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Related to this previous meta question, Why were these spam flags declined?

As I was going through the review queues, I flagged the newest answer to Export navigation menu as spam, but the flag was declined. I thought the answer was spam, because it was posted to an old question by a newly created user account and the author's affiliation was not disclosed regarding the link in the answer.

Just to help calibrate my internal spam-o-meter, I'd like to hear, if others consider that kind of answer spam or not? Or does it fall into some kind of gray area and we should just ignore it?

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  • Is the answer helpful? Is the information behind the link helpful?
    – Mast
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 7:33
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    In the absence of corroborating proof we often recommend to give the poster the benefit of the doubt. A single recommendation does not yet count as excessive promotion. Of course, the spammers try to exploit this, so it's really hard to give any simple guidance. From the information in the post itself I would actually assume this is a legitimate user making an earnest recommendation.
    – tripleee
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 7:45
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    I checked the linked page and decided that the answer was a serious attempt to help. This is not spam.
    – fuxia Mod
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 8:48

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Reset to default
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I don't believe it's spam, but it is a link answer.

Link answers are problematic but for other reasons. Answers need to be self contained, and linking offsite or recommending something without explanation usually leads to bitrot or difficult to understand answers.

Having said that, it's a useful tool, but the poster didn't explain much about what it did or how it would be useful. I'd encourage the user to edit their answer and improve it to something that's up-votable, or, it should become a comment ( thanks Howdy McGee )

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    This is the type of answer I would usually turn into a comment for the reasons you've mentioned. It may be helpful now but could just as easily be irrelevant tomorrow if the site gets pulled.
    – Howdy_McGee Mod
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 14:56

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