Flagging

February 20, 2005 1:26 AM

You can now flag posts or comments you find problematic, distasteful, illegal, off-topic, whatever. Just click on the little [!] links and record your reasons. [more inside]
posted by mathowie to feature requests at 1:26 AM (92 comments total)

For now it just goes in a pile and I'll look at it and decide whether or not to do something about the flagged content. This lets everyone be the eyes and ears of the site, something I could never do, with or without extra moderation/admin help. If you see something you think doesn't belong, go ahead and flag it and I'll take a look.

I reckon this will cut down on MetaTalk posts and let everyone help have a hand in moderation of the site. Win-win, I say.
posted by mathowie at 1:27 AM on February 20, 2005

Cool!
posted by scarabic at 1:38 AM on February 20, 2005

Could you either add a freeform box to this, or at least the option to say "I like this post. Please don't delete it" For contentious posts it'd maybe be nice to get a feel for if people consider it a positive as well as a negative.

Of course, that'd be asking for all contended posts to be visibly marked as such, so it's maybe not such a good idea.
posted by seanyboy at 2:32 AM on February 20, 2005

This can only end badly.
posted by eyeballkid at 3:05 AM on February 20, 2005

What you could do is add a FlaggedFilter page where absolutely everything flagged goes for open discussion.

It'd be like MetaTalkDoublePlus!
posted by Drastic at 3:33 AM on February 20, 2005

Excellent idea Dras!
posted by tommyc at 3:40 AM on February 20, 2005

One nice thing about it is that it'll give Seth something to do.
I say that in the fondest way, Seth
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:44 AM on February 20, 2005

I reckon this will cut down on MetaTalk posts and let everyone help have a hand in moderation of the site. Win-win, I say.
posted by mathowie at 1:27 AM PST on February 20 [!]

Good luck with that, Matt. I might wager this will create far more call outs and "why was my post deleted?" whines in the grey, but I'm just a pessimist today!
posted by LouReedsSon at 3:50 AM on February 20, 2005

Behold the grey's saviour. More text file leg work for Matt.

Woo!

(thanks Matt, hope it works)
posted by NinjaPirate at 3:54 AM on February 20, 2005

I clicked on a [!] to see what it was about, and wasn't able to click back - it put me into a new screen.
posted by goofyfoot at 4:30 AM on February 20, 2005

Wait a minute - "comments that are illegal or distasteful?"

Illegal comments? What?
posted by goofyfoot at 4:46 AM on February 20, 2005

Nice idea. Since I come here for, you know, the links to websites, I haven't been too troubled by the Great Moderation Scandal, but this looks like a good way to open things up to everyone. (Or, possibly, an invitation to dickheads to flag everything they disagree with as 'offensive content'.)
posted by jack_mo at 4:54 AM on February 20, 2005

Hmm.... I suspect this isn't going to work, and will only be a huge problem.

That said, I surely may be wrong, and as one of the many complaining about the new censorship, no matter if this works or not, I want to take a moment to thank Matt for weighing everyone's concerns and attempting ways to keep his constituency happy.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 5:12 AM on February 20, 2005

I think this could work, but given the current inclination to whine about everything, I don't think highly vocal parts of the membership will let it.

Also, get ready to read every single comment that doesn't fit the flagger's political ideology.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 5:43 AM on February 20, 2005

Wait a minute - "comments that are illegal or distasteful?"

Illegal comments? What?

Serial numbers for software, cracks for software protection, death threats, how to make meth etc. Illegal was probably the wrong term but these are all things that could create legal headaches for Matt.
posted by substrate at 5:47 AM on February 20, 2005

!
posted by psmealey at 5:50 AM on February 20, 2005

totally lame, like super duper lame.
hee! clickity clickity click click click.
posted by bonaldi at 5:54 AM on February 20, 2005

substrate: I'm not sure how illegal is the wrong term for comments that are, well, illegal.
posted by grouse at 6:26 AM on February 20, 2005

Not sure if this will work out the way you want, Matt, but thank you for taking the time and energy to try it.
posted by papercake at 6:28 AM on February 20, 2005

This can only end badly.

indeed.
posted by matteo at 6:34 AM on February 20, 2005

I'm new here. The notion that comments could be tagged as illegal - well, surely Matt or Jessamyn could delete them, if one were so foolish as to make a death threat or give a formula for meth. The notion that a post could be tagged for being distasteful - well, that sounds arbitrary.
posted by goofyfoot at 6:51 AM on February 20, 2005

Hopefully this means less noise in Metatalk and more signal.
posted by FieldingGoodney at 6:54 AM on February 20, 2005

I think this is a great idea.

It allows each and every user to give feedback to Matt without having to resort to call-outs in MeTa. Hopefully, this would free up MeTa for more serious infractions. And it allows the community to self-police, thus taking some of the responsibility off of Matt's shoulders and - hopefully - cutting down on all the bitch-fests about "heavy-handed" moderation.
posted by googly at 7:05 AM on February 20, 2005

This should be interesting. ;-P
posted by mischief at 7:14 AM on February 20, 2005

All the people who think this will end badly--why do you say that? This seems like a great and downside-free idea to me; if Matt were proposing some sort of automatic "Deletion of all posts that are flagged more than 10 times" policy, sure, that could go badly awry--but all he's doing is giving people a way of bringing things to his and Jessamyn's attention, at which point, they'll do what they've always done, and use their own discretion about deletion.

It's an open question whether people will flag responsibly (thereby providing Matt and Jessamyn with useful information) or irresponsibly (thereby providing them with lots of noise and no signal)--but either way, the only effects it'll have on the rest of us are (a) cutting back on the number of MetaTalk callouts for individual posts, and (b) increasing the speed at which trolls and such are trimmed.

Right? Or am I missing something?
posted by yankeefog at 7:16 AM on February 20, 2005

Makes sense to me. I think some people are just on automatic snark. I've been one of the biggest complainers about the heavy-handed moderation, and I think this is a sensible attempt at a solution. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but I don't see the point in prejudging it.
posted by languagehat at 7:24 AM on February 20, 2005

Right? Or am I missing something?

Yes, you are being too optimistic in the grey. Don't you know that the grey is solely to be used to work out the frustrations of your modern existence?

Instead, try:

It's clear that people are going flag irresponsibly (thereby providing Matt and Jessamyn with too much information). The only effects it'll have on the rest of us is the end of Metafilter as we know it.

Put me in the "this is pretty awesome" boat. My first inclination was to click on the (!) a whole bunch of times, but now I don't even notice it. It is nice I have a new avenue for telling on people.
posted by Quartermass at 7:27 AM on February 20, 2005

Maybe a flag icon instead of "[!]"? The exclamation point was a bit nonintuitive for me this morning, but that could just be me, this morning.

Maybe as a popup window to make the process less intrusive?

Merely suggestions; this is good, and badly needed.
posted by mcwetboy at 7:31 AM on February 20, 2005

posted by mathowie to feature requests at 1:26 AM PST

Late night coding on a Saturday. I haven't been enjoying how moderation and the site in general have been going lately, but we've all got to give Matt credit for trying seriously to make this place work, in the face of an awful lot of childish mud-flinging.
posted by fuzz at 7:43 AM on February 20, 2005

"The exclamation point was a bit nonintuitive for me this morning"

I wonder how many non-MeTalkers will think that ! means [this is good].
posted by mischief at 7:54 AM on February 20, 2005

Why can't I flag ebk's comment as right on the money?
posted by adampsyche at 7:57 AM on February 20, 2005

What you could do is add a FlaggedFilter page where absolutely everything flagged goes for open discussion.

flamewars.metafilter.com would be a good name.

More to the point, I think the ability to bring comments to Matt's attention is a great idea, and I appreciate Matt implementing it. But I don't see much - if any - value in debates (including counterarguments about "contentious" points) on problematical posts. Matt can use (a) the clarity of the reasoning, (b) the volume of flagging, and (c) the reputation of those doing the flagging; to make his decisions, and he will presumably err on the side of leaving marginal stuff alone.

Finally, a page of "problematic' posts may not be as useful as one would think. A post that appears problematical on its own may in fact be quite appropriate when seen in context. Consider this:

Cool!
posted by scarabic at 1:38 AM PST on February 20
posted by WestCoaster at 8:14 AM on February 20, 2005

Fascinating to have read through the previous (and endless) "watch me leave" thread and see this feature added during the thread.

Matt, I picture you coding in one window and tracking the bye-bye MeTa fest in another.

How and why you put up with the constant kvetching, I just don't know. But thanks, man.
posted by mmahaffie at 8:15 AM on February 20, 2005

The mouseover on the [!] would be more useful if it said 'flag this post for an infringement', if that be the purpose, or 'for excellence' (or whatever), if the feedback needs to be positive as well as negative.
posted by dash_slot- at 8:25 AM on February 20, 2005

What dash_slot said and also, perhaps an intermediate page would be good. Something that clarified what "flagging" is and verifying that the person really does want to flag the post.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:27 AM on February 20, 2005

I, too, am glad to see this and hope that it works out. Thanks, Matt.
posted by kenko at 8:33 AM on February 20, 2005

Whoohoo! Now MeFi is like Slashdot and Kuroshin!
posted by five fresh fish at 8:35 AM on February 20, 2005

i think the loss of context is a good point--will you and Jess be going back to the original thread to see why it was flagged?
posted by amberglow at 8:36 AM on February 20, 2005

First off: I don't like the idea of this. (on preview: for exactly the reason that five fresh fish gives)

Second, since it's already here, I have a few suggestions: Make it a [+/-], which each lead to separate forms. One for "i like this post for these reasons," the other for "I don't like this post, for these reasons."

Why? Because this is just like the FCC's complaint system. More people obviously write in to complain than people who enjoy the content. If people who enjoy the content have no voice, then you'll get an already-biased view of the content, since all you'll be reading are the bad sides to things. The + should not be available for the poster of the comment.

Lastly, does anyone have a formula for meth?
posted by odinsdream at 8:36 AM on February 20, 2005

I also love the idea of positive flags, and not just negative ones. It will help us be a big happy MeFi family and not just bitch all the time.

Lastly, does anyone have a formula for meth?

C₁₀H₁₅N
posted by grouse at 8:56 AM on February 20, 2005

I don't expect this will lead to less moderation, or easier moderation, really. But my hope is that it will help make the moderation more consistent across the whole site. People have complained repeatedly that innocuous comments in one place get deleted while egregious offense goes unchallenged somewhere else. Hopefully, we can filter the 'Filter a little bit for Matt and Jessamyn and make sure that, at least, they are able to see everything that's *really* bad.

Obviously, the risks are that the queue will fill up beyond their capacity to go through it. That what's in the queue will be paltry little things. That people will go trigger-happy on the [!] link and just pile up a million hairs for M&J to split.

I'm not clear on the details for the implementation, but I do think it would be infinitely valuable if M&J are able to see things that have been flagged multiple times, versus just once. It's hard to say for sure, but I bet that discarding all items that were only flagged a single time would probably eliminate 80% of the noise in such a queue.

Anyway, this is all just speculation for us front-enders. I really hope it turns out to be useful for you guys, Matt.
posted by scarabic at 9:21 AM on February 20, 2005

I didn't want to add positive reasons because I didn't feel like wading through a thousand "hey, I kinda liked this" posts everyday to get to the stuff I really need to attend to, but I put in a positive flag for stuff if it's really amazing.

also, perhaps an intermediate page would be good. Something that clarified what "flagging" is and verifying that the person really does want to flag the post.

Go on and click it. Don't you see this?

Flag a post

You've just clicked on a "flag this post" link. This feature helps me weed out the bad stuff from MetaFilter. Please state a reason why and press Flag this post to record it. If you clicked this by mistake, simply hit your back button. Thanks.

Sounds like an intermediate post that explains what it is for and doesn't flag it until you hit the button.

i think the loss of context is a good point--will you and Jess be going back to the original thread to see why it was flagged?

I can't believe what I am hearing. Do you think I just arbitrarily read a comment out of context and delete it? You can't see what the interface looks like on my side, but the complaints link directly to comments within threads or to threads and I read them.

Also, to the folks that say it will be a bad thing, I'm the only one that has to deal with the stupid petty complaints. Already a few people have taken to flagging everything by posters they don't like (including by me -- real funny kids) but I'll code up a "cries wolf" button to ignore people abusing the feature.

Oh, and "illegal" was never an option, I was just trying to write this post in 30 seconds in the middle of the night, so chill out folks.
posted by mathowie at 9:37 AM on February 20, 2005

Also, in case anyone is wondering, I've gotten maybe 50 so far, and only acted on 2. I suspect that will be the normal, everyday ratio of things I really do need to act on vs. complaints that can be ignored.
posted by mathowie at 9:40 AM on February 20, 2005

The "cries wolf" button is brilliant. That was my only real doubt.. that the whole system would become useless because of the gaming.
posted by taz at 9:54 AM on February 20, 2005

Next thing you know, "[!]" will appear next to Member names...
posted by ParisParamus at 10:02 AM on February 20, 2005

In theory, now no one will have a reason to say double post in a thread, or "this is lame." This is good.
posted by drezdn at 10:10 AM on February 20, 2005

"Go on and click it. Don't you see this?"

Sorry. Didn't click on one gratuitously in case it would flag it without confirmation. :)
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:11 AM on February 20, 2005

Next thing you know, "[!]" will appear next to Member names...

You know, PP, I've never agreed with your politics here, but this is the sharpest insight I've read with your name attached.
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:18 AM on February 20, 2005

Already a few people have taken to flagging everything by posters they don't like (including by me -- real funny kids) but I'll code up a "cries wolf" button to ignore people abusing the feature.

You may need an exception for quonsar and Witty, who seem to have a License to Troll® and are already flagged like a lost game of minesweeper.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 10:26 AM on February 20, 2005

If you press the cries wolf button on me does that mean I won't get the little [!]s anymore?
posted by grouse at 10:27 AM on February 20, 2005

Why not just have four categories: signal (good), noise (bad), double post, and broken link?

Right now, there's one way to commend a post/comment and five ways to condemn it. Is it really necessary to make such subtle distinctions on the negative side? For example: "derail" and "noise" look pretty similar to me.
posted by naomi at 10:51 AM on February 20, 2005

"You know, PP, I've never agreed with your politics here, but this is the sharpest insight I've read with your name attached."

No it's not; not by a longshot.

(What is this? PP Lovefest Week?)
posted by ParisParamus at 10:52 AM on February 20, 2005

Thank you for clarifying that there is an intermediate page. Didn't want to click on one to see how it works without knowing this first. (on preview, what EB said).
posted by obloquy at 10:54 AM on February 20, 2005

Notice that "excellent" is an option for flagging.
posted by kenko at 10:55 AM on February 20, 2005

Many thanks, Matt -- I really appreciate your responding to people's concerns, and I'll be interested in seeing how this shakes out on the user-end of things, and really hope it makes things easier for you and Jessamyn.

I also [heart] the idea of you having to code for "cries wolf," mainly because I envision a huge red "ACME CRIES WOLF" button (complete with the silouhette of a boy with his hand to his mouth) on your keyboard.
posted by scody at 10:55 AM on February 20, 2005

It's great - it puts the onus on the users and takes a lot of stress off Matt and Jessamyn as far as the "Whyyyyy?" posts in MeTa go. I wonder at the outset when everyone's clicking away all gung-ho whether Matt wouldn't be better off to only get notice of a flagged post when it's been flagged, say, five times. That would take out the one-off whingers who are the only ones who take offense to a post/comment and maybe cut back on debate over whether someone actually was offensive or not.

Will this ever become an automated function, if you got, say twenty requests for deletion?
posted by tracicle at 11:14 AM on February 20, 2005

It also just occurred to me that if I really wanted Matt to see this comment, I could flag it so he has to read it. But that would be using my powers for evil.
posted by tracicle at 11:15 AM on February 20, 2005

Will this ever become an automated function, if you got, say twenty requests for deletion?
posted by tracicle at 11:14 AM PST on February 20 [!]

If this were the case, for $100 anyone could delete everything.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 11:16 AM on February 20, 2005

Will this ever become an automated function, if you got, say twenty requests for deletion?

No, never. I thought I made that clear.
posted by mathowie at 11:39 AM on February 20, 2005

One small step towards slashdot, one giant leap for trollkind.

Oh well, I suppose it had to happen someday.
posted by shepd at 12:16 PM on February 20, 2005

Originally posted by shepd at 12:16 pm on February 20
One small step towards slashdot, one giant leap for trollkind.
posted by angry modem at 12:18 PM on February 20, 2005

I've gotten maybe 50 so far, and only acted on 2. I suspect that will be the normal, everyday ratio of things

If you're happy with that ratio, Matt, great. But if you want to try decreasing the number of time-waster flags, you might want to try adding a line like, "Flagging a comment because you disagree with its politics is discouraged and will result in future flags being ignored." Or something. You'll head off some of it, anyway.
posted by mediareport at 12:40 PM on February 20, 2005

Oh, and you should put quote marks around 'Flag this post' in the third sentence on the intermediate page. (I am anal hear me roar.)
posted by mediareport at 12:45 PM on February 20, 2005

thanks matt!
posted by mcsweetie at 1:13 PM on February 20, 2005

Next thing you know, "[!]" will appear next to Member names...

Paris is right. that's an excellent point, Matt.


C10H15N
MethFilter
posted by matteo at 1:25 PM on February 20, 2005

One small step towards slashdot, one giant leap for trollkind.

I dont see how this will happen. The environment here is such that a GNAA type issue really won't happen here. You still have to pay a small fee to join, that would make things like crap-flooding and abuse of mods (or in this case little exclamation points) way too cost prohibitive. The only way for that to happen would require someone to hax0r MeFi.

Besides, isn't any user that abuses this feature just putting a big 'poor impulse control' tattoo on their forehead and asking to be banned?
posted by tweak at 2:01 PM on February 20, 2005

Seems like a pretty sensible idea to me , noble leader , your humble servant promises to flag every one of your posts as fantastic and i will stop typing now so that i can denounce myself as unworthy.
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:46 PM on February 20, 2005

Mattsignal:

posted by Ryvar at 2:47 PM on February 20, 2005

True, it could open up a can of worms. But let's face it; the only way to know for sure is to try it and find out. Personally, I can't wait to take it for a test drive.
posted by Clay201 at 3:29 PM on February 20, 2005

Already a few people have taken to flagging everything by posters they don't like (including by me -- real funny kids) but I'll code up a "cries wolf" button to ignore people abusing the feature.

Some of that is probably just the new 'trying it out' effect. I know I was tempted.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 3:42 PM on February 20, 2005

(What is this? PP Lovefest Week?)
nah--i still know you're a bitch. ; >

meanwhile, it's been shown that you don't care if anti-gay slurs are thrown around, unlike slurs against members of other groups. how will flagging those help?
posted by amberglow at 5:13 PM on February 20, 2005

are there so many problematic comments in need of deletion/review that we need an extra little linky thing on the posted line?

that's really sad.
posted by fishfucker at 7:27 PM on February 20, 2005

Hey, Kids! Upset with someone's language? Disagree with an opinion? Are the religionists getting you down? Do you hate evangelists? Doesn't PP piss you off?

No more tears! New from Mathowie, it's the new TattleTale^TM button!

Now you can be a whiney pissant without having to endure the flames of MetaTalk! Bitch about being called a drama queen without taking the risk of further taunts! If you constrict anus 100 times everyday, TattleTale^TM is for you! Be the "King Cock" without being told to go screw yourself!

MeFi: We Bring the Good Things to Life.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:01 PM on February 20, 2005

f^3 brings up a valid point. Perhaps a limit on flags-per-week?
posted by mek at 8:46 PM on February 20, 2005

I think ultimately, this will be a very good feature. After all the joy-riders are done with it, that is.
posted by me3dia at 10:17 PM on February 20, 2005

f^3 brings up a valid point. Perhaps a limit on flags-per-week?

Why do you care? It doesn't affect you at all, and barely affects me if a user flags 1 post or a 1,000 of them. It's a private tool that I use and isn't exposed to anyone else so I don't know why anyone would get worked up enough about it to care.

If my neighbor and I both use Comcast cable for TV, do I care how many times he calls their customer service support line? Does it affect me in any way?
posted by mathowie at 12:32 AM on February 21, 2005

How about publication of flags? Along with the post could be a list of flags with handles or anonymous.

Metafilter is only somewhat like a room full of people talking, with the tone and seriousness levels hidden in text. People bring all levels of mood and emotional granularity to any given post.

If someone makes a comment others disagree with, then a publicly viewable flag would be like a social cue of disagreement, without the "I'm tattling on you" cast to the whole interaction.

More like a real conversation, in other words.
posted by telstar at 2:39 AM on February 21, 2005

I got a better idea, telstar.

On the front page, aggregate all the usernames from the "flagged posts" into a top-5 or top-10 list. There's your troll list. Ignore away.

I like the comment flags, personally. It doesn't change anything from our perspective, it just allows Matt an easier way to get complaints than MeTa callouts or emails. It's really tidy. In fact, if Matt wanted to be really lazy, he could set a [!] limit per message. If more than, say, 50 people complain about a message, it gets axed. I don't recommend this, of course. But it would be trivial to implement.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:45 AM on February 21, 2005

i still know you're a bitch. ; >

meanwhile, it's been shown that you don't care if anti-gay slurs are thrown around,


I don't understand calling someone a bitch and complaining about 'slurs' in the same breath.

What were the slurs in question?
posted by dhoyt at 12:20 PM on February 21, 2005

GREAT IDEA!

It moves this site 50% of the way to being the MeFi that I want. The other 50% would be a strongly enforced rule against calling people out.

I'm sure many people would be against that second rule. I am one of the (few?) MeFites who has ZERO taste for insults, rudeness or flames. I don't find them fun at all. And I often find the callouts worse -- or equally as bad as -- the original offense.

So for me anyway, I promote clicking the ! if you find something problematic and doing NOTHING else. The only acception would be if you feel personally insulted by someone. Then the right thing to do is to privately email them.

I agree that ! and "flag" don't communicate this feature very well. I initially assumed it was a kind of personal bookmark feature that would allow you to flag posts you liked. I though you would then click your username and see something like "Grumblebee has flagged 19 posts..."
posted by grumblebee at 12:51 PM on February 21, 2005

Love it.
posted by xammerboy at 3:10 PM on February 21, 2005

On the front page, aggregate all the usernames from the "flagged posts" into a top-5 or top-10 list. There's your troll list. Ignore away.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. I don't much care for EB, the feeling is (as far as I can tell) rather mutual, but I don't think his posts should be ignored and you KNOW - you absolutely KNOW - he will immediately be flagged to hell and gone the moment such a system is implemented.

The next user will be Matt himself, followed by AlexReynolds who is one of the best contributors to the green, followed by ParisParamus and either Steve@Linnwood or dios.

I don't know about you, but for me this moves that idea so far into the bad idea category that it should never even be considered again for any reason.
posted by Ryvar at 3:58 PM on February 21, 2005

I'm sorry, that was incredibly impolite of me. I haven't been getting much sleep lately.

Nevertheless, my basic point stands. Like socialism this is one of those seemingly great ideas that will completely fail and make a lot of people miserable in the process because it fails to take into account the fact that - whether on Metafilter or in real life - most people are dishonest jerks.
posted by Ryvar at 4:28 PM on February 21, 2005

barely affects me if a user flags 1 post or a 1,000 of them

How's that?
posted by scarabic at 4:48 PM on February 21, 2005

I don't know about you, but for me this moves that idea so far into the bad idea category that it should never even be considered again for any reason.

Well, you don't have to ignore them. And there's no MeFi system in place to actually ignore users, so it was more like, "here's a list of people who frequently get flagged, so don't be surprised if you read something you don't like from them."

I'm sorry, that was incredibly impolite of me.

No offense taken. In fact, I'm glad your reaction was so strongly against it. I hate the idea of [+/-] with users getting some special "recognition" for being so special or so terrible. Both are equally bad. Extend this to AskMe, and you'll understand why I hate the Best Answer feature.

Anyway, this is a pony for Matt more than us. If it cuts back on the MeTa callouts, fantastic. If it cuts back on the in-thread callouts, also fantastic.

What would be really nice (Matt, are you listening any more?) would be the option of displaying when a comment has been flagged. In other words, if a bunch of people are flagging a comment I made, I'd like to know. If you're reading a thread and come across a controversial comment, it's good to know that someone else has already "flagged" it (you can still flag it yourself, of course).

Some kind of red exclamation point or something for thread comments that have already been flagged.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:01 PM on February 21, 2005

Some kind of red exclamation point or something for thread comments that have already been flagged.

the scarlet F
posted by telstar at 5:12 PM on February 21, 2005

dhoyt- to understand amberglow's intent, start here. If after that, you still don't understand, well, God help you.
posted by eustacescrubb at 5:19 PM on February 21, 2005

Some kind of red exclamation point or something for thread comments that have already been flagged.

It's like a survey/suggestion box at a local restaurant. Feel free to let the owners know if staff or patrons were rude or unhelpful, or if you had a great time. The staff will take all suggestions and reviews into consideration, with no guarantee that they'll act on every single thing submitted. It's just a helpful way to gather data and make better decisions in the future.

In other words, no, I will not expose data related to the flagging to members of the site. If I thought it would improve things, I'd expose flags, but they won't, so I won't. Adding one moderator was too many, so having 20k would be certain disaster.

I'll continue to do things best I can, by myself, and on my own time, thanks to the help of everyone flagging the few best or egregious posts.
posted by mathowie at 5:22 PM on February 21, 2005

And there's no MeFi system in place to actually ignore users, so it was more like, "here's a list of people who frequently get flagged, so don't be surprised if you read something you don't like from them."

There's no specific MeFi system, no, but there is a webpage out there where you can enter a list of MeFi users to ignore and it acts a proxy which strips out the comments made by people on that list in the process. Genie's out of the bottle on that front, but in general an ignore function is cowardly at best (except in cases of spam), incredibly destructive to the community at worst.

I'll continue to do things best I can, by myself, and on my own time, thanks to the help of everyone flagging the few best or egregious posts.

Thanks a ton. I know we disagree on a LOT of stuff, but seriously - thanks.
posted by Ryvar at 5:31 PM on February 21, 2005

I think almost all MeTa callouts are childish and I think the ease of [!]ing people is going to go so far beyond childish that it'll end up being embryonic.

I will not participate in [!] flagging, just as I've pretty much ignored Duh Powah Of MeTa Callouts.

It would sure be nice if fewer people got their knickers in a knot over the silliest things. We could do without MeTa, without [!] flags, and without moderation.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:03 PM on February 21, 2005

I think the ease of [!]ing people is going to go so far beyond childish that it'll end up being embryonic.

Yo fish, did you see the text above about the ignoring and the judging that I am doing on the flags? Like I said upthread, I don't understand why anyone cares strongly one way or the other about the flags since they never have to do anything with them or about them aside from the occasional use if you find something amazing or so awful I should know about it. The rest is up to me.
posted by mathowie at 7:46 PM on February 21, 2005

Adding one moderator was too many, so having 20k would be certain disaster.

Excellent point.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:08 AM on February 22, 2005