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I flagged this answer: https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/a/13576/1224 as not an answer, because I think it should be a comment to the accepted answer.

The flag was declined as "flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer".

Can some mod please move that answer-comment (and the comments to that to the accepted answer?).

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Thanks for bringing this up. I declined the flag because honestly it's too technical for me to know what the right action is here. Is this a comment? Or is it a new question (and therefore should be deleted)? There was a question here before the edit by Tom Au. Or is this actually an answer to the original question, but talking about some edge case? In which case, perhaps it isn't strictly answering the question, but is still a valid point?

Bridge has a particularly technical language. For a non-player, it's really not obvious what the conversation is even about!

Reading the comment thread below also leaves me still unclear. Since I know nothing about bridge, I'm not willing to make the call.

If we can have a consensus here by more than one bridge-playing user about what should be done, and why, I'll happily make it happen.

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    I would say you should not decline the flag for the same reasons you gave to decline it :-). Perhaps you can skip such flags and let some other moderator look at it? (I believe there is at least one moderator who can make sense of that question and their answers). Anyway, not a big deal.
    – Aryabhata
    Dec 2, 2013 at 22:51
  • @Aryabhata - An interesting point. My reasoning comes down to what I discuss here: meta.boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/1107/… This particular flag should be unambiguous to interpret, since the action is severe (normally unilateral deletion, sometimes even user consequences such as suspension). Detailed subject knowledge puts us into the realm of downvotes, rather than mod action.
    – ire_and_curses
    Dec 2, 2013 at 23:25
  • @ire_and_curses: Given your stated knowledge on the subject, I think it was clearly right to not accept the flag. It is possible that skipping it would have been a wiser action than declining the flag. This is a post by a new user who is struggling to understand Transfers, and likely was coerced by even weaker players into a poor action. Until both hands are available, one cannot know for sure..
    – Forget I was ever here
    Dec 3, 2013 at 3:22
  • @Pieter Geerkens - So, in your opinion, should this really have been asked as a new question (with full information about both hands)?
    – ire_and_curses
    Dec 3, 2013 at 3:39
  • Disclaimer: I am a part-time bridge evangelist, and this will colour my opinion to your question. I attempted to bait Martha Davis to provide more detail on the hands that perplexed her, per Aryabatha's comment, with intent of then trying to lure her into asking a new question. I would not set this as an invalid answer prior to this, as it raises a valid point in regards to an aspect of transfers relevant to the original question. ...
    – Forget I was ever here
    Dec 3, 2013 at 3:48
  • Bridge is well taught by examples, but one of the most vexing concerns to the teacher is that novice fail to understand how much detail must be given about a hand to provide good answers. Saying 10 pts and balanced seems to make sense to the novice, but the expert knows that this ranges from hands that should evaluate t 15 0r 16 pts, to hands that should evaluate as 2 or 3. It is in understanding the specific cards that good expert decisions are made.
    – Forget I was ever here
    Dec 3, 2013 at 3:50
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    I know a fair amount of Bridge, although I haven't played much in 20 years. I'm with @ire. For me, the answer is close to the line but it should be handled by the community if needed. Downvotes and deletion are available to high rep users (4k I believe).
    – Pat Ludwig Mod
    Dec 4, 2013 at 3:32
  • @PatLudwig: I thought mods had the capability of moving answers to become comments to other answers and allow the person to continue the conversation whether below the commenting rep threshold or not. Is that not true? Here, the "answer" starts with "OK, But..." which indicates to me that it should be a comment on one of the answers (and likely the accepted answer). I disagree with leaving it as an answer, but don't feel strongly about it.
    – Aryabhata
    Dec 4, 2013 at 19:42
  • @Aryabhata - that option does exist. I don't use it too much myself, especially for new users. I like that low rep users cannot comment and need to "earn" the privilege. An answer has to be very useful for me to save it via moving it to a comment, I'm much more likely to delete them.
    – Pat Ludwig Mod
    Dec 4, 2013 at 21:01
  • @PatLudwig: Well, if the poster (Martha) had enough rep to post a comment, then we would not be judging/discussing anything. I am suggesting move it to be a comment, and assume that Martha had posted it as a comment in the first place :-). Having it as a comment there would be a useful discussion to have and might even help future readers. It is not an answer by itself, and downvoting/deletion might result in the loss of such a discussion. Anyway, it just seemed weird that what was clearly a comment to me was left as an answer...
    – Aryabhata
    Dec 5, 2013 at 20:37
  • @ire_and_curses: As originally posed, the post was a "question answering a question." I changed the question to an assertion ("Is consider this a reasonable exception." s/b "I consider...") In its current form, the post asserts a disagreement with a bridge convention (evident from the rest of the post). Which I believe to be an answer to the question.
    – Tom Au
    Dec 27, 2013 at 21:03
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In its original form, the post was a "question in response to a question." I changed the question to an assertion, which made it an answer, or at least an affirmative statement.

I might not have done this with a post on someone else's question, but since it was my own, I considered the post "responsive," and put it into a more proper format for BCG.

Granted, it may not be a "popular" answer, because it goes against bridge convention. There are people who believe that there should never be exceptions to a convention, and there are others who believe that there should be a few exceptions. I'm in the latter camp. Which is why I encouraged this answer.

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  • FWIW, I suggest you read ruds' comments on that. Exceptions are well and good, but you should have a very good reason to diverge from the norm. In this case, since Martha didn't give us the hands in question, I am guessing that opening 2NT would have been wrong in the first place. The fault isn't in the garbage transfer, but hand evaluation by the opener. Not bidding 3H when partner transfers in not just "unpopular", it is unilateral and to be honest, pretty silly, which I expect only beginners to do.
    – Aryabhata
    Dec 27, 2013 at 23:29

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