Where does “This post does not cite any references or sources” come from

Question

Today I came across this answer, which has a specially highlighted comment:

I wondered how these comments got added, as they didn't seem to be a result of flagging or heavy downvoting. Nor do I get the impression that it is the result of any of the comments added to the answer.

After some searching I found this post on meta.stackexchange.com that explains the moderators can add banners, and that there are several available. And this post with rather strong arguments against this feature.

1. Do I need to flag for moderator attention if I think such a banner is appropriate? Or is there another way?¹

2. Can some links or hover texts be added to these canned text like in the example (from the skeptics cite). So that it is more clear what is expected from the Answerer?²

3. Does the poster get a notification that such a banner is added? If not they might never notice.

4. These "bannered" questions obviously need attention in the form of editing. The poster might not be the only one being able to do so. Is there a way to find these "bannered" items? There doesn't seem to be a list even on the 10K+ tools page.

¹ _{That feels like calling 911, when I just want to reach my girlfriend when she is at work and has forgotten her mobile.}
² _{The text behind the link for cite could explain the inclusion of links, but also the use of text of man pages, relative specific for our site.}

Answer 1

Moderators have additional options where we can post notices. The notices are as follows:

• citation needed - This post does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this post by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

• current event - Post is related to a rapidly changing event.

• insufficient explanation - We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer; explain why your answer is right, ideally with citations. Answers that don't include explanations may be removed.

In this case I posted that notice because this particular user is new to the site and had posted several sub-par answers, and I wanted to draw further attention to them, to stop doing so, and to take additional time/effort to develop their answers more thoroughly before writing any further answers.

Your Questions

1. Do I need to flag for moderator attention if I think such a banner is appropriate? Or is there another way?¹

Flagging our attention on these is sufficient.

2. Can some links or hover texts be added to these canned text like in the example (from the skeptics cite). So that it is more clear what is expected from the Answerer?²

No, they're canned messages and cannot be customized beyond what they're showing on the page.

3. Does the poster get a notification that such a banner is added? If not they might never notice.

Good question. I do not know if they get additional messaging.

4. These "bannered" questions obviously need attention in the form of editing. The poster might not be the only one being able to do so. Is there a way to find these "bannered" items? There doesn't seem to be a list even on the 10K+ tools page.

Q's and A's that receive such banners need to be periodically expunged, manually, AFAIK. I only recently learned about these notices myself, and so do not plan to use them liberally, so I'm keeping a running list of Q's and A's where I've used them, and will go back and manually deal with them after a period of time has passed.'