Flagging a post for moderator attention

[Discourse]

This guide explains how to flag a post for moderator attention in Discourse, when you should use this feature, and what happens after a post is flagged.

Required user level: Trust Level 1 or higher

Flagging is an important moderation tool in Discourse. It helps maintain a civil and productive discussion environment by allowing users to report inappropriate content without derailing the conversation.

When to flag a post

Flag a post when you encounter content that:

• Is off-topic or derails the conversation
• Violates the community guidelines
• Contains spam or promotional material
• Is inappropriate or offensive

How to flag a post

1. Locate the post you want to flag
2. Click the flag icon () at the bottom of the post
3. Choose one of the following options:
   • Send a personal message to the user
   • Flag as Off-Topic
   • Flag as Inappropriate
   • Flag as Spam
   • Flag as Illegal
   • Flag as Something Else

*Note that your specific forum may have some different options in this screen - flagging options are customizable by forum admins.

What happens after flagging

• Moderators are notified and can review the flagged post in their review queue
• If no action is taken within 48 hours, all moderators receive an automatic private message
• Posts that accumulate enough flags will be automatically hidden based on the site’s hide post sensitivity setting — the required score depends on the number and weight of flags, not a fixed count
• A staff member can use the “Take Action” button to hide a post immediately
• Users whose posts are hidden due to flags receive a private message notification
• After 10 minutes, the user can edit their hidden post to unhide it
• If the post receives enough flags again after editing, it will be hidden again and cannot be unhidden by editing

Consequences of receiving flags

• New (Trust Level 0) users who receive enough spam flags from enough different users will be automatically silenced, preventing them from posting — this is controlled by the silence new user sensitivity and num users to silence new user (default 3) settings
• Users with 5 or more flags on their posts cannot reach Trust Level 3
• Only flags from the last 100 days count towards the Trust Level 3 restriction
• Staff-approved flags are the only ones that count towards these limits

Automatic topic closure

A topic that accumulates enough flag score from at least 5 different users (controlled by num flaggers to close topic and auto close topic sensitivity settings) will be automatically closed until moderators can review it.

Note: The values mentioned in this guide are default settings. Administrators can adjust these in the site settings.

Last edited by @Moin 2024-07-31T07:14:17Z

Last checked by @hugh 2024-07-02T05:06:37Z

Check document

Perform check on document:

[PeakProsperity (Aaron McKeon)]

@Discourse

By default, clicking the flag button will present a user with the following options:

• Send a personal message to the user who created the post
• Flag it as:
  • Off-Topic
  • It’s Inappropriate
  • Spam
  • Something Else

Can you tell me if it’s possible to customize these options? We would like to harmonize the list of options with our Community Guidelines, but I cannot find a setting to update this list. I thought we were able to do this. Can you confirm either way? Thanks.

[Isambard]

I was wondering the same. On one forum there are a set of rules and ideally the flag should indicate which rule is broken (or have some free text other option).

[Moin]

This was added recently

@Saif

Custom flags for moderation

The review system in Discourse has always made it easy for you to let your community help you manage discussions, root out spam and illegal content, and resolve other issues. The defaults are still best in class and you don’t need to change them, but given the increasing importance of protecting personally identifiable information online and new data protection regulations in many parts of the world, you will appreciate having the ability to tailor the flags to your needs.

[NateDhaliwal]

The Illegal flag doesn’t seem to be included in this document?

[Lilly (Lillian)]

Thanks Nate, yea the OP needs to be updated with the new custom flags and illegal flag.

[Moin]

I think custom flags do not fit into a guide for “all users”. They should be in a topic for admins.

[Lilly (Lillian)]

yea very true!

But might be good to point out that there may be other flags there or that the screenshot could be different with custom flags.

---

edit: ok OP is updated.

thanks again @NateDhaliwal for pointing it out.

[Isambard]

The moderation flags is in the admin sidebar, but what it admin sidebar is not enabled, how do we edit these new settings? Is this a bug where settings are not exposed when admin sidebar is disabled (old layout)?