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I saw an answer to this question which could be considered aggressive and with a statement that, from my POV; should be better mentioned as a comment instead of an answer.

After editing it, the original answer was being shown once again. Checking the revision will show you that the changes were accepted but the original user decided to discard them.

Regardless of the question and answer in itself, how should one proceed in a situation like this? Should I edit the post once again? Open a flag? Try to talk to the user (as somebody else attempted via the comment system)?

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    Don't edit it again. Edit wars are not allowed. I'm not sure if this is worth flagging over. – S.L. Barth Oct 19 '16 at 12:13
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    Sometimes, it helps to leave a comment for the poster, reminding them to be nice... – AviD♦ Oct 19 '16 at 13:28
  • Also, when it is offensive, feel free to flag for a moderator's attention. Truthfully this one is a bit borderline, but its there... – AviD♦ Oct 19 '16 at 13:32
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Here are my thoughts on how to handle situations like this:

  • Do not roll back the roll back. That is just starting an edit war and will lead you nowhere.
  • You can leave a comment (as I did) and try to explain. If you do, do it as politely as possible. Someone else using a bad tone is not an excuse for you to do the same. If you do not feel that you have the energy to be polite and clearly exaplain the issue, then do not leave a comment at all.
  • You can absolutely flag for moderator attention. A lot of situations are borderline if they warrant action or not. In those I usually flag, and let the moderators draw the border. You can look at your flag history and see if your flag was rejected. Unless you have lots of rejected flags I would not worrie about disturbing moderators with unnececary flags.

Personally I would not both comment and flag as that just adds to many voices. Instead I would pick one based on how severe I think the case is. In this case I commented and did not flag, but given the developments following your flag I think flagging would actually have been a better decision.

Thats my two cents, not sure if they are in line with what others think. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to try to figure out how to handle these situations in a good way!

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    Your point 2 is great, in summary: if you do not have something constructive to add it is better to not add anything at all. That's probably the idea behind the "be nice" rule. – grochmal Oct 21 '16 at 12:52

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