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Because comment flags were historically some of the worst / least appropriately used flag types, we made comment flags require a reason:

Comment flagging options

Requiring a reason definitely helped improve existing comment flags that we now see.

The current default comment flagging reasons are

  • rude or offensive
  • not constructive / off-topic
  • obsolete
  • too chatty
  • other (requires text)

Do these default reasons capture -- without getting into obsessive detail -- the most common, valid reasons to flag a comment?

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  • 7
    What constitutes "too chatty"? Aren't comments for, um, "chatting"? Are you referring to comments that might be better described as "unnecessary", "noise", "extraneous" (e.g., "+1 You're answer is awesome!", "I totally agree with you, dude!", etc.)?
    – raven
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 0:33
  • Wow, thanks for this. I'm actually going to visit the flags section of my mod tools again.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 1:48
  • 5
    @raven I think "too chatty" does capture something essential there; comments are not for people's amusement, they are for adding constructive meta-commentary on the post.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 4:55
  • 1
    It would be most interesting to know the actual effect of those flags. (I just flagged a comment as "obsolete", and it got deleted. How many flags are needed for this?)
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 18:31
  • 1
    @hendrik comment flag quality went from abysmal to quite useful. It's very striking how different the results are when you ask someone to explain why they are flagging something. See: moderator flag decline reasons...
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Sep 13, 2011 at 9:08
  • @Jeff: I do like the present flagging dialog a lot better then the old one. But I'm not sure what you're aiming to say with your comment - my previous comment was just a technical question: What exactly happens when I flag; will mods or 10k users see the flags, how many flags will delete a comment, do they have to be of the same reason to reach the limit for deletion, how are comment upvotes taken into account?
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Sep 22, 2011 at 8:48
  • Woah, @Shog9 do Stack.imgur files die? Never seen a 404 image that was a stack.imgur before
    – Zelda
    Commented Jun 19, 2012 at 2:14
  • @Ben: they shouldn't - I'm honestly not sure what happened here... If you check the revision history, there's a "fixed image link" entry that changes nothing.
    – Shog9
    Commented Jun 19, 2012 at 2:43

8 Answers 8

Reset to default
20

I have, just a couple of times, flagged comments as spam. I'm not sure needs to be an extra category, but its the biggest potential omission that I can see.

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  • 1
    How should this be handled now? Custom reason?
    – Palec
    Commented Jan 18, 2014 at 23:33
  • 1
    @Palec I'd say "not constructive". Custom reasons generally take longer to get reviewed.
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented May 15, 2015 at 10:37
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Personally, I'd love to see a reason for whining about down-votes... Or really, mentioning voting at all. It's common, and I don't really see that it's ever relevant to the content of the post.

Along those same lines, I assume "too chatty" is meant to cover comments that are addressed at the author of the post but don't actually concern the post... If so, how 'bout "too chatty / off-topic" for a description.

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  • 6
    Whining is a bit rude isn't it?
    – random
    Commented Jun 4, 2011 at 23:09
  • Wouldn't that fall under 'too chatty' ?
    – user50049
    Commented Jun 4, 2011 at 23:37
  • @Shog9: Since when do comments need to be about the content of the post?
    – Billy ONeal
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 1:00
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    Also, most of the time people don't understand why there post is being voted down into oblivion. Usually most people down vote and run, a comment asking why at least makes some people say why
    – TheLQ
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 1:06
  • 2
    @TheLQ: it doesn't make people do anything, and certainly not the people who've down-voted then moved on. And what's wrong with just asking, "what's wrong with my post?" if you really care?
    – Shog9 Mod
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 3:52
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    @Shog: I always assumed "Why the downvotes?" = "Whats wrong with my post?"
    – TheLQ
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 15:17
  • 2
    @thelq: I've made that mistake as well.
    – Shog9 Mod
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 15:22
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Many times newbiews are adding code or crucial data in comments instead of editing the Question.

So flag of type "Should be added to the question" might be helpful especially if when approved it will automatically add the comment to the question maybe with some explanation, as done many times by ordinary members.

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3
  • Shouldn’t editing (or suggesting an edit and waiting for its approval) along with flagging the comment as obsolete be enough?
    – Palec
    Commented Jan 18, 2014 at 23:23
  • @Palec sure, my intention here is to simplify it a bit, skipping the need to edit.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jan 18, 2014 at 23:32
  • 2
    Automatic editing is generally a bad idea, IMO. The duplicate banner originally used to be inserted by Community and was made a special thing. It had problems such as interfering with suggested edits. Manually inserting comment contents is better as it can be improved and incorporated organically. I utterly hate the questions with several EDIT sections as the information is presented in chronological not logical order.
    – Palec
    Commented Jan 19, 2014 at 1:29
9

Maybe I should open a new for this, but shouldn't the dialog open right next to the flag you clicked as opposed to centered on the screen? It feels a bit counter-productive having to drag my mouse all over there, you know ;-)

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1
  • Feature request rather than bug, but it's commonly accepted and expected that dialog boxes show up in the center of the screen, so I don't expect that such a change will be made.
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented May 15, 2015 at 10:41
8

Urgh, I realized that "not constructive" is always a major reason to flag a comment, so that's going in as well.

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    How is that not covered by existing reasons? Isn't a "not constructive" comment either "too chatty" or "rude/offensive"?
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jun 4, 2011 at 23:08
  • @anna it hews the line between "this isn't rude" and "this isn't really helping move the post forward" .. it's kind of like derailing a post with marginally related comments
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 4, 2011 at 23:13
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    @Jeff That sounds very vague/subjective. I must be misunderstanding what it's about, cause I can't think of a comment that I'd flag like that.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jun 4, 2011 at 23:58
  • Aren't all of the listed reasons "not constructive"? If you're gonna add a catch-all, might as well put it back like it was. Sounds like you're after "off-topic"...
    – Shog9 Mod
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 1:24
  • @anna well, I can: meta.math.stackexchange.com/q/1990 -- the comments in the question blockquote are neither too chatty nor overtly offensive (depending on how you look at it), but they are absolutely unconstructive.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 3:08
  • @Jeff: It's funny, once you said that the formulation of those example comments was off, and you implied that the content (at least the 2nd comment) was constructive.
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 17:32
  • @hendrik meaningless semantics, though I think offensive is not an inaccurate interpretation in that case. To be clear, I truly wasn't offended by the comments, I just saw them as a massive derailment of the topic placed in a very intentionally passive-aggressive way as a comment instead of an answer. In the long run, it's better if the folks who are more attached to the drama (or spiritual idealized concepts of perfection, pick your poison) than the content leave.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 17:44
  • @Jeff: I can't say I understand what you're saying in your comment, but in an attempt to say something constructive: Maybe put a reason like "derailment", "formulation is off" or "verbal lapses"? (I guess this is overkill; I'm really struggling for a good term here.)
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 17:53
  • 1
    @hendrik I think "not constructive" covers it, and allows me to (correctly) say that I did not find the comments offensive, and (correctly) say that the comment was ostensibly on topic. If this kind of hair splitting seems strange to you, well then I suppose you haven't spent enough time on math.se yet...
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 18:44
  • @Jeff: OK, maybe I do agree after all. If you say "not constructive", you can also mean the tone (and not the content) of the comment. (You can of course also mean both the tone and the content ...) Is this a valid interpretation of "not constructive"?
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 18:53
  • @Jeff Ah, okay. I see what you're getting at. Thanks. Follow-up question: how do you envision this kind of flag getting handled by a moderator? Deletion, edit, a comment?
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 23:22
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    @anna I envision an interminably long series of meta discussions, then a moderator resigning, then general ennui for everyone involved. But seriously! It's such an edge case that it just depends; use your judgments.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 6, 2011 at 3:48
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I haven't yet wanted to flag a comment that didn't fit neatly into one of those categories.

But, something specific for whining about accept rate might be nice.

(73, ooh, that's some flag weight. :)

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4
  • I believe chatty / off-topic should cover this case
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 4, 2011 at 23:06
  • @Jeff, that is the one I currently use :) but I for one would like to know if I'm the only one who finds those comments annoying with data :)
    – sarnold
    Commented Jun 4, 2011 at 23:07
  • those comments always get upvoted.
    – bkaid
    Commented Jun 4, 2011 at 23:21
  • I'd think complaining about accept rate would fall more under "rude" than "chatty"
    – Kip
    Commented Jun 6, 2011 at 17:30
2

I would like to see the option "is not really a comment," for those comments that should have been posted as an answer.

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  • 1
    I like the idea, but I think it'd be tough/impossible for a moderator to act on that flag.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 0:10
  • @Anna Lear I know there isn't a way to convert a comment in an answer (if I remember well); what I was thinking is for the moderators to delete the comment. I noticed that suggesting to re-write the comment as answer doesn't always have the hoped effect; as consequence, the OP gets the answer for the problem s/he is having, and ignores that question. Flagging the comment as "not a comment," and deleting it, would hopefully force who wrote the comment to write it as answer.
    – avpaderno
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 0:18
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    @kiamlaluno I strongly disagree with that. Sure, it'd be nice for the comment to be posted as an answer, but depriving the asker of helpful information for essentially aesthetic reasons sounds like a poor practice. The poster of the comment likely wouldn't even notice their comment was gone, learning nothing. And if they did notice, it'd be even harder to convince them to repost it if they have to recall what they've said. And with all that aside, sometimes someone else can come along and expand a comment into a full answer.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 0:27
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    Rather than flagging such comments that are actually answers, I think it's fair game if you step in and turn it into an proper answer yourself. If you feel uneasy about that, make it community wiki. Oftentimes solutions in comments simply occur for debugging questions (where that would be the askers duty). And sometimes the answer is just a one-liner, which some people (me) strongly oppose to ever become an answer (but too lazy to invent some fill text).
    – mario
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 0:45
  • And, exactly, what the heck is a moderator supposed to do about that? We can't convert comments to questions. Instead of flagging, just add a comment like "Hey, you should answer with that!"
    – user1228
    Commented Jun 6, 2011 at 15:24
  • @Won't Such comments don't always work. If a comment would be flagged as not being a comment, and the same user keeps to get his comments flagged because they are really answers, then moderators would know that user didn't understand when to post a comment, and when to post an answer. It's up to the moderators to decide what to do.
    – avpaderno
    Commented Jun 6, 2011 at 15:35
1

I don't like "too chatty". It sounds really childish. Why not rename it "off topic" or something similar?

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    I think "too chatty" does capture something essential there; comments are not for people's amusement, they are for adding constructive meta-commentary on the post.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 14:48
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    @JeffAtwood: I'd like to close the "Too chatty" option as subjective and argumentative
    – user1228
    Commented Jun 6, 2011 at 15:23

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