So that interest doesn't flag... February 12, 2008 6:17 PM   Subscribe

"Chatfilter" is not one of the reasons included in the drop-down flagging menu on ask.me and I think it should be.
posted by zadcat to Feature Requests at 6:17 PM (28 comments total)

"breaks guidelines" covers it pretty well.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:19 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Breaks the guidelines.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:19 PM on February 12, 2008


flagged!
posted by geekyguy at 6:20 PM on February 12, 2008


Pretty soon we'll have more flags than the damn UN.
posted by jonmc at 6:28 PM on February 12, 2008


Flagged as "offensive" just to prove that the flags don't really matter.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:33 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


wave that flaaag, wave it wiiide and high....summertime done come and gone my oh my...
posted by jonmc at 6:38 PM on February 12, 2008


"breaks guidelines" covers it. We will know what you mean. Trust us.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:40 PM on February 12, 2008


When in doubt, "Other," brother.
posted by Dave Faris at 6:48 PM on February 12, 2008


Also, here's the explanation behind having just a handful of general flags instead of lots of specialized ones.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:53 PM on February 12, 2008


While we're on the subject of flags, how am I supposed to flag a post to the blue that just plain sucks donkeys? I used to use "Noise," but that's not an option for flagging posts anymore. Now I pretty much alternate between "Breaks the guidelines" and "other," but maybe I shouldn't even bother? Inquiring minds and all...
posted by dersins at 8:53 PM on February 12, 2008


I like to work the idea of chatfilter into a comment that gets the OPs attention. Like when somebody recently posted an askme that was "What is your favorite book?" My response was "Zen and the Art of Chatfilter". Sometimes it's more fun to have license to snark than wave a flag.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:58 PM on February 12, 2008


My next pony will be a flag for every snowflake on my plate of beans.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:00 PM on February 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


We could use fewer flags, not more.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:59 PM on February 12, 2008


There should be just one flag, "Needs Admin Attention".
posted by Malor at 10:33 PM on February 12, 2008


Speaking of flags, does any use fantastic any more? I used to use it occasionally but never do now that I can just favourite.
posted by shelleycat at 10:39 PM on February 12, 2008


We need a flag that says "Long-haired freaky people need not apply."

But I suppose some of you hippies would tuck all your hair up under your hat and go in to ask Matt Haughey why.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:39 PM on February 12, 2008 [3 favorites]


I just pick the sexy flag every time just to stay out of trouble.
posted by justgary at 12:21 AM on February 13, 2008


I think we should only have two flags: "Good" and "Bad". I'm sure the mods could figure it out and look what happened when we got the racism/sexism flag.
posted by sveskemus at 1:19 AM on February 13, 2008 [2 favorites]


I like to work the idea of chatfilter into a comment
Sometimes you can be too subtle in that regard.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:10 AM on February 13, 2008


how am I supposed to flag a post to the blue that just plain sucks donkeys?

Your current plan, "breaks the guidelines" or "other", is fine. The donkey posts tend to get a bunch of flags, which is the more useful metric than whether folks went with btg or other; some per-user variance isn't really a problem.

Speaking of flags, does any use fantastic any more?

Some folks do, so it's still got some moderate usefulness.

We need a flag that says "Long-haired freaky people need not apply."

Hey now.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:54 AM on February 13, 2008


There should be just one flag, "Needs Admin Attention"

Yeah, it seems to me that would cut out a lot of this hand-wringing about exactly which flag applies.
posted by languagehat at 8:37 AM on February 13, 2008


Agree most wholeheartedly with Matt in that less is more, and I really like sveskemus' suggestion of good/bad. But practically, there should be a few [as few as possible] subdivisions of bad. Specifically, this includes any "bad" things that aren't immediately obvious to the mod--which to my mind is limited to "double post". Everything else it seems could be boiled down to "bad" (or "breaks guidelines" or whatever).

I do resent the fact that the flagging is immediate upon clicking the dropdown and there's no way to undo, which is unexpected behavior for that UI element. I'm pretty sure that's been complained about before, though (in particular, I was expecting some sort of way to elaborate on "other".)

It does explain, though, why I flagged cortex above, there (sorry!). But given his post's content, I suppose it makes complete sense.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 8:37 AM on February 13, 2008


Just to add a bit, there seems to be a tradeoff between placing the burden of proof/discovery or wrongdoing on the moderator vice giving the moderator a hint as to what the problem is (and relying on the user to do so). I would assume that the compromise chosen would depend whether it's all that difficult to determine if a post is not desired. I guess "why" isn't as important when the only recourse is a delete).
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 8:45 AM on February 13, 2008


I do resent the fact that the flagging is immediate upon clicking the dropdown

If you just click "pick a reason to flag" then nothing happens on our end. Just leave the drop-down open and don't click anything and nothing gets flagged.

Really at this point I'd prefer very good|very bad|very broken as options because the minutae of it doesn't matter so much on our end except for a few points

- we expect people to flag when it's sort of important, not to just mod up/down something that they like or dislike a little
- the reasons are accumulated over time and often point to things that can indicate severity of the problem. The broken HTML thing specifically evolved so that people wouldn't post corrections in thread all the time and could rely on us to fix something. Same with double comment. And, as I've said many times before, its only useful if we're really in triage mode and have to figure out "what needs immediate attention" and so things like "breaks the guidelines" are a bigger deal than "noise"
- the flags differ also based on what part of the site they're on. A derail flag in MeFi is less of a big deal than a derail flag in AskMe and really, a noise flag in MeTa means almost nothing at all.

The whole deal with flagging is that it's a shorthand way of contacting us about something you see that you think needs our attention. I know it can be a little less than optimal to not get to say exactly what you want, but MeFiMail and/or email/IM still works fine for that.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:45 AM on February 13, 2008


The broken HTML thing specifically evolved...

Oh, I meant to include that too, as a "not immediately obvious" aid to admins.

But, yeah, I can see where the current stuff would be useful for triage, and it's pretty much a feature for the admins (and normal users only indirectly), so whatever helps you out!

Just leave the drop-down open and don't click anything...

Well, yeah, I could click the (not entirely obvious) cancel button , too. But the point is there's a pretty small area to click at which will increase the likelihood of errors that you (the user) can't correct. But as before, hey--if it doesn't bother you (from false alarms), it doesn't bother me.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 8:58 AM on February 13, 2008


The broken HTML thing specifically evolved so that people wouldn't post corrections in thread all the time and could rely on us to fix something.

I always use that one to ask for corrections to the people on AskMe who think they're being cute when they write "but there's" in anticipation of the automatic "[more inside]". I don't like those people. They're always getting on my lawn.
posted by inigo2 at 9:24 AM on February 13, 2008


Yeah, RikiTikiTavi, the false alarms really aren't a big deal; if we get one or two accidental flags a day, it's not going to break the system. We've never had to deal with thirty different people accidentally flagging the same thing, so far as I can tell.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:01 AM on February 13, 2008


I think we should only have two flags: "Good" and "Bad". I'm sure the mods could figure it out...

Great idea!
posted by TedW at 11:49 AM on February 13, 2008


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