13
  • We flag it when an answer is link-only. Slight difference. Deletion of an answer is a cascaded effect of that action, but it is not your doing. It's important to keep that distance from the site. Similarly, you're not rewarding or punishing people by up or downvoting a post through reputation gain or loss; you are merely voting on the quality of a post. What the site does in response to such actions is not your responsibility. Commented Apr 1 at 8:59
  • " I don't know why I did not find that. " Because it's on the network-wide meta, not the Stack Overflow meta. Commented Apr 1 at 19:35
  • Perhaps more importantly, that question is off-topic as it needs more focus Commented Apr 1 at 20:05

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That's not a link-only answer. You said it yourself that without a link there's still value in it. A flag on it would be declined, however 20k rep users can still vote to delete it.

We only flag link-only answers for deletion when an answer has no value without the link.

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    I do agree, I clicked 'looks okay' and failed the audit which expected a 'recommend deletion' or 'edit'. But I did not come here to complain about the particular audit, I wanted to understand the rules concerning answers consisting of mostly a link. Commented Apr 1 at 9:51
  • I disagree. The answer is in another castle; you have to follow the link to know what you need to do, and as such it is link-only. This is essentially the same as name-dropping a library. Commented Apr 4 at 6:51
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Yes, the consensus/rule is indeed to delete link-only answers. See here:

Your answer is in another castle: when is an answer not an answer?

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    ... I hope the irony of posting a link-only answer isn't lost on you, here xD Commented Apr 1 at 7:56
  • I tried to close my question as dupe with this link, but that does not work as the question is on another site. Commented Apr 1 at 7:56
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    @Cerbrus I did think about this when posting, but I do think my text contains the answer: Yes, link-only answers should be deleted, not left around for someone to eventually improve them. Commented Apr 1 at 7:57
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If the link is removed, does the post answer the question? Is the essence of the answer in the post as text rather than in the link? If so, it's not a link only answer.

Note that other criteria such as quality, self promotions etc may need to be evaluated, even if it is not link only.

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