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The Community user flags some posts with Low Answer Quality Score flag. There are several options to handle such flags:

  • Approve (with comment)
  • Reject (with comment)
  • Resolve flags automatically (no comment needed)

* image was autotranslated from Russian to English

Is there a situation when it's not a good idea to "resolve flags automatically"?

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Don't use it if you don't want all flags on that post marked helpful and nothing else.

The original text for that button is "Resolve all flags (auto)" and has the tooltip "dismiss any moderator / spam / rude or abusive flags on this post". If you click on the button, then all flags on the post will be marked as helpful, the entry in the flag dashboard will be removed, and nothing else will happen to the post. If you don't want all the flags on the post marked helpful, then don't click that button. It's reasonable to click that button after you've investigated the flag, decided the flag was valid, and already done everything about it that you're going to do.

Presumably, that button is only shown when the only flags on the post are ones which were automatically raised by the Community User. In other conditions, that button is "Resolve all flags ▼". Clicking the "Resolve all flags ▼" button will open a popup that allows you to mark all either helpful or declined.

It's unclear if SE is collecting any statistics as to the validity and/or usefulness of the automatic flags. However, if you always dismiss them as "helpful", then there's no possibility of having statistics as to if that autoflag was useful. Thus, I usually mark post autoflags helpful when it was reasonable for moderators to look at the situation and declined when it was a waste of moderator time for the automatic flag to be raised. For comment autoflags, as with all comment flags, the only ways to mark the flag helpful is to delete or edit the comment (even a null-edit), so those are handled based on the action to be taken on the flag (and the button you're asking about isn't present).

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  • In the past, marking these flags as helpful would make the Community user cast a downvote. This has since been removed. Commented Nov 19, 2023 at 5:38
  • Sorry, maybe my question was not clear enough, I'm actually was asking about only Community flags, that you pointed out in part "when the only flags on the post are ones which were automatically raised by the Community User". Since we don't know about feedback/statistics on such flag processing, it seems that only "resolve all flags (auto)" allows us to spend less time to handle flags without any drawback. Commented Nov 19, 2023 at 8:46
  • @Sonic could you please share links about that behavior? Commented Nov 19, 2023 at 9:42
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    @αλεχολυτ meta.stackexchange.com/a/330415/377214; also used to apply to questions (until that was removed prior to being removed for answers): meta.stackexchange.com/a/311037/377214 Commented Nov 19, 2023 at 14:57

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