Flagging is an built-in moderation tool intended to dissuade bad behavior and spam, as well as to promote civilized discourse. If you want to raise an issue about a post without derailing the topic at hand, the best course of action is usually to flag it. Please do not message the moderators or use @mentions to bring our attention to a post. Just flag it and move on.
Clicking the flag button will present you with the following options:
It’s Off-Topic
This post is not relevant to the current discussion as defined by the title and first post, and should probably be moved elsewhere.It’s Inappropriate
This post contains content that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or a violation of our community guidelines.It’s Spam
This post is an advertisement. It is not useful or relevant to the current topic, but promotional in nature.
Flagging a post will trigger a moderator notification so moderators may review the issue. Moderators will either approve or dismiss the flag. If the flag is dismissed the flag is removed.
Flagging a post may also have other consequences:
- A user whose posts have accumulated too many flags can not reach Member status.
- A post with many flags may be automatically hidden. After 10 minutes the user may edit their post and it will be unhidden. If another more flags occur the post will be hidden again and editing will not unhide the post.