As of May 31, 2023, we have updated our Code of Conduct.
30 votes
Accepted

Which proper action should be taken to handle this suspicious post?

I was the moderator who handled that flag. It's not spam, and that profanity is part of the extension name. There was also a rude/abusive flag on the post and no spam link when I saw it. Should ...
DavidPostill's user avatar
  • 152k
23 votes
Accepted

Post was edited after I flagged for review

Maybe let the moderator know that the flag was for a previous version of the answer. That'd be a nice feature. Currently, what we see is this: It doesn't show whether a post has been edited, and ...
slhck's user avatar
  • 221k
17 votes
Accepted

What should I have done with this spammy answer?

For the interested, the entire body of the answer: Below is the best free download for full system information. http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html I have to agree that the post was low ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
17 votes
Accepted

Should I handle rude fragments myself? or is it better to get moderator involved?

If it is a one-off then feel free to do the needful yourself, but flagging it is not necessarily a bad thing for moderators. In this case there was not much to see, but sometimes there are a lot of ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
16 votes
Accepted

ChatGPT - what do we flag as?

I'd go with a custom flag. If you've run it through a chat gpt tester, mentioning it's always handy. We also tend to suspend chatgpt users and custom flags are always human-handled, unlike say spam ...
Journeyman Geek's user avatar
  • 126k
15 votes
Accepted

What to do with same answers to different questions by the same user?

If the questions are duplicates, one should be closed as such. In that case, it should be explained to the user that we prefer information to be centralized, so they should flag instead of posting the ...
Ben N's user avatar
  • 39.8k
15 votes
Accepted

How to Report Cyclic Flagging?

Someone went and edited the duplicate close banner, which normally shouldn't be able to happen. The problem in this case is that the question was closed before the current system was put in place and ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
13 votes
Accepted

Why my "too broad" flag was declined in this question?

It was declined automatically by the system after 3 users reviewed it stating that it should be left open. While there are indeed two problems listed in the question they appear, at a glance, to be ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
13 votes
Accepted

Why was my "not an answer" flag rejected?

It got deleted. By the looks of things it had spam flags and NAA flags, and I suspect that when the spam flag was dismissed so were the others. So, yeah, the flag was valid, the post deleted, and the ...
Journeyman Geek's user avatar
  • 126k
13 votes
Accepted

Why my flag "the answer has nothing to do with the question" was rejected?

It was declined because that answer was attempting to answer the question, even if tangentially. It was me that declined the flag but it looks like I fat fingered the decline selection and instead of ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
12 votes
Accepted

Should I flag questions as off-topic if they are already upvoted and answered?

Flag it. Those questions should be removed (which is what I just did).
Oliver Salzburg's user avatar
12 votes

Why was my flag to stop my bounty rejected?

Bounties are only revoked in exceptional circumstances. As mentioned by the MSE answer linked by David "I made a mistake" is a problem but by no means exceptional. We also cannot prove one way or ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
11 votes
Accepted

Purpose of "very low quality" flag of questions

The user who posted the question, and consequently the second account that posted a garbage answer, were apparently attempting to troll and had been posting similar to other sites on the network. ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
10 votes
Accepted

Was this flag declined correctly?

As the flag states: This question has severe formatting or content problems. This question is unlikely to be salvageable through editing, and might need to be removed. While there is no real ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
10 votes
Accepted

Are flags raised for custom reasons handled differently?

Yes. Custom flags for moderator attention are seen only by moderators. The rest, while visible to moderators, do touch the wider community in some fashion, such as by placing the post into a review ...
bwDraco's user avatar
  • 45.6k
9 votes
Accepted

I am getting a “You are currently banned from flagging…” message but no clear end for this ban is given

After the next build, the ban message on your flag summary page will indicate how long you must wait before flagging again: Fair warning: flag ban durations are calculated on demand. If more ...
Shog9's user avatar
  • 502
9 votes

Should a very old question asking for software recomendations be flagged?

Flag it. It should probably be removed.
Oliver Salzburg's user avatar
9 votes
Accepted

Question in close queue is marked as duplicate, but the duplicate is terrible!

As comments have noted, the criteria I would use when judging which of two otherwise duplicate questions to be marked duplicate is based on quality, not time. If one of the questions is very recent ...
music2myear's user avatar
  • 40.1k
8 votes

Should I flag questions as off-topic if they are already upvoted and answered?

If it was voted for and replied to with "relevant" answers there's some good to it. Life is not perfect. There are times when a post may be equally apt for 2 SE sites. Better to find a better fit &...
Alex S's user avatar
  • 941
7 votes
Accepted

Should a very old question asking for software recomendations be flagged?

Short answer: see Oliver Salzburg's. Longer answer: There are 10s of thousands of old questions that are now off-topic. They might be viewed as bad examples, and some of them as "diluting" the ...
fixer1234's user avatar
  • 27k
7 votes

Post was edited after I flagged for review

I realize that this is not a common occurrence, so maybe I should stop over-thinking it and get back to reviewing. That's pretty much it. A declined flag is no big deal. It's far less of an issue to ...
allquixotic's user avatar
  • 34.2k
7 votes
Accepted

Leaving a comment on non-answers

Should I also leave the new user a comment, explaining that answer posts are for actual answers? You are not obliged to leave comments when flagging, but it is good to leave the user something to ...
DavidPostill's user avatar
  • 152k
7 votes

Leaving a comment on non-answers

The purpose of the First Posts review queue is to help new users get up to speed by giving them feedback if needed. All the queue does is identify new users' initial posts in an easy to find place to ...
fixer1234's user avatar
  • 27k
7 votes
Accepted

Why was my comment mod flag declined?

Your flag detail stated This should really be converted to an answer as it solved the asker's problem. There was a couple of reasons here. The first is that Moderators cannot convert comments to ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
7 votes
Accepted

A clarification request for declined spam flag

I declined it as it was obvious that the user was not intending to only spam their site. At the point which i saw it the user was attempting to meet the wishes of the commenters. Accepting the spam ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k
7 votes

Could a special case of "hardware recommendation" be on-topic?

I've fixed up the post, since, well, I actually think that the 'core' of the question is something useful, and something I don't know anything about. As a "should I buy A or B?" question... its not ...
Journeyman Geek's user avatar
  • 126k
6 votes
Accepted

Is all spam also rude or abusive?

This seems like poor UI design, but internally spam and offensive flags are handled very similarly. Unlike other flags, they allow regular users to take direct action without moderator intervention. ...
nhinkle's user avatar
  • 37.1k
6 votes

Post was edited after I flagged for review

Maybe let the moderator know that the flag was for a previous version of the answer. As I mentioned here, the new moderator flag dashboard shows an [edited] label if the post has been edited after ...
Glorfindel's user avatar
  • 4,079
6 votes

Flag was declined but the question was deleted all the same

SF deleted it when I checked. No action was needed on SU. As such, no moderator intervention was needed While I do sometimes mark flags of that sort as valid, I usually take into account a few ...
Journeyman Geek's user avatar
  • 126k
6 votes
Accepted

What's wrong with my NAA flag, if the answer is now deleted?

I rejected the flag. The "not an answer" flag states: This was posted as an answer, but it does not attempt to answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or ...
Mokubai's user avatar
  • 88k

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible