Ok, I need to make a new thread for this, because what you are telling me really makes no sense.
Discussing forum moderation, so expect to be locked. This is primarily just a message to the ISD and a request for further review and clarification of their rules/guidelines.
The two posts in question are
So my problem with your replies is “follow the rules”, which I am. If we take a look at the rules or guidelines, nowhere is it stated that a single flag is sufficient per thread nor the concept of baiting flags.
Instead, you guys specifically write to flag stuff instead of engaging with it.
If You See a Problem, Flag It
Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.
When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.
In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts in any way; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.
In the past, I have experienced ISD’s missing posts like deleting a post and then not deleting the replies to it, making the replies non-sensical without context, which is why I thought it is better to flag each posts cause it explicitly tells the moderator “I have a problem with this specific post”. This is also what I understand from the above quote. Have a problem with a post? Flag it.
So when you then write “please flag only 1 per thread, follow the rules thanks, not following the rules is subject for moderation”, I hope you can see the rules does not seem to reflect this sentiment. With the above guideline that encourages flagging, I don’t expect to be banned if I’m overzealous in my flagging. If some of my flags are not valid, I just expect the post not to be moderated and I go on with my life.
As was stated in the Moderation of the Forums thread, please clarify your rules so they are clear and inline with your moderation policies, especially when the confusion surrounds actions that can result in some disciplinary intervention.
Secondly, flag baiting. On the surface it seems fine to mention this as subject to moderation, until you realize how would one even flag bait? Shouldn’t a post either be against the rules or not? Doesn’t matter who flagged it. I believe, I know where this moderation on flagging stems from (as well as the introduction of flag limits). Seems like whenever a post is flagged ISD’s get a notification and they need to “tick” it to mark it resolved or moderated. So if someone keeps flagging non-violating posts it gets annoying and produces additional work for ISD’s. However, I have said this before in the old moderation thread. It should not be the responsibility of the consumers to discipline their flag usage, especially when it is encouraged as seen above. It should be the responsibility of the forum software to have the tools for their moderators to efficiently moderate the forum. I don’t know how Discourse works behind the front, but I expect there to exist plugins or otherwise tools to help with this. My guess is that you guys (ISD) have zero control over the forum software, so please keep bugging CCP about it until they get off their lazy asses and fix it. Not only does it make it better for us the consumers, it should also improve your workflow.
Finally. Just a minor annoyance, please get rid of this automated reply when using the custom flag. It adds no value. You write you agree, whether you agree or not, i.e. the same message when no action is taken. If you wish to keep it, at least give us more flagging options to properly convey our flagging intent to the moderator (the premade flags does not get this annoying reply every single freaking time).
Thanks for letting us know. We agree there is an issue and we’re looking into it.
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