I know these issues have been discussed, but I cannot find those posts. I’m not even sure if this is the right place to post this. Between the current ad issue and the changes in Edit and Flag features, CC is starting to require too much effort.
Edit feature. What is the timeframe for editing posts, and why was it apparently shortened?
Flag feature: I am trying to follow the Gaza war thread in the Politics forum, and that is where the new Flag feature is most annoying. As usual, there is the titandtatting going on amongst certain posters that happens on other threads. WHY is the Flagged post no longer visible to read like it used to be? What is happening now is that posts are being Flagged just to get rid of them (for at least a while) because they become hidden until a mod reviews them. So even if a Flagged post is restored, no one will even see it because the thread has moved on. Who’s going to go back and look to see if SoAndSo’s hidden post was restored? So if I don’t like someone or their posts, it seems that I could simply Flag all of them and they would be out of the current conversation.
In terms of flags - my understanding is they are only hidden pending moderation if multiple senior members flag the same post (which did happen on the thread you mentioned).
I am pretty sure all flagged posts are hidden; that, or as @CTTC says, one doesn’t go back the next day to see what happened. (I am not talking about that particular thread, btw)
The “view ignored content” is now only available to the poster whose post was hidden. They can view it, and edit it (I believe) if within the window for editing. Once they edit it, it is then no longer hidden.
We haven’t changed this setting. It’s currently 30 minutes for new users and 1440 (1 day) for people who have been around longer (Trust Level 2 and up). I’m open to widening the window, but it’s been this way for as long as I’ve been around. (We copied the values from the previous platform.)
There is an automated process for hiding posts that have been flagged. As others have said, when multiple users (especially senior members) flag posts, they are more likely to be hidden. The algorithm has a sensitivity setting that hasn’t been changed from the default. What you might be observing is the algorithm seeing flags on posts it thinks are likely to be deleted by moderators (based on historical data) hiding post more often. The setting didn’t change, but the data did (and will continue to change as more posts are flagged).
I’m worried, especially on the Politics Forum, that hiding posts is counterproductive. If people think that’s where all the juicy content is, they might be more likely to read it. Not sure what to do about that, however. Turning off the algorithm means potentially awful content can stay visible until a moderator handles the flags. We have amazing moderators who respond to flags quickly, so maybe that’d work?
But it would be much better to continue hiding posts and for people to restrain from digging around for gossip. :-/
I believe what’s changed is that in the past you could click on “view hidden content” and read the flagged post, and now that option doesn’t exist.
My opinion: if a post is flagged, it’s because it violates ToS in some way. If there’s an option to read the flagged content any way, it beats the purpose of flagging. So I’m fine with the current approach, but have a couple of suggestions.
Expand the categories available when flagging a post to include common issues such as duplicate threads, responses to very old threads, etc. Each category could then be considered either “sensitive” (for example: offensive content) or “nonsensitive” (for example: duplicate thread / or question to moderator). If sensitive, a flagged post gets hidden, otherwise not.
Some people are allegedly using flags to hide content they disagree with, rather than to flag posts that violates ToS. Perhaps CC members can be assigned a “flag trust level”. The more often they flag posts that moderators agree with, the higher their trust level and more likely a post they flag will be hidden. If members throw frivolous flags merely to suppress opposing views, they lose trust points, and their flagged posts are less likely to be hidden.
That currently exists. And has always existed. Tenure - senior members vs new members - is also part of the algorithm. Unless flagged as spam, I don’t think there are many users, including yours truly, who can get a post hidden with a single flag. Based on which users are flagging, it can also take more than 2 users to hide.
@CC_Jon this replying to hidden posts was happening when one could tap on the post and it became visible…that was the case for everyone until the recent change. Now, the only person who can view the hidden post is the person who wrote it.
But before that…folks would tap on, read, and then reply to hidden posts. The moderators frequently wrote “please do not respond to hidden posts. They are hidden for a reason”.
Yes…and the moderators can too…as well as the person who made the post. The rest of us USED to be able to but no longer can. Which is actually fine with me.
My memory must be incorrect, then, and I’d never tried to edit past 1 day before.
Now regarding no longer being able to still read flagged posts:
THIS is what I meant when I wrote “read flagged posts.” I figured the PTB would realize that. What happened to that option?
I liked being able to “view hidden” content, and, quite often, I didn’t see what was objectionable about it. As I wrote before, IMO there is some tit-for-tatting flagging going on, and some people will flag those who disagree with them to limit them from being in the conversation. As long as flagging is anonymous, I expect that will continue to happen.
Thanks for the clarification. I thought I read where a CC staffer or mod said that they can’t see who flags posts. I must be reading CC before my coffee kicks in!
Regardless, all the disjointedness/flagging/slowmode going on in at least the Gaza thread, makes me uninterested in reading it further.
(And the annoying ads issue is making me more and more unlikely to read CC very often in ALL areas of CC.)
Hmm, another way our activity is tallied. Are there badges for number of posts flagged? Just joking.