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Sorry if this is the wrong place to have this discussion, but I don't quite know where I should put this. I posted an answer to a question yesterday Minimum operating temperature - Outer Space? and I noticed when someone else added an answer which I responded to saying I felt it was not answering the question asked.

I don't feel that the expanded response is on topic, and the user is now posting comments which contain misinformation on my answer or that address comments posted to his answer. I feel like posting responses which address his comments are only going to exacerbate the problem. What is the appropriate response to "this is on topic but incorrect!" repeatedly?

Thanks for any help.

EDIT: It seems like the outright false comment has been removed, but the question has remains: should I flag comments which are wrong (but on topic) when clearly it's an escalation of an argument I don't think is appropriate for the thread?

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Next time (because now that you've posted this here the mods will probably see it), you should:

  1. Flag the comments/answers. The flagging feature lets you detail why you are creating the flag.
  2. That is usually enough (the mods are very responsive on this site). If it isn't, you could enter the Ask a Moderator chat room and ping one of the moderators.
  3. You could alternatively create a chatroom, by selecting "Electrical Engineering" as the Related Site, and once again, pinging a moderator to join.
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  • \$\begingroup\$ Ah! Okay I was having a lot of trouble navigating the 14 pages of chat rooms when I went looking for an "ask a moderator" style room. And I was worried because flagging seemed extreme based on my experience on other sites. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kit Scuzz
    Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 20:40
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    \$\begingroup\$ I usually don't hesitate to flag things that I see are 'off'. If a mod doesn't agree with my flag, they can dispute it and tell me why they don't agree. To view your flagging history and response, go to your profile and click the number next to "helpful flags". Also, for chat, if you click the chat link on this site, it will take you to a subset of the Stack Exchange chatrooms (of which there are a lot) that apply to this site. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chris Laplante
    Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 20:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KitScuzz and we normally err on the side of closing as helpful if your intent was good and if it was questionable we will just ping you from chat and give you feedback. We only occasionally decline flags to give feedback, but it does happen when a flag just does not make sense to us. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kortuk Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2012 at 15:33
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Flagging is the thing to do. If the flagged comment for instance contains some bad language a mod may edit that out of the comment. If the comment as a whole is inappropriate it may be deleted, as apparently happened here. I know about ever more escalating heated discussions thirty comments long completely deleted.

That's one thing. A misbehaving user can also be sanctioned. If there are too many complaints his account may be suspended for a day, a week, a month or a year, IIRC.

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So flag, and moderators will do the necessary to keep our site nice.

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