I recently read Valley Lad's answer to the "What is an Avatar of a God?" question.
Is this answer acceptable? It doesn't seem to give any RAW, RAI or RAF interpretation, doesn't give any examples of actual statted avatars and doesn't refer to any of its sources.
I was considering commenting but didn't really know how to word a comment in such a situation. I was considering flagging it but I don't know if it deserves flagging.
(This may be a duplicate of this question.)
The comment hover text reads: Use comments to ask for more information or suggest improvements. Avoid comments like "+1" or "thanks"
The answer seems well reasoned, but doesn't cite sources. It would be improved if it did, so as to be more in line with Stack guidelines etc. etc., so just say that in a comment.
This answer could be improved by citing relevant passages in the 5e source books.
In this particular case, the user is also new, so several users around here like to add a welcome message, and be a bit more verbose about the 'why' here.
Hello and welcome to RPG.SE! When you get a minute, please take the [tour] to learn a bit more about the features on this site. This answer could be improved by citing relevant passages in the 5e source books so that future readers can verify the information and find other ancillary information of interest. Happy gaming!
For another similar comment, look at the other answer to that question. Notably, it implies several details about the history of deities in the various editions, but it also doesn't cite sources. So another user posted this comment:
Would it be possible to get a couple references for some of this information? Particularly p3: it sounds like you are referring to a specific case.
Here's the flag list:
I would not flag here because the post isn't selling anything, is polite, is an answer, and doesn't require moderator powers to resolve something. The problem can be solved with some helpful direction in comments in combination with the edit button.
Voting is always up to the voter. Depending on how salvageable the answer seems, you could upvote and comment a more expanded version of "+1, but needs references", downvote "-1, source references contradict this answer", or opt not to vote and just leave the helpful comment. Any way you choose, you can change your vote after the answer is edited, so it's not like this is a permanent and binding decision.
In this case, I would certainly not downvote for three reasons. First, the answer seems substantially correct as far as I am aware. Second, I am deliberately soft on new users because they tend to take downvotes personally. Third, I typically only choose to downvote when I am certain something is substantially and factually wrong.
