36

I flagged this https://stackoverflow.com/revisions/46266368/2 question as rude/offensive.

Shortly after that the offending part was deleted by a mod. My flag got declined, though, and I got a flag-ban for unknown reason, but most likely triggered by the wrongly declined flag.

As I don't assume the editing mod declined my flag (hopefully), but some other mod only seeing the edited version, not checking history. Alternatively, the edit triggered some auto-decline mechanism. Both are clearly wrong and not fair.

For such severe things like rude-flags, I'd expect whoever works on them to check more deeply before declining a flag.

As a sidenote, two other users got their identical flags accepted.

I'd like the mods to clarify what went on here and how/if this is to be resolved. Also I ask how this can be avoided in future.

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    Yes - the mods should return to flag-banning you for good reasons:) – Martin James Sep 17 '17 at 17:15
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    IMO that didn't warrant a moderator flag. You could have just rolled it back yourself. – Martin Smith Sep 17 '17 at 17:17
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    @MartinSmith: Rude posts are to be flagged, not edited. We also could edit rude or spam answers. And that does not explain why my flag was declined, the other two accepted. Even as I could have rolled back, the post was rude, so the flag was correct. – too honest for this site Sep 17 '17 at 17:19
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    You won't get flag banned because of a single declined flag. Presumably, the moderator who declined that rude/abusive flag did so because the post itself was neither rude nor abusive. As Martin said, you could have easily rolled back the nonsense edit without needing to flag it for moderator attention. I don't know for sure if that's why it was declined, but that's probably why I would have declined it if I was the one who saw the flag. – Cody Gray Sep 17 '17 at 17:20
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    Hmm...but...you're right. Two other users did have their rude/abusive flags marked helpful, so this may have just been a misclick on the moderator's part. – Cody Gray Sep 17 '17 at 17:23
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    @CodyGray: I did not say it was only because of that single flag. But apparently it triggers some undiclosed threshold. I'd assume the title is part of a question post. And the edit was done intentionally. Or does that mean adding such a text lateron is a minor issue than writing it from the start? And why got two other flags there got accepted, mine declined? – too honest for this site Sep 17 '17 at 17:23
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    Even if it was there from the start you can just edit that kind of stuff out. It is not massively offensive and not something that needs to waste the time of moderators. – Martin Smith Sep 17 '17 at 17:25
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    @MartinSmith: You repeated theat same point now three times. I'd be happy to read your meta about that singular subject. For my post, there are other issues relevant. – too honest for this site Sep 17 '17 at 17:30
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    You will have to wait for the moderator who processed the flag to weigh in on what they were thinking. Whether it was a misclick or intentional, there is nothing we can do now about the flag ban. Moderators don't have the ability to reverse that. It is entirely automatic. The threshold is explained here. It's 25% of your flags within the past 7 days. The weird thing is that the flag processing time is used, rather than the time the flags were raised. Looking at your history, I don't agree with a flag ban, but I can't lift it. – Cody Gray Sep 17 '17 at 17:58
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    Pedantry in the [c] tag is excessively high again. It was nice and quiet for a while but it is back with bells on. That users respond to it poorly is no great mystery. I wish, but can only hope, that users that have no clue what the answer might be just stick a sock into it and wait for somebody to show up that does know the answer. They might learn something new. – Hans Passant Sep 17 '17 at 18:00
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    @HansPassant: If you had a closer look at the C questions, you might notice there is currently the yearly rush-in of homework-related questions which are by their nature problematic and often bad already. Also as C does not change very much, it is just normal for most questions to have been answered one way or the other the lat years. Nothing about pedentry. Let this apart: how is this rant in any way related to this post of mine which is about a particular issue? Feel free to open your own question about that. – too honest for this site Sep 17 '17 at 18:24
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    @CodyGray: I understand you can't change it right now. I'd appreciate if you pinged that mod and pointed him at this problem, though. – too honest for this site Sep 17 '17 at 18:25
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    Already done... – Cody Gray Sep 17 '17 at 18:26
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    I'm here! Sorry @Olaf, entirely my fault. I've been AFK dealing with a newborn while my wife slept. As I said below there's nothing I can do retroactively to mark the flag as helpful, but I'll try to be more careful in the future. – meagar Sep 17 '17 at 19:16
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    Ah.. the 'new baby' excuse.. :) – Martin James Sep 17 '17 at 20:01
59

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 reverted it. My fault entirely, if I'd noticed the title before declining your flag, I would have marked your flag useful instead.

The other two flags were marked "helpful" when I closed the post, not because I specifically thought they were helpful. I think they must have been raised in the small window between when I manually declined your flag, and when I closed the post.

Unfortunately, once a flag is declined, moderators have no ability to retroactively mark a flag as useful.

For such severe things like rude-flags, I'd expect whoever works on them to check more deeply before declining a flag.

Again, entirely my fault, I should have looked more closely for something in the post to justify a rude/abusive flag. Unfortunately, posts like these (low effort/unclear posts from new users) are often incorrectly flagged as "spam" or "rude/abusive", and I was a little trigger happy on declining the flag.

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    thumbs up for admitting that! for your defence, checking previous history details could have slipped your mind. – Jean-François Fabre Sep 17 '17 at 19:16
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    Appologies fully accepted and yes, thanks for your honesty. We are all human after all (until Facebooks/google bots are omnipresent). It would be good though, if there was some mechanism to revert a false decission for exactly that reason. (Hmm, do I get one rude-flagged post of mine for free then? ;-) – too honest for this site Sep 17 '17 at 19:22
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    One thing: I can't seen when the ban is removed. can you tell me when it will be removed? This information should actually be given with the message. – too honest for this site Sep 17 '17 at 19:35
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    You can actually clear spam and rude or abusive flags from a post after handling if I remember correctly, changing the outcome from helpful/declined to disputed. Disputed flags don't count towards the flag ban (they're considered neutral). The option's in the mod menu for that post. – Aurora0001 Sep 17 '17 at 19:36
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    @Olaf It turns out Aurora0001 is correct! Clearing the flags turns them disputed which did clear your flag ban. You're no longer banned. – meagar Sep 17 '17 at 20:46
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    @meagar: Thanks. It would be fine, though, if there was some information about the hows and whens of flag-bans, though. Maybe some meta-post linked and the time remaining given in the ban-message. – too honest for this site Sep 17 '17 at 21:14
  • I did the same thing at first. The question is harmless but he snuck the rudeness in on us. – Hack-R Sep 17 '17 at 23:36

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