How do you deal with flag spammers?

[ferdnyc (Frank Dana)]

@ondrej

Yes it does encourage users to flag bad behaviour, but I disagree with you saying that the forums FaQ is the reason behind flag spamming. A reasonable person would know what to flag and what not to flag depending on the context of the post etc.

I think you may be underestimating the role that the guidelines can have in shaping this behavior, though.

Four years ago, in response to the OP here, @riking offered up a possible warning message regarding flag-gaming:

@riking

Hello, I’m contacting you again about your continued use of flags on posts you merely disagree with.

Your behavior is causing a lot of extra work for the forum moderators. This isn’t like Facebook or Twitter where you can score a win by convincing the automated flag system that something’s wrong with the account you are flagging - we are looking at these bad flags and rejecting them ourselves.

If you persist in abusing the flag system like this, you will receive a 7 day suspension from the forum.

…But the guidelines actually say the exact opposite of that, and at least heavily imply that flag-gaming may be an effective tool:

@anon36555649

If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

(Which basically is exactly how Facebook works — except for the “or by moderator intervention” part, since their first-line seems completely automated at this point — so if mods are going to claim that Discourse doesn’t work like that, it’d be a really good idea to change the guidelines to reflect that claim.)

In addition, @anon36555649 suggested possibly putting the flagger together with their flagee(s) to discuss the issues behind their flagging abuse. I don’t really agree with that suggestion at all as I think it’s a recipe to heighten tensions, not reduce them, but if someone were to go that route it would basically be in direct opposition to the guidelines, which advise users:

@anon36555649

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it.

Take the really murky, hand-wavey definition of “bad behavior” — a painfully vague term, employed in a situation that calls for being extremely specific and clear — and combine it with a few users who are all too willing to misunderstand, particularly when they think it’ll be to their advantage, and it’s easy to see how these problems can come up.