Raising a Red Flag

Are you familiar with the way craigslist handles post flagging?

Based on recent feedback, we’re enhancing Stack Overflow’s flagging support to bring it more in line with that well established model.

We belatedly realized that asking users to email us to report content problems on the site* was not exactly efficient. Now you can flag something that needs moderator attention with three clicks (and a little typing).

Some rules:

1. You still need 15 reputation to flag anything at all.
2. Each user gets a limited number of flags per day (5 offensive, 5 spam, and 10 inform moderator).
3. These flags age. After two days, they automatically dissipate harmlessly and without effect from the system.
4. If an individual post reaches a threshold of six offensive or spam votes within two days, it will be automatically deleted from the system by the Community user.
5. You cannot flag the same post multiple times.
6. Flag counts are no longer shown to anyone except moderators.

This is more or less directly based on discussion around previous blog entries In Defense of Editing and A Day in the Penalty Box. I closed the related UserVoice ticket as completed.

And yes, a similar style of flagging (but more lightweight) is coming very soon for comments.

• as always, our email address is at the bottom of every single page if you need to contact us. All mail is read, and every reported issue is researched.