Auto-resolving flags on deleted posts: am I missing something?

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AI-generated summary

The discussion addresses concerns regarding a recent change where flagged posts deleted by their authors are automatically marked as resolved without staff review Moin. Moin argues this creates a security gap, allowing bad actors to delete inappropriate content (such as private messages) immediately after flagging, thereby evading moderator detection and leaving victims without support. They contend that even for off-topic posts, repeated deletion after flagging indicates disruptive behavior that staff should monitor. awesomerobot acknowledges the change is intentional but agrees on the downside, suggesting a compromise where auto-resolution only occurs if the user has no recent history of self-deleting flagged posts, balancing reduced moderation burden with abuse prevention. mentalstring adds a different perspective, noting that some users intentionally delete posts (e.g., those containing accidental addresses) specifically to trigger a flag for moderator action to ensure permanent removal. They point out that the new system prevents this necessary workflow, leaving sensitive content visible. mentalstring proposes potential solutions, such as exempting flags raised by the post owner from auto-resolution or providing admins with a setting to disable the feature entirely, though they acknowledge the complexity involved.

1

I have a question about the recent change where flagged posts that are deleted by the author are automatically marked as resolved without a staff member reviewing them. I hope I’m misunderstanding something about how this feature works.

Just because something was deleted later does not mean that no harm was done.

For example, let’s say badActor sends innocentGirl an inappropriate image via PM. She flags the message as soon as she sees it. He notices that she is online and may also see that the PM now has two views and deletes the post. The system then automatically marks the flag as resolved, and no moderator ever sees it.
This could happen repeatedly to the same user, or across multiple users, without any staff member ever being made aware of the individual cases.
Perhaps innocentGirl eventually uses “something else” instead of “inappropriate” to ask the moderators how she can better protect herself. This flag would also be automatically resolved as soon as the original post is deleted, so no one will ever answer.

I find it hard to imagine that this is intended behavior, so I assume I’m missing something.

In the case of off-topic posts, I can understand how deleting them solves the immediate issue. However, even there, repeatedly posting off-topic content and deleting it later still seems like disruptive behavior that a staff member might want to be aware of.

2

The new behavior is intended, but I think you’ve identified an important downside of this change.

Maybe we should only auto-resolve a flag on a self-deleted post if the user hasn’t had any other recent flags that were resolved through self-deletion? This would allow some forgiveness to reduce moderation burden if it is was a one-time occurrence, but could still catch someone abusing the system.

3

We just bumped into a related issue, but from a different view point (author wants it to reviewed).

In our forum sometimes people unintentionally post addresses (forum is related with mail) and our instructions for these are: 1. delete your post 2. flag it so that moderators can properly hide it away (as otherwise it stays visible for 24h).

With this new behavior, moderators never get alerted about the flag, so the problematic content remains visible, even when it was flagged since it required action.

That said, I also understand the goal of the change.

For our use case, an exception could be that the auto-resolve wouldn’t kick in (or would be reversed) if the flagger is also the owner of the post — because he’s the one asking attention to it. However, the

scenario wouldn’t be covered with that.

As much as I dislike introducing complexity, perhaps a setting that let admins disable auto-resolve for deleted posts?