When I flag a post, where does it get sent?

Question

I'm a little confused as to what happens to a post when I flag it. Recently I flagged a question as "low quality". It was declined, and the reason that was given was that "flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention."

So, according to that, whenever I flag something, what I'm actually doing is sending it along to a moderator?

If that's the case, how do posts end up in the review queue, like in questions marked as low quality, duplicate or those with close votes?

I've been explained once that things marked as offensive or spam go straight to a mod and are eventually deleted, so I get that part.

Maybe a different way of asking this is:

• What happens when I flag as off-topic? (Does it go to review queue, or to a mod?)
• What about flag as Low Quality?

Answer 1

Here's my take on which flag goes where. They've been changing it a bit over the last few months so please don't take this for certain.

• Closure / Duplicate → close vote review queue
• Spam / Offensive → ♦ moderator queue
• Very Low Quality → ♦ moderator queue, moderator queue, low quality review queue
• Not an Answer → low quality review queue, ♦ moderator queue, moderator queue
• Other → ♦ moderator queue

Some explanation:

• The items in the low quality review queue are determined automatically based on some heuristics, plus low quality flags by users.
• The ♦ moderator queue is exclusive to elected moderators and Stack Exchange employees. The moderator queue is accessible to users with ≥ 10k reputation. It allows 10k users to agree or disagree with existing flags.

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Note that "very low quality" really should only be used for posts that are unsalvageable due to broken formatting, garbage content, et cetera. Meaning, they should be deleted right away. Questions that appear low quality most likely fall under some close reason, so please use that instead. Often they will just be unclear what you're asking. Closing questions is something the community can handle on its own—no moderator needed to intervene.