Unexpected flags showing up... False flags!

In at least two of our Discourses, we’re seeing topics getting flagged erroneously

https://bw3.akimbo.com/t/saving-replies/26395/3

The message I got on this one was:

Hello,

This is an automated message from The Bootstrapper’s Workshop to let you know that your post was hidden.

https://bw3.akimbo.com/t/saving-replies/26395/4

translation missing: en_US.flag_reasons.like

This post was hidden due to flags from the community, so please consider how you might revise your post to reflect their feedback. You can edit your post after 5 minutes, and it will be automatically unhidden.

However, if the post is hidden by the community a second time, it will remain hidden until handled by staff.

Since this is a staff only category, it’s unlikely to be intentional.

And here it is being talked about in our other install

https://pod4.akimbo.com/t/flagged-posts-issue-on-9-17/11844

https://pod4.akimbo.com/t/flagged-content/11847

A quick search here didn’t find that anyone else is seeing this, but wanted to raise a (ahem) ‘flag’ just in case.

Thanks.

[It turns out that hitting a HEART to a post ends up being read as a FLAG if that’s a helpful diagnostic]

3 Likes

Sorry about that! The staff should be able to see who the flagging user is, can you report back on who the flagger was – or perhaps ask them directly if they accidentally flagged a post?

it’s super weird @codinghorror

it’s not one person, it’s across three instances.

And we’re not seeing the identity of the flagger, just the greyed out text.

two examples:

and

is there somewhere else I should be looking? I’m in admin in both places, and I have nothing in my admin inbox.

Yes, the place you want staff to look is example.discourse.org/review – it would show up in the hamburger menu as a white number in a red circle next to the Review menu item, like so:

All flags, whether automatic (as in the Akismet spam check, and other heuristic checks on new users), or via community flags, would be handled there and a full history visible.

nothing

and

so, to review, we’re getting an email that they’re flagged, we’re seeing the greyed out posts, and users are seeing that they’re flagged.

but nothing to review.

Hi Seth,

We are looking at your site right now.

1 Like

sorry to ping, but wanted to see if you have any insights, here @dax as we’d like to get back to our students…

thanks

So far I have found nothing unusual in the settings and the logs are clean. Now I try to set up a test site with your own settings to see if I can reproduce the issue.

3 Likes

@dax We’ve seen this message listed as a cause. What does that mean to you?

It means something is not right. There’s no such thing as a “like” flag in Discourse, so there’s no such translation. See https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/config/locales/server.en.yml#L2511 for the expected translations (and flag reasons) in Discourse.

I noticed there are two JS files in a cdn that are 404’ing. Not sure it’s related, but this issue is really painful for us so I’m sharing it all as we come across any potential leads:

https://sjc3.discourse-cdn.com/business7/theme-javascripts/262100ed7d0e697e531c1e053f695a05067b4951.js?__ws=tpf4.akimbo.com

https://sjc3.discourse-cdn.com/business7/theme-javascripts/5171e28360281058ec58b70143b24c23bd69c94f.js?__ws=tpf4.akimbo.com

I can repro this (liking causes posts to hide) on a different Discourse site, so I very strongly doubt the JS error is related.

Do me a favor Alex and PM the site that you’re seeing the error on to the team inbox so we can look at the JS error further. Last I checked you don’t have a site hosted with us at tpf4.akimbo.com.

We don’t have one at tpf4.akimbo.com it was moved to pod4.akimbo.com.

We’re getting the error on three of our sites. You want me to PM those instead of continuing to use this thread?

Yes please. Separate issue, so let’s put it somewhere separate.

Ok, PM sent about the JS issue.

The three sites we’re experiencing the false flag issue on are:

https://pod4.akimbo.com
https://bw3.akimbo.com
https://str1.akimbo.com

… it’s not happening in two of our other sites:

https://forwardlink.akimbo.com
https://tms7.akimbo.com

Do we have any options that would help us to keep students from flagging posts while you figure out what’s causing it?

Is there any way to temporarily turn off likes?

Or something like a “safe mode”?

We’re doing our best to respond to users and alert them, but this issue is very disruptive.

1 Like

You can remove likes from the post menu site setting. Once fixed, simply reset the post menu site setting.

1 Like

Great, we’ll do that now.

1 Like

In the Discourse taxonomy does hidden always mean flagged?

We know we can see flags in /review?status=all

Is there a similar endpoint for hidden posts (that aren’t flagged, if that’s possible)?

Generally yes, hidden would mean that the post was flagged. However, due to the bug posts are being hidden without flags being created. We think we’ve found the bug, tests are running now.

2 Likes