Moderator discussion of spam, etc. flags

Some user flags, like spam, do not generate a (private) Message topic. We often use those topics to discuss what action to take. It’s probably fine that the initial flagger (assuming not a mod himself) isn’t part of this discussion, but it would be good to have a reply or start a discussion topic on the flag interface. Otherwise, we’d need to create a separate one to have a discussion about what to do, which means extra work and so often doesn’t happen.

5 Me gusta

Like a checkbox to optionally create a private message topic for moderators?

1 me gusta

That’s not a bad idea for that dialog. But even if the flagging user didn’t have anything to say beyond the semantics of the flag, the moderators might, and it makes sense to have it connected to the flag, I think.

If I’m understanding what you are asking for it’s like a button to start a PM on flags that don’t auto create one? That sounds like it makes sense to me as making a PM for every spam flag is probably not needed, but something might be questionable rather than obvious and having a PM tied to the flag would then be useful.

1 me gusta

A workaround for the moment: click through to the flagged post, and then initiate your own custom flag to start a discussion with the moderation team. It’s an extra step or two over having a built in feature for it, but it’s still a pretty smooth workflow.

5 Me gusta

I think what the OP is asking for is the ability to create a moderators only message from the flag admin page, at least for flags that don’t have a message already attached. Perhaps it should even be an option for all flags, as sometimes there may be a need for the moderators to discuss a custom flag where the flag creator cannot see, but still have it conveniently linked to the flag.

2 Me gusta

A little late to the party, but I just became a mod on safenetwork.io, which uses discourse.

Another drawback to the workaround is that there is no way to link to the flag, or otherwise directly reference it in a PM. This can become problematic when old flags need to be referenced, as they are not able to be linked to.

Also, if one of my fellow mods closes a flag, I have no indication what was done - the flag itself does not specify. Adding the PM option would allow resolution descriptions to be posted only if necessary. Most likely this would be easier than adding additional options of how the flag was handled directly on the flag page.

The reply option to flags if they are opened with “something else” is what I see the template being most effectively set up as. Adding a “reply” option that PMs “@ moderators” would alleviate both problems, without introducing auto-spam to moderators, because the option to create the PM would be available on an “as-needed” basis.

2 Me gusta

A bit of a bummer, since that double flags the post. Our improvements to group private messaging might enable a better solution down the road somewhere on this.

1 me gusta

Couldn’t there simply be another button to go with agree, disagree, defer, and delete? Something along the lines of “Discuss”, that creates a PM with @moderators just like the something else flag does?

8 Me gusta

Right about now I could use a merge threads tool ; -)

I didn’t explain myself as eloquently, but I am also seeing a hitch in the modding tools for this area.

3 Me gusta

“Old” tab shows decision logs. You can find who permit or reject the flag and even deletion.

This sounds a quite reasonable feature request. For a flag, you can:

  1. approve
  2. reject
  3. defer
  4. delete
  5. (new option) discuss

It may be included in defer option.

6 Me gusta

This is still a good idea; I added this to the long term todo topic in #releases

3 Me gusta

I’m curious if this ever got implemented and if it was, how it works? Our moderator team has been trying to understand how they can best discuss flagged topics. At this time, it seems only ‘custom’ flagged posts have this ability.

It has not been implemented yet, still in the long term todo topic.

The workaround solution I’ve seen used on other sites is to have a topic (or topics) in a moderator only category that are started when discussion is needed. Not as clean as a “discuss” button in the flag queue, but it seems to work pretty well.

3 Me gusta

Continuando la discusión de spam de copia y pegado impulsado por humanos:

Los temas anteriores en Community Building han hablado sobre la importancia de hablar con tus compañeros moderadores sobre decisiones difíciles, pero la página de banderas de administrador no facilita realmente la discusión sobre decisiones de bandera difíciles.
Así que ayudémoslos.

Mi propuesta es agregar un nuevo botón/opción de resolución a la página de la cola de banderas llamado “Escalar” o “Discutir” o “Crear Tema” que:
(o: “Estar de acuerdo… > Estar de acuerdo y Discutir”)

  • le da al miembro del personal un cuadro de texto para escribir un breve resumen de sus preocupaciones
  • crea un nuevo tema en #staff con un enlace a la publicación señalada y un título apropiado
    • y enlaza a cualquier tema de bandera personalizada, para seguimiento comunitario
  • aplaza la bandera (para banderas personalizadas, esto crea la respuesta de “lo estamos investigando”) (o está de acuerdo con la bandera)

El personal puede entonces discutir en ese tema y luego tomar acción sobre la publicación.

copia preliminar:
título de acción estar de acuerdo: Estar de acuerdo y Discutir
subtítulo de acción estar de acuerdo: Discute con tus compañeros de personal antes de tomar acción
título de acción aplazar: Aplazar y Discutir
subtítulo de acción aplazar: Discute con tus compañeros de personal sobre la publicación
título del tema: Publicación señalada en “Nombre del Tema”
categoría del tema: staff_category_id
cuerpo del tema:

Respecto a las ${count} banderas en esta publicación:
${post_link}

%{if link}Banderas personalizadas: {flag_link}, {flag_link}, ${flag_link}%{end}

${user_text}

Recordatorio: Por lo general, solo se necesita un segundo acuerdo para tomar acción de moderador. Para más consejos, consulta la Discourse Moderation Guide.

2 Me gusta

I believe @jomaxro already has a topic about this, so this’d be a dupe. Worth it for him to check.

This is also a fair bit of work for what’s honestly quite rare – plus, there’s already a way to handle this. You can easily manually create a discussion topic in the staff category as needed, and I find that “let’s discuss behavior X and whether it is something we want or not” is a far more useful discussion than “let’s discuss flag X”.

1 me gusta

I didn’t start it, but the topic is Moderator discussion of spam, etc. flags. The topic is marked planned, and adding “discuss” to the flag queue is also listed in the long term Upcoming feature to-do list.

FTR, I’m still in favor of this feature. Not as much here on Meta (as we just take temp discussion into chat), but other sites could really use it.

3 Me gusta

A “planned” would be good enough IMHO. It isn’t often that moderators want to discuss something like “why was this Flagged?” In most cases the “something else” that allows discussion works fine. When a discussion is wanted that doesn’t have an associated topic (eg. a trusted member Flags as inappropriate but the Moderator isn’t sure why), using Slack works for now.

Prior to using Slack, we used a special “Reports” category with topics referencing posts. Because Slack was less cumbersome that category has since been abandoned in favor of Slack.

So I think having a way for forums that don’t have an external communication option that had an easier workflow would be a good thing.

The mods on my forum regularly discuss flags. It would be handy to be able to start a mod conversation directly from the flag dialog.

2 Me gusta

Quizás llego tarde a la fiesta en este caso, pero me pregunto cómo verificar el estado de esta solicitud de función. ¡Nosotros también podríamos usar una opción de “Discutir Bandera”!

2 Me gusta