Reporting posts

looksee

I have just taken a stroll through some of the forums and found three posts that were some way problematical. One was in the wrong forum and two were posts that were duplicated in a couple of forums.

Since I am a natural busybody I wanted to draw the attention of the mods to these posts, but the 'report this post' button was not the way to go. The alternative was to pm a mod, but this involved finding the relevant mod and composing a pm, which was too much trouble .

I wonder why we couldn't have a 'Mod, you might like to have a look at this post' button, with an option to put in a couple of words - 'duplicate of post in x forum' for example. Its not a major issue but might help keep boards tidy.

P. Breathnach

Why was using the "report this post" button not the way to go? The report goes to the mods.

Gordon

looksee wrote: »

I wonder why we couldn't have a 'Mod, you might like to have a look at this post' button, with an option to put in a couple of words - 'duplicate of post in x forum' for example. Its not a major issue but might help keep boards tidy.

That's exactly what the report post button does! Try it on my post and put text of "testing" on it to see what happens.

Eoin

Maybe because the text on the report post page says:

Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising messages, and problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts, or signatures which breach the guidelines.

That sounds very different from "Mod, you might like to have a look at this post".

Gordon

We might need to edit that, it's a little too focussed and doesn't cover all the bases imo. Mods need to be told of duplicate posts (kinda covered by the 'spam' clause though) and it's nice to know if there's a thread that shouldn't be in your forum in case you miss it.

AnonoBoy

Does 'Mods you might want to have a look at this' not equate to 'problematic'?

Eoin

It might do, only it seems to define problematic as "ONLY ... (harassment, fighting, or rude)".

Terry

Because when someone reports a post, a mod instantly gets an e-mail notification.
The reported post also creates a thread in the reported posts forum.

If mod decides to act on a reported post, they will generally make a not of their actions in the relevant thread.
If a reported post is deemed not worthy of action, then one of the mods of whatever forum will leave a note in the reported post. On occasion a mod may send a PM to the person who reported the post and explain why it was not acted on.

Reminding a mod that you have reported a post only serves to piss them off (although I'm only talking from personal experience here).

If you think a post should be reported, then do so. If the mods don't act on it, it's usually because they don't think that there is anything wrong with it.

Overheal

Overheal wrote: »

Feedback > Reporting posts - post by looksee reported by Overheal

Overheal has reported a post.

Reason:

test

Post: Reporting posts
Forum: Feedback
Assigned Moderators: LoLth, Trojan

Posted by: looksee
Original Content:

I have just taken a stroll through some of the forums and found three posts that were some way problematical. One was in the wrong forum and two were posts that were duplicated in a couple of forums.

Since I am a natural busybody I wanted to draw the attention of the mods to these posts, but the 'report this post' button was not the way to go. The alternative was to pm a mod, but this involved finding the relevant mod and composing a pm, which was too much trouble .

I wonder why we couldn't have a 'Mod, you might like to have a look at this post' button, with an option to put in a couple of words - 'duplicate of post in x forum' for example. Its not a major issue but might help keep boards tidy.

That is exactly what a reported post looks like when it goes to a back-end forum. Each post generates a new thread in the Reported posts forum. If multiple users report the same Post, it shows up as a response in the first report's thread. A copy of this is also emailed to the mods of the forum it was reported in.

You have as much space to write whatever you need as part of your report, in case you want to include links to other posts in your reports. For example, if you want to highlight that a poster is harassing you across several threads its easier to verify that if you include links to those threads. This is also another good way to save time, as you have to wait 60 seconds between reported posts so for example if you need to reported several problems you can basically say in one report "This is personal abuse. Also there is personal abuse in Posts #34, #45 and #89".

Gordon wrote: »

We might need to edit that, it's a little too focused and doesn't cover all the bases imo. Mods need to be told of duplicate posts (kinda covered by the 'spam' clause though) and it's nice to know if there's a thread that shouldn't be in your forum in case you miss it.

Definitely. Users should use Reports to advise the forum mods of virtually any kind of problem in a forum that needs their attention. Duplicate threads that need to be merged into others, etc. etc.

Eoin

Terry wrote: »

Because when someone reports a post, a mod instantly gets an e-mail notification.
The reported post also creates a thread in the reported posts forum.

If mod decides to act on a reported post, they will generally make a not of their actions in the relevant thread.
If a reported post is deemed not worthy of action, then one of the mods of whatever forum will leave a note in the reported post. On occasion a mod may send a PM to the person who reported the post and explain why it was not acted on.

Reminding a mod that you have reported a post only serves to piss them off (although I'm only talking from personal experience here).

If you think a post should be reported, then do so. If the mods don't act on it, it's usually because they don't think that there is anything wrong with it.

I might be wrong, but I think the OP said that s/he didn't report the post at all because it didn't seem appropriate - possibly because the text doesn't make it sound like you can report posts that aren't abusive or spam.

looksee

eoin wrote: »

I might be wrong, but I think the OP said that s/he didn't report the post at all because it didn't seem appropriate - possibly because the text doesn't make it sound like you can report posts that aren't abusive or spam.

Yes, eoin, that was exactly it. I could have reported the post, and have done on occasion for spam and advertising, but the message seems quite specific about what is and is not to be posted, as you said, it needs broadening a bit.

I presume that the original intention was not to have random side debates and 'this poster has gone off topic' type post reported, but even then, why not? Whats the difference between reporting and sending a pm? In fact reporting would keep the message concise rather than a rambling pm.

Gordon

looksee wrote: »

Yes, eoin, that was exactly it. I could have reported the post, and have done on occasion for spam and advertising, but the message seems quite specific about what is and is not to be posted, as you said, it needs broadening a bit.

I presume that the original intention was not to have random side debates and 'this poster has gone off topic' type post reported, but even then, why not? Whats the difference between reporting and sending a pm? In fact reporting would keep the message concise rather than a rambling pm.

That's a fair point, I've suggested it to the mod team to see if we can come up with something that fits for every reasoning.

Eoin

looksee wrote: »

I presume that the original intention was not to have random side debates and 'this poster has gone off topic' type post reported, but even then, why not? Whats the difference between reporting and sending a pm? In fact reporting would keep the message concise rather than a rambling pm.

I think it's just the standard wording for this forum software. I get reported posts a good bit for minor reasons e.g. posts are a little off-topic, should be moved to a different forum and so on. It's not a problem at all, and is generally quite helpful.