A user made a post where he is selling his hardware (more expensive than usual on the second hnd market, almost same price as new)
I made, from my point of view a fair and square offer. the post got flagged. I made a follow up post, with a screenshot of market prices, which got flagged as well right away:
I would like to know how many flags are required to hide a post (if I was just flagged by that one guy or multiple users)
It feels quite inapropriate to get cancelled away because I make an offer and send a screenshot of market prices because I think his price is too high.
It may depend on how one flags it. If one flags it as a spam, potentially one flag is good enough (the other day, I flagged like that several of the same post selling some kind of shit - standard scam, and just my single flag was good enough to completely remove those whole threads). On the other hand, for inappropriate flag you need two or so.
I saw that your post was flagged but thought that it was you that decided to do that, instead of just deleting it. Not sure if anything can be done about it. You can try to write to the admins, and ask them for an explanation.
There are higher stakes in here, we’re a bit more demanding than the standard fb marketplace or ebay listings. Sellers are going to get grilled a little harder, extra photos requested, proof of claims will be needed. We’re not trying to be jerks or anything, we know what the market value of this stuff is, and we try to look out for each other in that respect.
Yada yada free market whatever, sure they can list gear for whatever they want, but I 100% support you for calling someone out for overcharging just as much as I support them for holding out for whatever ridiculous price they are asking for (it just won’t be me paying that).
And seconded on low flag counts needed - I’ve only flagged a couple in my time here and they go down pretty quickly (I also assume it’s 2-3 users, not many, and forum status probably matters).
I would assume that if someone flags, those actions should go to admins even if just for post-mortem review, and they should scrutinize that, as this is an easy route to abuse. We saw plenty of dicks that were speaking shit against NoSSD blocking the whole thread, while admins were doing nothing. Actually, the only time I saw admins taking action was when they imagined that holy gods of chia were being offended, what is really ridiculous.
Also, I don’t know who can flag, but maybe that action should be only permitted at certain level, so twitter shitstormers would not have it easy to cancel whoever they want.
I know it would be the best case but I also understand that it would mean a tremendous effort.
Hence it will only be dont something if it is brought up to the admins and if there is severe effect.
What would help, would be to rais the required Flag amount, eg to 4 flags. rather than one or two. While issues might still happen, this would trmendously reduce the false flag count by democratic vote?
I don’t think that we have so much flagging activity on this forum to have this be considered an overwhelming amount of work. My take is that if it will get to that level, it would mean that this forum is mostly done (for whatever reason).
On the other hand, I also was thinking about raising the number of required flags. Although, those several spam threads that I flagged the other day were some kind of viagra or so. Therefore I changed titles stating that that was spam and asked folks for more flags. I was really happy seeing that those post were instantly removed from the forum (inappropriate are still visible and readable upon a click).
I also think that admins should do a bit more. Several times some dicks were accusing people or more broadly people from Western countries of being nazi, issuing personal threats, and admins did really shit in those cases (I DMed admin at that time). I would say that such dicks should be banned right away, as I saw they were later repeating their offenses.
So, I am conflicted on changing those numbers. Thinking out loud, having some kind of purgatory for those, where only people with more credentials would need to make a decision in a short time would be another option. However, most likely such a thing is not supported by this forum package.
(Forgot to mention, but I also agree that whoever flagged your post is a dick.)
If the admins allow only 1 flag to hide a post, then the admins should be vigilant in reviewing the flagged post, to determine if the flagged post violated forum rules or local, state, federal laws – or – did the person that issued the flag do so out of vengeance or some other improper reason.
The admins should also be vigilant in flagging any users that abuse flagging users.
In other words, the person that flagged @KryptoMine’s post, where he made an offer and where he provided a screenshot of market prices… well, whoever performed that abusive flagging should be flagged (warned to never abuse the flagging feature).
The warning should come from a forum leader or forum admin, and should make clear that another abusive flag will result in suspension. After that, a permanent ban (or whatever corrective measures the admin deems proper).
I think that most likely the problem with @KryptoMine was that the offender created a shadow account(s) only used for flagging purposes.
I don’t think that much can be done to filter out multiple accounts created by a single person (if one is persistent). Some email providers let one create hundreds of aliases and there is no way to tell that looking at the email headers. Also, I would imagine that using a different IP would require to go to a coffee shop and create it there, so IP filtering would also not work.
But, doing such filtering would still help.
Therefore, I suggested elevating ability to ban a bit, so those overnight accounts would not be used for that purpose (similar to the Lounge).
I guess, this may be the first such offense where one person did those multiple accounts / flagging. Also, I still think that admins should look into it, as circumstances are pointing against the seller, where maybe it was not really him, but rather someone wanting to implicate him.
Those are all speculations right now. I was quite surprised, because I experienced the user to be a nice participant in the forum, which i why I wrote in my first post that its sad they seem leaving.
I’m happy to report that I managed to unhide my posts.
The posts were flagged as spam, which indeed only requires one single flag.
Upon editing, the post is shown again. Only, if a second user flaggs the post, it will be hidden until a Moderator takes action
