Do you, as a member of the fluther community, feel uncomfortable about flagging?

I have no problem flagging things. However, I think my standards for what is acceptable are not nearly as strict as the moderator’s standards. If it’s a close call in my opinion, I’ll let someone else make it. Plus, usually if a question looks uninteresting, I’m not going to look at it, so I’ll never know if it needs flagging or not. The interesting ones tend to not need flagging.

Now, if you don’t mind, my ability to think any further about this topic is flagging. :\

Sometimes it feels like a waste of time to flag something, especially when dealing with personal attacks. I know from personal experience that those types of flags sometimes need to be discussed behind the scenes. It can be confusing to some to see what looks like a personal attack stay up, and then see a comment removed that looked nothing like a personal attack.

I have no problem flagging spam. That’s easy.

Not at all.

I am surprised by this, however, as I thought that flagging a post in a thread would bring the moderators’ general attention to the thread if something was removed in order to keep things consistent (i.e., similar posts would be removed as well because the moderator was watching the thread more closely than others).

I’m assuming of course a couple of things – first, that the minority of threads have at least one flagged post rather than the majority, and second, that you receive these messages after a good amount of time has passed and the post has not been taken down.

I flag and always give my reasons.

@iamthemob: Let me address your concerns as I suspect they may be why many things are not flagged. First, unless it is stated in a flag, we rarely keep an eye on the whole thread. Generally, I’ll read the question and compare it to the quip if the quip does not seem as if it should be immediately removed. Then, I may scan the comments around the removed quip but I will not read through an entire thread to determine if other things should be removed. If I see a pattern, say, a side conversation or a rash of personal attacks, then I am more likely to read through the thread to remove comments. This can be somewhat difficult, though, if people are posting as I am moderating. If the thread is long, then ten more comments may be posted in the time it takes me to scan the thread for answers that should be removed.

Second, all flags get sent to all the moderators’ various e-mail accounts. I like to keep my account open if I am on fluther but often, I do not see the flags for a while because I may be in class, at work, or simply not on the computer. This is why some comments and questions may be modded within minutes of being flagged and others may be modded hours after.

At times, it is easier to flag a single quip or the whole question and say something like, “things are really getting out of hand, please look at the whole thread.” We do not look at a whole thread unless we have either been directed to do so or it is immediately apparent that we must.

Also, an important note is that mods are not allowed to moderate their own questions or questions they are heavily involved in. This presents a certain amount of accountability in that I can’t moderate someone who’s making me angry just because s/he is making me angry.

I hope that wasn’t too wordy, I just want to address everyone’s issues thoroughly. :)

I am fine flagging, and I do so when I see something that needs it.

@KatawaGrey – Clears up a lot – thanks!

I feel uncomfortable about not flagging.

Some days I’m more likely to flag than others. I am less likely to flag in social than in general and less likely to flag when the entire thread should be flagged and it would waste so much time to flag many many answers.

I am reluctant to flag for things like writing standards, because aside from the obvious text-speak and so forth, I don’t really know how tightly the mods want to enforce those standards, and how strict the standards actually are. I’m aware that for some people, English is not a first language, or they may be dyslexic. I’m happy to flag the obvious things like spam or text-speak.

I use the flag function some, especially for spam.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: In a case like that, it’s best to flag one offending quip and write a little note telling us the whole thread is going to hell in a handbasket.

@downtide: It is better to overflag than to underflag. Even if we don’t remove what you’ve flagged, it can help alert us to users who may need a warning in the future if they always flout the guidelines.

@KatawaGrey You got it.

I used to feel bad if I flagged, but I don’t anymore. Mods have PMed me to tell me to keep it up, and that I’m not overflagging. Sometimes I just don’t think of it, but since I know that my flags are just a heads-up and not have power in and of themselves, I’m happy to say “Hey! Look at this!”.

I would if I could, but I can’t.

For whatever reason, flagging is (among other things) not enabled for the mobile version of the site.

I’m assuming that’s unlikely to change in light of recent events.

I’ve only flagged a few times, mostly my own answers because my fingers got ahead of my brain. I never felt uncomfortable. I think I flagged two other questions and both were from the guy claiming to get caught wearing womens underwear.

I rarely, rarely flag. It has to be something really bad…either that or it has to be something @JilltheTooth wrote! Same diff, see. ;)

@Dutchess_III : <pffththtppt> (That’s a raspberry noise, for which I still have not found the perfect spelling!)

@Dutchess_III Ouch!:)

I think you spit your tooth out, @JilltheTooth!

@Adirondackwannabe Muhaaaaaaahaa!

I never flag I simply find out where they live so I can confront them in person.

I have no problem with it, but I think I’ve done it maybe twice in two-plus years. Probably out of apathy or a high-tolerance for silliness.

Nope. According to @Sarcasm, I’ve been dubbed as a frequent flagger. :)

Gee, @ANef_is_Enuf , when he told me about it, he said you were a frequent flogger. Your street cred went up a few notches. ;-)

@JilltheTooth lol

nope

Not in the least.

Abbie Hoffman was once interviewed by a reporter and asked if it was true that he supported total and complete freedom of expression. He agreed that this was so. When the reporter asked how he dealt with the classic problem of someone shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre, Abbie’s response was: ”FIRE! FIRE!”

I hold the same view Abbie did. In fact, I left Fluther a while back for over a year due to my frustration and repugnance at the censorship here, which often has more to do with whether a comment causes public outrage than any kind of objective measure. This has the result of “normalizing” discussion to only commonly-accepted views, and amputating discussion which is unpopular. To quote Adlai Stevenson, “A free society is a place where it’s safe to be unpopular.”

What this effectively means on Fluther is that mob rules determine what is and is not acceptable. If enough people mash “Flag as…” then the question or answer will vanish, regardless of its merit. I am put in mind specifically of a question I asked a while back about whether or not blind people were human, very carefully and specifically stating that this was not a question about the value or worth of a blind person, but rather whether or not their cognitive processes and archetypal symbolism were sufficiently different to make them essentially aliens from the human gestalt (which is highly visually based). Unfortunately, most people didn’t bother to read the whole question and simply suffered a knee-jerk BAN IT response which caused the question to just… go away, regardless of its merit.

So in answer to your question, I suspect that the willingness of people here to flag questions and answers has more to do with their sacred cows and the personal popularity of the asker or questioner than it does with any unwillingness to engage in censorship.

The only thing I, personally, would flag is spam (since spamming isn’t speech, it’s theft of bandwidth from the commons).

I always appreciate the opportunity to self-edit. How lovely to have a rant and not have to subject everyone to it. Glad we have that “preview” box.

@SmashTheState: You bring up an excellent point! Many people here think that removing content from the site is “censorship” and “trampling on free speech.” The truth is that our removal of some answers and questions is more like editing than anything else. Think of fluther like a publishing company. No publishing company publishes everything that is submitted to them simply because someone submitted it. Fluther is much the same way. Just because you type it, doesn’t mean it belongs on the site. Can you imagine trying to figure out what exactly was readable every time you went to the library? As an avid reader, that would be quite difficult for me. The same is true of fluther. We simply do not want our fellow Jellies to have to rifle through the stuff that does not meet our guidelines.

I’m just curious as to why you came back? Surely an important revolutionary such as yourself has better things to do that run rampant on an American q&a site. You know, we do just joke when we say that fluther is a front for the CIA. ;)

I flag things I believe should be looked at by the mods. If they removed it, they remove it, if they don’t, they don’t. I don’t purposefully go back and look to see if it was removed or not.

@KatawaGrey Free expression is not limited by whether or not it occurs in an area regarded by capitalists as “private.” What you really mean is that because there is an entire structure of coercive force prepared to defend your claim to this site with violence, you have superior force. That doesn’t prove that you have superior morality, ethics, or cause. Only that you can physically back up your ability to engage in the silencing of those with whom you disagree.

@SmashTheState: Actually, I can’t physically back up anything because this is a website and it is digital, but I get the gist of what you mean. You didn’t answer my question, why did you come back? You seem so unhappy here what with the site having standards and being run by Americans.

Just out of curiosity, do you get angry when a publishing house refuses to publish a book you’ve written?

@KatawaGrey As you keep pointing out, I’m an experienced activist, and part of that experience involves constitutional law and legal theory, especially in regard to so-called “private” spaces. You may be interested to know that, at least here in Kanada, there is some interesting precedent developing in the court in regard to “private” property. Because so much of what used to be public space has been gobbled up by business, courts have begun ruling on what they’re calling “quasi-public property.” So, for example, some provincial courts have held that shopping malls must abide by the same laws which govern public- or State-owned property despite being privately owned as a result of shopping malls supplanting what used to be public gathering places.

The basis of this sea change in “private property” laws is the recognition that a constitutionally-guaranteed right is meaningless without the possibility of its application. If all the land where people gather is privately owned, then the constitutional right to free association is meaningless. Likewise, when all ability for expression is in private hands, “free speech” is meaningless.

Fluther is a public space, and I suspect I could make a good enough case for it (at least under Kanadian law) that a court would at least listen to argument on the issue.

Still not answering the “why you came back” question, @SmashTheState.

@JilltheTooth Correct, I’m not. I don’t feel the need to justify my presence.

I feel kinda bad, seeing on how vehement I am about flagging to begin with. I do flag stuff for mostly two reasons; spam, or if something is in the wrong section. (and even then that doesn’t disappear, it just gets moved.)
I have flagged for other reasons, such as off topic stuff, if it was in general. But really it’s not the end of my world lol.

@SmashTheState: And we don’t feel the need to justify our guidelines to one, disgruntled Kanadian. I suspect that you are, in fact, the only Kanadian in existence. There are plenty of nice Canadians on this site though. :)

@Symbeline: We need all kind of flaggers! I appreciate your effort and your creepy avatar! :D

@KatawaGrey I don’t have a nationality. The only identity I recognize is Earthling… and that’s open to discussion if and when we find life elsewhere in the Universe.

@SmashTheState – The problem I see with your logical argument is that I have never seen any content-based censorship really at work here – and this is an objective observation in that (1) there was clearly time and a back-and-forth between the Mods and particular posters as they tried and often did successfully edit a post so that the content was still there but off topic/personal attack elements/etc. were removed (2) I have myself had things taken down and been offered the option of editing or abandoning and (3) I have begged for certain things to be taken down and they haven’t been. I am therefore more inclined to attribute any uneven moderating as being due to limited unconscious bias or simple human error rather than any agenda-based bias.

The problem with your legal argument is that there is no free speech violation where there is no government involvement. You make an interesting point about public space in order to draw analogy to the internet – but it’s of no benefit. The quasi-public space allocation is because of the physical space limitations – there really isn’t such a thing in this case as the internet is the public forum, and there are arguably infinite spaces in that forum to speak. Being prevented from speaking here, even wholesale, is no limitation on your ability to speak on the internet.

Finally, there’s a priviliged aspect to your argument in that you are positioned as the one who is oppressed because of the actions/preferences of others. Considering that I rarely, rarely see any moderation in the social section, I don’t see how your speech has been significantly curtailed. The flaw here is where is the justification that we have to tolerate any and all comments from you wherever you feel they should be made? By derailing a thread in a manner you find valuable but others don’t, why should you take the conversation away from those who wish it to stay on topic? In essence, it’s the physical equivalent of walking into a room where people are talking and shouting over them. There are times where a post interrupts the thread of the conversation such that the responses around it are substantively altered – they become less clear or understandable.

The further implications of allowing all that speech, of course, is to fully do away with all the standards – the writing standards, the removal of spam, etc. etc. Is that what you think of as free speech? Because to be honest, for me the real value of free speech is that ideas can be tested in the marketplace. If the marketplace is so cluttered that the ideas are obscured, there really isn’t any recognizable discourse – and the purpose of speech is defeated,

^^ Well said.

Very well and cogently said, @iamthemob , and the beauty of this system is that we all benefit from the eloquence of your post. I think some of it may have been lost on @SmashTheState , however, this is a person who uses 1950s science fiction B movie words like “earthling” and can’t come up with a more evocative or provocative word in his feces question than “poop”.

No. I get tired of poorly worded shit.

@kenmc Poorly-worded*

Nope. No hyphen.

Yes. Hyphen.

I call native English speaker. I win. End of argument.

@bob_ – to go beyond the “native speaker” argument – it’s mostly about guidelines than rules here – but you’d be generally right as “poorly worded” precedes a noun – however, there is an exception when the adverb in the compound is one that ends in -ly.

In that case, no hyphen – @kenmc is correct.

Hmpf. American imperialists.

@bob_ – Whatever. You’re just mad cause you want Texas and the West Coast back. ;-)

@iamthemob Pffft.

Amusingly enough, I was thinking of that very sentiment as I was typing. I just had to go with it for consistency…;-)

^^This is why I love fluther: a non-hyphenated phrasal adjective that uses an adverb ending in “ly”

Explain that to a non-English speaker.

@gailcalled I understand it, but I don’t agree with it.

Crap, I’m an English speaker. Explain it to me. jk, I get it, but it does seem awfully…well…I dunno.

@JilltheTooth It seems awfully…hyphenated? Is that the word you were looking for?

Well, @bob_ isn’t one to argue now. He kind of half-assed hyphenated his name! I think I shall flag every post he makes!

tough room…

Tough*.

[This is a] tough room.