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As per the homework policy:

As a community member, what should I know?

  • Watch out for answers that provide a full solution. Downvote, comment, flag.
  • Watch out for long comment discussions. Conceptual ones are OK, but advise the users to take it to chat. Homework posts are quite prone to a lot of back-and-forth clarification in the comments.
  • Downvote/Comment on/vote to close (as off-topic) questions which are "bad" homework questions.

No specific flag has been created for homework answers, comments.
ManishEarth advised wildcat in the comments to go for a custom flag.

I assume custom flags are the 'in need of moderator intervention flags'. Which are declined rightfully so whenever I flag homework answers.

We do need a homework answer/comment flag, right?

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We do need a homework answer/comment flag, right?

No. And if we would, we would not get it. That is something that would have to be implemented in the flagging dialogue across the network, and while it is pretty much only our site with such a policy, that won't happen. Just recently the flags have been simplified (not to the happiness/ satisfaction of all).

On a different matter:

  • Watch out for answers that provide a full solution. Downvote, comment, flag.

I don't even think that applies any more. I personally down-vote any answer that does not provide a full solution, because I don't want our site be cluttered with half-helpful answers like this.

(And that is probably the reason why your flags get declined.)

Note that the homework policy is filled with stuff we don't actually follow anymore, and there is stuff that we consider necessary that is not included there. We tried to change that, it was a long, tiring, stress- and painful process, which in the end lead nowhere. (And some of us are refraining from touching that subject ever again.)

In general your best bet is to treat everything on its own merit. Do you think it is helpful, will it be helpful in a year, will it be helpful to other people, etc., up-vote it. In all other cases of unhelpfulness down-vote. Your votes, are your votes. Whenever possible, we (as mods) don't step in to mitigate something that can be achieved with voting (and/or a standard flag).

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  • $\begingroup$ "the homework policy is filled with stuff we don't actually follow anymore, and there is stuff that we consider necessary that is not included there. " You know right that some template comments still link to that policy? :-O Users (hopefully) do read that page, it has 7.8k views. I understand, given so many meta posts and discussions, that it indeed must have been a "tiring, stress- and painful process" but the final decisions on hw policy must be taken someday I believe. I at least don't see what is being gained by delaying it either. $\endgroup$ – Gaurang Tandon Feb 27 '18 at 8:08
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    $\begingroup$ @GaurangTandon Any "final" decision simply isn't possible. Even if we banned homework altogether, there's no precise distinction between homework and not-homework. Also users aren't slaves to what is written anywhere - ultimately it's we who decide what and how should be done. $\endgroup$ – Mithoron Feb 27 '18 at 23:47

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