Staff Review Queue: Turning A Flag To Conversation

[Rubi]

Hi,

I hope I am asking the right question here.

When a user or moderator flags a post it goes to the Review Queue.

If no action is taken then it turns into a conversation, I believe 24 hours later but am not sure of this.

Is there a way to adjust this to make it a conversation at a pre-defined time, say after 3 hours of inactivity/non-interaction with the flag?

I am not talking about spam or system generated flags but specifically when a user or mod flags something.

We are all in different time zones and it would be nice to add comments before taking action.

The screenshot shows what I am trying to convey. That only appears after some time has elapsed. Can we trigger it earlier in settings somewhere?

Or would a custom script or plugin do the job?

Or are we misunderstanding how this functions in the first place?

Thanks in advance,
Rubi

[JammyDodger]

@Rubi

Or are we misunderstanding how this functions in the first place?

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?

[Rubi]

On closer inspection, yes.

Is there a way to change that behaviour for the other flag types?

[JammyDodger]

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)

[Moin]

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

[Rubi]

With staff members.

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

@Moin

As a workaround you could flag the post as “something else” yourself.

Is it possible to do that after something was already flagged?

[Moin]

@Rubi

Is it possible to do that after something was already flagged?

I think so

There are also some topics about how to discuss flags. For example How can moderators coordinate their efforts? - #4 by Dan_Eastwood
Looks like it’s still on this list of planned features (but I doubt it’s still up to date)

@codinghorror

add a “Discuss” button to all flag handling, so you can create a new staff discussion about the flag as needed