146
votes
Is mocking the Indian English used by a user abusive?
Flag handling aside...
Yes, this is rude.
It would have been rude before the Great Unwelcoming. (And the "Summer of Love" before that.) That is irrelevant.
It is rude whether or not the comment-...
- 64k
131
votes
Should a veil of anonymity have a say in how we flag offensive comments?
That would be my fault.
I saw the rude/abusive flag, but when I read the comment I missed the "f'ing" and "mofo" so while the comment needed to go I didn't think it was rude.
Now ...
ChrisFMod
- 137k
106
votes
Accepted
A low-quality question was edited by the poster to consist of insults, then flagged as ‘rude or abusive’. Flag was declined. Was that right?
Yes, we encourage people to let out their feeli...no, just kidding, this appears to be a flag-handling error.
What happened was, in order:
The user vandalized the post to the extremely rude content ...
Ryan MMod
- 20.3k
97
votes
Why is this comment not unfriendly/unkind?
No one that use their votes should be called "really a weird person". Because they are not.
Such phrases go into the abusive behavior category of the Code of Conduct and should always be ...
- 42.5k
96
votes
Accepted
Why was my cross-posting flag declined?
I probably should have handled that one differently in hindsight. We get a lot of flags asking moderators to close things that are closable by the community, which we tend to decline to encourage non-...
MachavityMod
- 31.7k
95
votes
Declined spam flag on clickbait question
That looks like a classic example of a spam post disguised as a legit question.
Apparently in this case the disguise worked, since according to the timeline (10k+ only) the question passed first post ...
- 50.4k
86
votes
Accepted
What should I do with plagiarised answers to questions asked by a deleted (potential sock-puppet) user when my moderator flags have been declined?
Admittedly, as can be seen in the screenshot above, for the three subsequent flags I copy/pasted the message of the first flag and added my plagiarism concerns onto the end of the message so the ...
- 1.1m
83
votes
Flagged obvious spam post but flag was declined
Yup, that was my mistake, I had mis-clicked. Sorry about that.
If it helps, it took all of 26 seconds between me misclicking and the accounts all being nuked.
- 1.1m
80
votes
Appeal a declined flag
I think the flag was raised in good faith.
Mods are free to not take any action in a specific case, but you want these cases flagged to prevent future mishaps.
Declining sends the wrong signal to the ...
- 42.5k
76
votes
Why was my custom flag declined? When should I use a custom flag?
I'm going to try to TL;DR Yvette's post. Note that I'm referring to post flags; comment flags are a different story and I mostly don't care about how you flag those:
Do not use 'other' flags when it'...
75
votes
Accepted
Spam flag declined on link from Founder & CTO, dozens of similar posts
Yes, that is spam, but because it's not going to be clear to a moderator reviewing the flag merely by looking at the post (you know it's spam due to lots of outside information you have about it), ...
- 204k
74
votes
Accepted
Why were 2/4 of my mod flags declined despite all 4 answers being deleted?
Both declines are unfortunate mistakes.
this one was declined because I opened the link to the original post in a split screen: the page scroll didn't position exactly on the post you linked, so I ...
blackgreenMod
- 45.3k
73
votes
Accepted
Why was my flag on a link-only answer declined?
Sorry about this.
What has happened was that I used the standard Stack Overflow flag queue. It doesn't show the full post, only a text summary. I didn't know it was a link. It looked like an attempt ...
DharmanMod
- 33.6k
72
votes
Accepted
Should we not flag rude/abusive a post containing valuable content?
You have somehow developed the mistaken impression that "rude/abusive" flags cast on posts are flagging the user. They aren't; they're flagging the post. A "rude/abusive" flag ...
Cody GrayMod
- 245k
71
votes
Accepted
Is anything spam anymore?
Was that answer spam? Yes, it certainly looks like it.
In a case like this, we have four options: apply a hard spam flag (immediately validating the flag and applying harsh penalties to the user), ...
- 170k
71
votes
Completely incorrect machine learning-generated answers
While generated, the posts are not outright gibberish and technically attempts at answering, so the VLQ and NAA flags don’t apply. Moreover, VLQ and NAA flags are handed to a review queue where ...
- 1.1m
69
votes
Accepted
Compromised account credentials posted as sample data
The way your flag read, it sounded like a lot of other flags we see, where a user sees some data they don't want/think should be on SO and flags it for removal. We don't handle those types of requests ...
MachavityMod
- 31.7k
67
votes
Is mocking the Indian English used by a user abusive?
I handled the flag.
I didn't search for the term used because a) I'm at work and b) I thought that the comment was unkind, but didn't warrant the abuse flag.
I did, however, agree that the comment ...
ChrisFMod
- 137k
66
votes
Is anything spam anymore?
I will post my own answer because I firmly believe that the messages that moderators have posted on this question are wrong and they do not answer the question.
If we go by the definition of the help ...
- 32.1k
66
votes
Should a veil of anonymity have a say in how we flag offensive comments?
That flag should not have been declined.
Even under the now long gone Be Nice policy that comment was off-limits. With the new Code of Conduct the rules got more strict and clear: We don't want that ...
- 42.5k
65
votes
Should the reputation that is required for making a rollback to improve dealing with vandalism be changed?
Ouch, I made a mistake, sorry. I usually check the reputation level of flaggers in situations like the one you described, however this time I just... didn't.
As a matter of fact, you haven't much ...
blackgreenMod
- 45.3k
61
votes
Why was this flag declined for plagiarized answer?
If you think you've found plagiarism, use a custom moderator flag and explain the problem.
Anyone processing a NAA flag will only be shown that one answer and at first glance it does look like it ...
- 125k
60
votes
Accepted
Why is this specific answer not a "Not An Answer"?
Yeah, this was my mistake. I was handling the flag on mobile, and I saw the post as a clear answer without the quotes.
I don't know for what reason (I wasn't drunk, that's for sure), perhaps it was ...
- 52.3k
59
votes
Accepted
Flag declined, with resulting flag-ban, although action was taken by mods
I declined your flag. I missed the content of the title, and the post body didn't contain anything I would have considered rude/offensive. After I declined your flag, I noticed the title edit, and ...
user229044Mod
- 240k
57
votes
Accepted
Very Low Quality flag declined on image-only question
As Martijn points out, you unfortunately had your flag reviewed by four problematic reviewers in triage. They all made the wrong call, leading to your flag being incorrectly declined.
Those reviewers ...
- 170k
55
votes
Accepted
Why was a proper flag declined?
My mistake, sorry. I misread the post as being rhetorical, and almost immediately realised I got it wrong, then deleted the post.
I can't change the declined flags; I would if I could!
Mea Culpa.
- 1.1m
55
votes
Accepted
Why were these "no longer needed" comment flags declined?
I apologize. It was a mistake, not an intended change in policy.
I meant to approve your flags, but misread "decline" as "delete" and clicked the wrong button.
55
votes
Accepted
Declined Flag on a clear NAA
I handled a later NAA flag on the post by deleting it.
Your flag was declined 3 hours earlier - I suspect it was due to a mix-up as there was quite a number of flags on that post, and one of them was ...
- 79.2k
54
votes
Accepted
No longer needed comments flagged but declined, why?
Well, not much I can say about this, other than offering an apology. I honestly don't remember handling these flags, but there's absolutely no way I'd deliberately decline them.
As yivi commented, ...
RobMod
- 27.4k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible