In this Support discussion titled Staff Review Queue: Turning A Flag To Conversation, Rubi asks if it’s possible to trigger a staff conversation from user/moderator flags earlier than the default 24-hour window — specifically for non-spam flags like “inappropriate” or “off-topic” — to allow timely internal discussion before action. JammyDodger clarifies that the View Full Conversation button only appears immediately for flags that generate a PM (like “something else” or “illegal”), not for default flags. As a workaround, JammyDodger suggests creating custom flags with the “Prompt users to provide additional reasons” option enabled, which creates a PM and thus the conversation button. Rubi confirms custom flags work but notes default flags can’t be deleted — only disabled — which JammyDodger confirms is intentional for data integrity. Moin suggests moderators can manually flag a post as “something else” to trigger a conversation, even if another flag already exists — Rubi tests this and confirms both flags are recorded as acted upon, with JammyDodger noting this is normal and harmless. Rubi also asks if custom flags can be hidden from non-staff; JammyDodger provides CSS code to hide them visually for non-staff. Finally, JammyDodger shares promising news: a Discourse GitHub PR may soon add native support for staff discussions on any flag — a feature Rubi eagerly anticipates.
The way you’ve described it doesn’t sound like it’s a current feature of the review queue.
You generally see the view full conversation option on flags that also create a PM to the moderators group (the ‘something else’ and ‘illegal’ flag types). Pressing that will take you to the PM itself rather than the reviewable in the queue.
There’s no time delay on when that option becomes visible, it should be there immediately on the flag landing in the queue. And the spam, off-topic, and inappropriate flags don’t have that button at all (as they don’t generate a PM with extra detail in).
Does that match up with what you’re seeing in your Review Queue?
For the default ones of spam, off-topic, and inappropriate, I don’t believe it’s possible to edit their behaviour.
Though there is the option to create custom flags where you can set whether they require extra detail (and therefore would create a PM as well as a reviewable in the queue, which would give them the view full conversation button). I think it should then be possible to disable the default ones and replace them with similar custom versions that have the ‘Prompt users to provide additional reasons’ option checked.
You can find the custom flag options under the moderation section of your admin area (/admin/config/flags)
Do you want to reply to the user who flagged the post or do you want a conversation with staff members?
I think usually you use the staff category for the latter. As a workaround you could flag the post as “something else” yourself.
Maybe Review with reason would also help you but I think it only works for comments while you take action
The issue first came up when one of the mods pointed out that they wanted to comment on a flag without taking action but that the view full conversation option was not there.
I will look into the custom flags option mentioned by @JammyDodger
Is it possible to do that after something was already flagged?
Yes, you can’t delete a flag (even a custom one) once it’s been used as you need the data for historical reasons so it doesn’t break the review queue.
Disabling one will remove it from the flag menu and leave only the enabled ones as ‘live’ flag options for your community to make use of.
Though as you’re looking for an option where staff can discuss flags you may want to consider Moin’s idea. It may suit your site to ask for more details on every flag, but if that’s not the main intention then the flipside to consider is that it adds more effort/friction for the user flagging a post (which may lead to them giving up before reporting something)
I think you could likely do this with a little extra CSS in a custom theme component, but I’d need to be on my laptop to check properly. Hopefully someone can jump in with a more specific answer.
Hiding it for non-staff with CSS would be cosmetic, so it could still be revealed by a savvy user piddling about in their browser inspector, etc. But if it’s not personal info or security related then this approach is generally considered to be acceptable.
@Rubi I think something like this would do the trick: (though you’d need to put in the correct custom name of your flag rather than custom_inappropriate)
Continuing my wonderful Discourse journey (for context only been using it for 6 months now), I want to check and confirm something relevant to this topic.
I tested this now with something that had been flagged as Inappropriate.
Obviously, Inappropriate does not open the flag for conversation but Something Else does.
We then have 2 flags on the same post: if I then accept the flag and, say, delete the post the system then records both flags as having been acted upon.
Is this correct?
Are there any side-effects or other unintended consequences to having 2 flags on the same post?
Having two flags (or even more) on the same post is quite normal. Generally they come from different community members reporting issues with the same post.
I don’t believe a ‘something else’ flag counts towards auto-hiding the post, so I don’t think they’ll be any adverse effects from adding a ‘staff discussion’ one.
