The Flagging System

Community General Discussion
1

Is it a punishable offense to abuse this system? If not, it honestly should be.

I’ve noticed on a lot of threads, that can be rather controversial, that it’s being used as a Downvote instead of being an indicator for mods to see that something might be against the rules.

Due to an automated system, highly flagged posts either get hidden with a warning to view it or the entire thread gets locked.

I’ve seen this on two threads that aren’t trolls, aren’t offensive, aren’t anything bad and are completely within topic of this forum yet get hit by this system because other people don’t like the OP’s opinions.

People shouldn’t be aloud to abuse the flagging system, a system used to call moderator attention to actual content against the rules, just because they don’t like someone’s opinions.

edit:
Evidence of a completely fine thread being locked due to a controversial opinion. It was locked immediately after being unlocked, this is insane lol.

17 Likes
2

Not only that, it happens to players as well. :roll_eyes: People are using the flagging as a “I disagree and think this shouldn’t be able to be said” button.

13 Likes
3

I noticed this as well, and was wondering about it. The topics that were flagged didn’t seem to be topics that should be flagged.

3 Likes
4

I think posts getting hidden by flagging is all good, you can unhide it to take a peak if you want

Honestly don’t know why the thread lock system is in place though, allowing players to totally lock a thread seems rather pointless and asinine

4 Likes
5

In theory it is but I can’t prove it is one way or the other.

1 Like
6

My honest solution to this problem is that is a post is being mass flagged and a Moderator has already checked and seen that it’s ok then the Mod should be allowed to disable the flag on the post entirely unless it’s edited afterwards.

4 Likes
7

It’s a very strange system, and seems like threads with a bunch of lifetime reports logged up just constantly get locked the moment even a single new flag is added. I wonder if it’s produced more or less moderating work for the forums team.

1 Like
8

I think they do take action against people clearly mass reporting just because they disagree with a post and want to shut it down.

2 Likes
9

It was changed because Blizzard are cutting costs and that includes indirect labor, such as moderators. Instead, this system allowes masses to determine by a “vote” if something is inappropriate.

It saves the company salaries but as seen, causes abuse. It also does not help to deter the “licenced trolls” (the ones who frequently post insults yet never get infracted). Cliques can and do get people infracted for things that are not an actual violation, just an opposite view.

4 Likes
10

It really is

Like, did Blizz really not predict that this would happen? I find that astonishing if so

1 Like
11

Every time I want to post there I can’t.

Is it being locked because of the thread itself being flagged or because there are so many flags for individual post?

1 Like
12

Wasn’t it stated somewhere that flagging abuse will be punished with forums suspension?

2 Likes
13

That thread definitely falls under “spam” though so it doesn’t really follow the CoC

4 Likes
14

I want a “flag as wrong forum” option.

Some of the crap in GD is off-topic and doesn’t belong here but there’s no way to flag it.

3 Likes
15

It’s not Bliz. It’s the company that made the forum software, probably.

Said company’s lead dev also does not believe in a block/ignore posts function, hence despite ignore being the standard policy for harassment on WOW we can’t do so on the forums.

16

How do players lock threads?

That’s how it works already, I believe. At least, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen posts become unflagged before.

Incorrect. We can flag things. But the moderators-- which still do exist-- have to determine whether action is taken.

17

if that’s the case it’d have been deleted

stop trying to justify flag abuse.

Nah because it keeps getting flagged despite that. Posts that manually get unflagged should be immune to flags unless edited.

3 Likes
18

If a thread sees enough flags it auto locks until a mod checks it out, no?

Unless you think mods are locking all of these threads just to unlock them then re-lock them then…no

19

There’s a big gray zone where some people think they’re being cool and creative and inviting meaningful discussion, while others see that this is the 100th virtually identical thread this week and view it as nothing but spam.

1 Like
20

I was asking legitimately because I wasn’t sure how that worked. I didn’t know if it was automated after so many flags or how this system identified that.