Are you flagging?

We’ve noticed that while some members flag Spam posts, very few flag other “problem” posts, such as fluff, off-topic, self-promotion or trolling. I’d be really interested to know why this is, so please pick the option which best fits your feelings on the subject. Thank you!

  • I never see any problem posts
  • I see them and flag them
  • I see them, but they don’t bother me
  • Flagging them is too much hassle
  • I don’t want to be seen as difficult or a moaner
  • I didn’t know I could/should flag them
  • I think it should be left to the moderators
  • Other

0 voters

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The links for like, share, flag, bookmark are very difficult to see, #CCC on #FFF is a color contrast accessibility fail? No wonder I’m not using them!

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I’ve flagged obvious scams in the pass but never off-topic and fluff posts. Mostly I just do not think about it at the time and just move on to other posts.
I’ll try and better a better community participant in the future.

Thanks to those who do take the time to clean up the forums, mostly this these are well run forums.

Steve in Colorado

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17 posts were split to a new topic: Post icons and usability

Hi TechnoBear,

I just saw one of the obnoxious little buggers and managed
to hit the flag button before it disappeared into cyberspace. :sunglasses:

Such exciting fun as this rarely seems to happen for me. :mask:

coothead

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I notice a couple of folk have chosen

I don’t want to be seen as difficult or a moaner.

So just to be clear - you won’t be. (Well, you might if you start inappropriately flagging dozens of posts a day, but you’re not going to be doing that, so don’t worry.)

The flag button is there so that members can use it. If you see a post you think is a problem, please use the flag and let the moderators look at it. It helps us do our job more efficiently if members alert us to any problems they spot.

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I just came across this back from before the move from vBulletin to Discourse

http://www.sitepoint.com/sitepoint-moves-to-discourse/

Flags have consequences

At the moment, if you flag a post in vBulletin, it sends a notification to the forum staff, who make a call as to what to do about it. In Discourse, the same thing happens, BUT… if more than one person flags the same post, that post is temporarily hidden and a message is sent to the original poster, who has the opportunity to change what they wrote, in order to make it reappear. That means that if someone goes around spamming the forum, you have the power to deal with it without having to wait for a moderator. That frees up the forum staff to actively take part in more discussions around the place, rather than having to act as police all the time. Taking a more holistic look at this, you will be empowered to shape the community into the kind of place you want to frequent, by encouraging great content, and discouraging rubbish. Note: there are checks and measures in place to ensure that people don’t abuse this system.

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I see and flag them, but there are some cases the only reason I flag them is for the post author to get notified, because honestly they don’t bother me at all.

There was this case when a member opened a topic in a language that wasn’t English, so I flagged it so moderators could send him a warning message and that member could possibly open the same topic in English and consequently be able to engage with the community.

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That’s great.

If members make a mistake in posting, we like to pick it up quickly and explain to them why there was a problem, so they can avoid making the same mistake again. We prefer to educate members, rather than penalise them, so your approach is perfect. Thank you.

Well, “spam” is kind of a catch-all, isn’t it? Self-promotion is spam. Fluff posts, such as if someone copy-pastes Wikipedia to pad their post count, is typically spam. Off-topic posts that are so severally off-topic to warrant a flag are almost always spam. That only leaves trolling, which I would flag as inappropriate, except I don’t see those very often.

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What we consider Spam is the obvious stuff - adverts for kitchens, beauty products, fake documents - stuff which has no relevance to the forums and which was clearly posted purely for advertising. The kind of people who post that have no intention of ever being contributing forum members.

Self-promotion comes more into the category of “inappropriate”, along with fluff and most other things.

Although the notes on the off-topic flag say it should be used for posts which ought to be moved to a new thread (asking a new question in an existing thread, for instance), it can be used for any off-topic post that’s simply adding “noise” to a thread.

But all flags will be reviewed by a moderator anyway, so don’t waste time worrying about which category is the right one; just take your best guess and press the button.

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It’s not my nor anyone else’s responsibility whom doesn’t work for site point to do this. You work or are dumb enough to volunteer for the job without compensation so figure it out.

No one said anything about responsibility. It’s about opportunity—to keep a place people value clean. It may be the responsibility of your local government to pick up every piece of rubbish on the sidewalk, but that doesn’t stop you from picking something up and binning it yourself—and helping to keep your community in good shape.

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