user157: I deleted this answer to the question

Is it wrong to buy a Buddha statue in Thailand from a Buddhist point
  of view?

The answer is brief enough to quote

Yes it's wrong. Throw away your statues and burn your dharma books.

To me it just looked unhelpful and so I deleted it. Robin pointed out that it's probably got merit as a zen type answer. We've discussed this before but I think it's worth revisiting in the light of welcoming all traditions. Should we accept these kind of more cryptic zen style answers and specifically should this answer remain on the site? I've undeleted for now to be as fair as possible.

user143: The particular answer above is problematic because it doesn't answer the question, it gives advice. (Don't worry about statues or studies, go meditate! is how I interpret it.) So the answer is problematic and we'd want to guide the brand new participant in the site expectation that all responses actually answer the question.
But I think where caution is needed, is that the language (or brevity, or cryptic-ness or whatever you'd call it) used in zen is so different that if we're quick to judge what is and isn't an answer, we're likely to reject virtually anything written in this style and push away potentially great new participants to this site. 
I've already accidentally chased away someone who answered in zen style and I'm hoping not to do so again. User 5129 deleted his profile after I criticized his answer; but the  OP  actually chose his answer as the Accepted answer; so it had value that I didn't recognize.
My suggestion would be to err on the side of caution and let people vote up (or not) answers they find helpful (or not) rather than delete them in this type of situation.

user254: Conclusion: specific proposal
I propose the following new policy:

Don't automatically delete a short answer (unless it's spam or unintelligible or utterly off-topic)
Anyone (i.e. users and/or moderators) can upvote or downvote (and/or post a comment)
If the answer has a negative score (more downvotes than upvotes) then any 'trusted users' can vote to delete it – there are only 4 trusted users (i.e. with reputation of over 4000) at the moment, and 3 must vote before an answer is deleted, but there will be more such trusted users in future.
If the answer has a negative score then any moderator can delete – before deleting, a moderator should perhaps consult the other moderators to see whether they think that the answer has value
Sometimes moderators will convert an answer to a comment

This isn't a formula for deciding whether an answer has the following desirable attributes:

Is not too "mysterious (and often incomprehensible yet seemingly wise)"
Addresses the question
Leaves little unsaid

... but if we just delay, for a little while, deleting an answer which some people could find valuable, that would let people assess such answers on a case-by-case basis, with up- and downvotes and comments.

user5211: I'm obviously new to this board, so I don't know the history of your policies or why they were implemented. The only reason I see to delete any answers would be in cases where they were patently offensive- sexist, racist- or personal attacks, etc.
If people don't like a response, they can downvote it or respond in the comments that it was unhelpful. If the forum were flooded with answers similar to my own in such a way as to inhibit the exchange of ideas, then there'd be a valid reason for tighter policing. 
I'd like to coin a phrase to describe this sort of answer- a short pithy response that attempts to dress itself in Zen robes but isn't helpful. I think the term "Zen Burp" is nicely descriptive..

user18: I'm going to propose the opposite of @ChrisW, just to see which one is preferred. It seems to me, there is an argument for deleting short answers, simply for the reason that they are useless.
Unless one is an authority on a particular subject, what good is it to the OP that someone they don't know on the Internet says the answer is "Yes."? The use of short Zen (not Zen-like) answers hinges on the authority of the guru; unless they actually provide an argument, they are useless out of the context of one's assumption that one's teacher is enlightened.
I agree with this answer:

Yes.
...that wasn't very helpful in answering your question, was it? If someone asks a yes/no question there's always an implied "and why" even if they don't ask for it.
Even if the original asker only wanted one data point with no reasoning behind it, showing the reason for a yes/no answer makes the answer useful to more than just the single asker, which is the whole point of Stack Exchange.


user254: TL;DR
Current consensus is to delete short answers.
My personal vote would be to allow some (not all) short answers, only if they are good answers.

The moderators should do what the community decides
Moderators shouldn't delete answers which their community would want them to keep. I assume we can take it for granted that no-one wants spam, nor anything unintelligible nor utterly off-topic, but apart from that we should look for some community consensus (which is why you opened this meta-topic).
For example see how its author worded this comment:

That notice is pretty much designed for Skeptics, which does have such a policy because of the inherent nature of that site. Skeptics specifically want citations for claims, and their community allows their mods to delete uncited answers.

That says "their community allows their mods" because that community discussed and voted on that policy on their meta site (for example, here and here and here and not to mention all of these).

Maybe moderators should wait until a user flags an answer
FWIW in the past if I disliked an answer, I decided to delay deleting it (i.e. not delete it now) and instead wait to see whether someone else flags it. Because if someone else flags then at least I know there are two people (i.e. me and someone else) who dislike it.
The answer you're talking about was flagged, but it was flagged by the 'Community' bot for being short, not flagged by a real user who could read it.

Just because it's short doesn't mean it's good
We should try to reserve the right to delete some short answers: not every short reply is in any way a useful answer.

Current or previous community consensus
This topic has been discussed before: Should we allow/encourage short answers?
It seems to me that:

Several people answered that we should allow them
Two people (Hrafn and you) answered that we shouldn't, and those answers got by far the most votes

So I think that the current or previous consensus was that short (mysterious) answers are never allowed.

Just because it's short doesn't mean it's bad
yuttadhammo posted links to where this has been discussed on many other sites, and wrote

I've taken a look around SE, and it seems the consensus is actually to allow very short questions, as long as they do actually answer the question. Here's some of the reasoning.


Just because it's short doesn't mean it's mysterious
I might agree that a mysterious answer isn't helpful.
But this answer wasn't very mysterious, it was on-topic, it was about the same length as the question, maybe just long enough to express their considered opinion without starting to write a thesis on what else you could to be doing instead of buying a statue (which would be an answer to a different question).

What about voting?
Theoretically, instead of deleting an answer, people can downvote bad answers.
If the users on this site would upvote (good answers) more and downvote (bad answers) more, that would help in many ways.
This help topic suggests that answers can be deleted if they have a score of -1

Moderators can delete any answer, and trusted community members can vote to delete answers scoring -1 or lower (3 votes will result in deletion).

On a mature site people would vote; on a beta site there may not be enough people actively voting yet, and for that reason moderators intervene with their unilateral/binding actions.

Why are answers ever deleted?
This same help topic says,

Answers that do not fundamentally answer the question may be
  removed. This includes answers that are:

commentary on the question or other answers
asking another, different question
“thanks!” or “me too!” responses
exact duplicates of other answers
barely more than a link to an external site
not even a partial answer to the actual question


Note that "too short" is NOT one of the reasons listed above.

What about posting a comment?
I think we should use comments, to ask for any specific clarification or to suggest some specific improvements. If you don't delete an answer then someone can post a comment, and/or upvote or downvote.
A comment that just says "this answer is too short" isn't necessarily constructive (everyone can already see it's short, what's less obvious is what if anything ought to be added to make it longer).

What about turning the answer into a comment?
One of the moderator tools lets you convert an answer to a comment. If it's short then physically it's not too long to be comment. If it doesn't answer the question (if it's "advice instead of an answer") then maybe it shouldn't be posted as an answer (regardless of its length) but could perhaps be posted as a comment under the question.

157: <p>I deleted this <a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/9318/157">answer</a> to the question</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Is it wrong to buy a Buddha statue in Thailand from a Buddhist point
  of view?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The answer is brief enough to quote</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Yes it's wrong. Throw away your statues and burn your dharma books.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>To me it just looked unhelpful and so I deleted it. Robin pointed out that it's probably got merit as a zen type answer. We've <a href="https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/26/should-we-allow-encourage-short-answers">discussed this before</a> but I think it's worth revisiting in the light of welcoming all traditions. Should we accept these kind of more cryptic zen style answers and specifically should this answer remain on the site? I've undeleted for now to be as fair as possible.</p>
 143: <p>The particular answer above is problematic because it doesn't answer the question, it gives advice. (Don't worry about statues or studies, go meditate! is how I interpret it.) So the answer is problematic and we'd want to guide the brand new participant in the site expectation that all responses actually answer the question.</p>

<p>But I think where caution is needed, is that the language (or brevity, or cryptic-ness or whatever you'd call it) used in zen is so different that if we're quick to judge what is and isn't an answer, we're likely to reject virtually anything written in this style and push away potentially great new participants to this site. </p>

<p><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/8985/is-this-a-buddhist-poem">I've already accidentally chased away someone who answered in zen style and I'm hoping not to do so again.</a> User 5129 deleted his profile after I criticized his answer; but the  OP  actually chose his answer as the Accepted answer; so it had value that I didn't recognize.</p>

<p>My suggestion would be to err on the side of caution and let people vote up (or not) answers they find helpful (or not) rather than delete them in this type of situation.</p>
 254: <p><strong>Conclusion: specific proposal</strong></p>

<p>I propose the following new policy:</p>

<ul>
<li>Don't automatically delete a short answer (unless it's spam or unintelligible or utterly off-topic)</li>
<li>Anyone (i.e. users and/or moderators) can upvote or downvote (and/or post a comment)</li>
<li>If the answer has a negative score (more downvotes than upvotes) then any 'trusted users' can vote to delete it &ndash; there are only 4 trusted users (i.e. with reputation of over 4000) at the moment, and 3 must vote before an answer is deleted, but there will be more such trusted users in future.</li>
<li>If the answer has a negative score then any moderator can delete &ndash; before deleting, a moderator should perhaps consult the other moderators to see whether they think that the answer has value</li>
<li>Sometimes moderators will convert an answer to a comment</li>
</ul>

<p>This isn't a formula for deciding whether an answer has the following desirable attributes:</p>

<ul>
<li>Is not too "mysterious (and often incomprehensible yet seemingly wise)"</li>
<li>Addresses the question</li>
<li>Leaves little unsaid</li>
</ul>

<p>... but if we just delay, for a little while, deleting an answer which some people could find valuable, that would let people assess such answers on a case-by-case basis, with up- and downvotes and comments.</p>
 5211: <p>I'm obviously new to this board, so I don't know the history of your policies or why they were implemented. The only reason I see to delete any answers would be in cases where they were patently offensive- sexist, racist- or personal attacks, etc.</p>

<p>If people don't like a response, they can downvote it or respond in the comments that it was unhelpful. If the forum were flooded with answers similar to my own in such a way as to inhibit the exchange of ideas, then there'd be a valid reason for tighter policing. </p>

<p>I'd like to coin a phrase to describe this sort of answer- a short pithy response that attempts to dress itself in Zen robes but isn't helpful. I think the term "Zen Burp" is nicely descriptive..</p>
 18: <p>I'm going to propose the opposite of @ChrisW, just to see which one is preferred. It seems to me, there is an argument for deleting short answers, simply for the reason that they are useless.</p>
<p>Unless one is an authority on a particular subject, what good is it to the OP that someone they don't know on the Internet says the answer is &quot;Yes.&quot;? The use of short Zen (not Zen-like) answers hinges on the authority of the guru; unless they actually provide an argument, they are useless out of the context of one's assumption that one's teacher is enlightened.</p>
<p>I agree with <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/110170/161650">this answer</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>...that wasn't very helpful in answering your question, was it? If someone asks a yes/no question there's always an implied &quot;and why&quot; even if they don't ask for it.</p>
<p>Even if the original asker only wanted one data point with no reasoning behind it, showing the reason for a yes/no answer <strong>makes the answer useful to more than just the single asker</strong>, which is the whole point of Stack Exchange.</p>
</blockquote>
 254: <p><strong>TL;DR</strong></p>

<p>Current consensus is to delete short answers.</p>

<p>My personal vote would be to allow some (not all) short answers, only if they are good answers.</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>The moderators should do what the community decides</strong></p>

<p>Moderators shouldn't delete answers which their community would want them to keep. I assume we can take it for granted that no-one wants spam, nor anything unintelligible nor utterly off-topic, but apart from that we should look for some community consensus (which is why you opened this meta-topic).</p>

<p>For example see how its author worded <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/102363/support-for-banners#comment282942_109494">this comment</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>That notice is pretty much designed for Skeptics, which does have such a policy because of the inherent nature of that site. Skeptics specifically want citations for claims, and <strong>their community allows their mods to delete uncited answers</strong>.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That says "their community allows their mods" because that community discussed and voted on that policy on their meta site (for example, <a href="https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5/2703">here</a> and <a href="https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/870/2703">here</a> and <a href="https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/519/2703">here</a> and not to mention all of <a href="https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=references">these</a>).</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>Maybe moderators should wait until a user flags an answer</strong></p>

<p>FWIW in the past if I disliked an answer, I decided to delay deleting it (i.e. not delete it now) and instead wait to see whether someone else flags it. Because if someone else flags then at least I know there are two people (i.e. me and someone else) who dislike it.</p>

<p>The answer you're talking about was flagged, but it was flagged by the '<a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/users/-1/community?tab=profile">Community</a>' bot for being short, not flagged by a real user who could read it.</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>Just because it's short doesn't mean it's good</strong></p>

<p>We should try to reserve the right to delete some short answers: not every short reply is in any way a useful answer.</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>Current or previous community consensus</strong></p>

<p>This topic has been discussed before: <a href="https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/q/26/254">Should we allow/encourage short answers?</a></p>

<p>It seems to me that:</p>

<ul>
<li>Several people answered that we should allow them</li>
<li>Two people (Hrafn and you) answered that we shouldn't, and those answers got by far the most votes</li>
</ul>

<p>So I think that the current or previous consensus was that short (mysterious) answers are never allowed.</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>Just because it's short doesn't mean it's bad</strong></p>

<p><a href="https://buddhism.meta.stackexchange.com/a/203/254">yuttadhammo posted links</a> to where this has been discussed on many other sites, and wrote</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I've taken a look around SE, and it seems the consensus is actually to allow very short questions, as long as they do actually answer the question. Here's some of the reasoning.</p>
</blockquote>

<hr>

<p><strong>Just because it's short doesn't mean it's mysterious</strong></p>

<p>I might agree that a mysterious answer isn't helpful.</p>

<p>But this answer wasn't very mysterious, it was on-topic, it was about the same length as the question, maybe just long enough to express their considered opinion without starting to write a thesis on what else you could to be doing instead of buying a statue (which would be an answer to a different question).</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>What about voting?</strong></p>

<p>Theoretically, instead of deleting an answer, people can downvote bad answers.</p>

<p>If the users on this site would upvote (good answers) more and downvote (bad answers) more, that would help in many ways.</p>

<p><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/help/deleted-answers">This help topic</a> suggests that answers can be deleted if they have a score of -1</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Moderators can delete any answer, and <a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/trusted-user">trusted community members</a> can vote to delete answers scoring -1 or lower (3 votes will result in deletion).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>On a mature site people would vote; on a beta site there may not be enough people actively voting yet, and for that reason moderators intervene with their unilateral/binding actions.</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>Why are answers ever deleted?</strong></p>

<p><a href="https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/help/deleted-answers">This same help topic</a> says,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Answers that <strong>do not fundamentally answer the question</strong> may be
  removed. This includes answers that are:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>commentary on the question or other answers</li>
  <li>asking another, different question</li>
  <li>“thanks!” or “me too!” responses</li>
  <li>exact duplicates of other answers</li>
  <li>barely more than a link to an external site</li>
  <li>not even a partial answer to the actual question</li>
  </ul>
</blockquote>

<p>Note that "too short" is NOT one of the reasons listed above.</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>What about posting a comment?</strong></p>

<p>I think we should use comments, to ask for any specific clarification or to suggest some specific improvements. If you don't delete an answer then someone can post a comment, and/or upvote or downvote.
A comment that just says "this answer is too short" isn't necessarily constructive (everyone can already see it's short, what's less obvious is what if anything ought to be added to make it longer).</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>What about turning the answer into a comment?</strong></p>

<p>One of the moderator tools lets you convert an answer to a comment. If it's short then physically it's not too long to be comment. If it doesn't answer the question (if it's "advice instead of an answer") then maybe it shouldn't be posted as an answer (regardless of its length) but could perhaps be posted as a comment under the question.</p>
