Please can we put an end to all these 'flagging battles?'

Seriously people, it’s getting really tiresome now seeing so many posts flagged/hidden. Agreed, a small percentage of these are done for valid reasons/people breaking community guidelines but the majority of it is done now out of spite :frowning:

It just seems that petty vendettas are wasting the time of devs/our wonderful forum moderator when they could be spending their time and energy on more important stuff during these times :wink:

Thanks all, stay safe :slight_smile:

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Relevant Community Guidelines:

My earlier thoughts on this from when it cycled around last time:

For those worried about actually enforcing this rule discouraging legitimate flagging, there is a stark difference between flags someone being borderline antagonistic or flags in bug report threads meant as an attempt to keep the process more streamlined that are done in “good faith”, and those where the flagger simply disagrees with the opinion of someone in a post or doesn’t like someone in general (including slight off-topic in threads other than Bug Reports) that are very clearly done in “bad faith”. Yes, this requires a person to make the judgement call, hopefully as impartial as possible, but this repeated flagging in “bad faith” is a violation of the community guidelines, letter and spirit, and should carry some sort of repercussion. Looks like now might be the time, unfortunately.

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I have recently become the target of a flagging troll. No matter what I post, I get flagged. All of the flagged posts have been restored by staff, which probably means I’m not the one in error here. And despite what the troll thinks, I haven’t flagged a single one of their posts in return.

Someone (possibly multiple) has taken it upon themself to be the arbiter of what should or should not be posted on the forums. I wish they would go back to lurking and leave the rest of us alone.

Awaiting today’s flag.

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Yeah it calmed down for a little bit then got really bad the past few days. Not sure what happened, but I suspect it’s a very small number of people and the community would not miss them if they lost their privileges for a few months.

I had one post in particular flagged, restored, then flagged again. I think if someone flags a restored post it should be an auto-ban.

First off not all your posts were restored. In fact all of the ones where you called me a bitch and a nazi were deleted. Mine however, were restored. I deleted them. What was the outcome? My trust level was downgraded. Yours and your friends? No change. I guess we know now who gets preferential treatment.

Dont worry, thanks to your pals on the dev team, I can no longer flag you for calling me a bitch. So by all means, have at it.

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Ps. I will go back to lurking now lol.

Let’s be real clear here - I never used either of those words to refer to you. You must be confusing me with someone else.

I have been on this forum since before it was this forum - over five years now. That may have been enough time for me to have earned some credit with the devs. Or maybe not. But they do know me, and I think they know that at least most of the time I behave like a responsible adult.

And what, pray tell, makes you think I was talking about you, anyway?

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:man_shrugging:



It also helps to have integrity and not make stuff up for the sake of sensationalism.

I have a few comments to make, but then won’t respond to this further lest it escalate.

I have been deep diving into Discourse to try and change how flags work, but it is very difficult. A lot of other users have had similar problems to us, so I have done what I can. I have made the “hide flag post sensitivity” lower, so posts will be hidden less than before.

As a trial, I have disabled " high trust flaggers auto hide posts." This is only a trial, so please don’t make me regret turning it off. We will see how it goes moving forward and re-evaluate.

EDIT: To finish, any posts insulting others and using harsh language violate community guidelines, and action is taken. There is a difference between flagging posts that violate guidelines, and flagging anything you disagree with. The users that do the latter can expect to have their flagging privileges revoked.

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@Saltypatra I commend you for your efforts to fix the problem.

@RiverSong It was polite of you not to name publicly the alleged “troll” that was flagging your posts, but you could still report them in private. If you had simply reported them in private to the developers or moderators or on Zendesk, they might investigate the flagger and then there wouldn’t be any need to mention the troll here at all. Since they responded and practically admitted to flagging you, that’s no longer an issue. I still think it’s a good idea to report them. And I would give this advice even if the person who flagged you wasn’t here, so this isn’t me calling them out. But I do appreciate you increasing awareness of a problem that has plagued the forum lately. I myself have seen legitimate posts marked spam, so I can understand where you’re coming from.

That said, I do sincerely hope the problem gets fixed. Thank you for contributing to help solve the issue.

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I added an edit for anyone that missed it.

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What makes you think I didn’t?

@RiverSong Well, I didn’t know whether or not you did, but that was probably all you needed to do, to be honest.

The topic was flags. I felt my experience was relevant to the conversation.

@RiverSong Fair enough. I’ve had my say on this, so you should be allowed yours. Anyway, I’m pretty much done with this particular thread so I’ll post somewhere else once I’m able to. Thanks for contributing your personal experience with the problem.

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Which do you prefer?

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I earned a Nice Reply badge and 10 likes for a flagged comment.
It is the very first comment I have ever had flagged.
Somehow that kinda says something about this flagging issue.

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@awryan…bitching is not the same as calling someone a bitch.

I think it’s actually less childish to just outright get into an argument than it is to go around flagging other people’s posts just because they hurt your feelings

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If the argument is cilivized debate which may take you out of your comfort zone, then yes.
If it’s just escalating name calling, I prefer seeing flagged posts.