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For example, this question was initially posted with horrible formatting, and I mis-read the question. Thinking it was asking something different, I flagged as belonging on superuser.com.

When I realized my mistake, I felt it would be nice to remove the flag and reduce the moderators' queue. Since this feature does not exist, should a delete flag option be added to the user Flagging History page?

Without nit-picking over the exact text, I propose something similar to:

enter image description here

This option would of course only appear next to flags that have not been evaluated by a moderator.

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    This would be useful for misclicks and adding extra information to flags (e.g. you flag NAA and then discover that all of the answers from this user are NAA 2 minutes later, but you can't flag the post you already flagged as "other" whilst you have a pending flag. You can raise a second flag on one of their other answers, but then the original NAA flag is superfluous)
    – Flexo - Save the data dump
    Commented Oct 22, 2011 at 22:47
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    Was looking for this myself; placed a flag, but OP added additional information that made the flag invalid. The flag hasn't been reviewed yet, so I wanted to revoke it.
    – thaJeztah
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 9:55

3 Answers 3

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I think that this topic really needs to be revisited and considered - even if it were only added for users with a higher privilege or certain flagging weight. That, or possibly the addition of a new flag-status such as no longer applicable (instead of declined).

Misreading a question or answer, misclicking buttons (odd, but I can't rule that out), or flagging a blatantly wrong answer as "not an answer" and 30 seconds after it's flagged the poster updates it to have just enough date to make it relevant - these are all things that happen way more often than not and there they all count against you (if they're marked as declined).

To add a supporting question to your question - specifically regarding my last note, flagging a wrong answer (which is normally someone's attempt to be "first post", or someone who doesn't have the comment privilege yet): Why on earth can't we revoke a flag on an answer if it's been updated after we've flagged it?

For example, just yesterday I flagged an answer that was very obviously a question asking the OP for more information. Flagged as "not an answer", as it should have been. About 2 minutes later, the answer was updated with another question, but had a small block of code in it that was relevant to the OP's question - but still didn't answer the question. I looked and my flag was still there and I had no way to remove it. As assumed, it was declined. I followed the answer for this question and posted a second flag marked as other with an explanation that the answer was edited after my flag - hoping the moderator would balance out my score and mark my second flag as helpful - it was declined. So, now I have two declineed flags for the same answer =[

Again, I 100% agree that there needs to be more control over the flags that we post. I would be in support for the ability to revoke/delete a flag before it's been reviewed by a moderator, or even the logic to apply flag not applicable if the question/answer has been updated since it was flagged.

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I personally am using my iPad/iPhone (in the non-mobile-site view) about 75% of the time that I am on a SE site and therefore misclicks are frequent. I often click close/flag just to see certain info like which questons are the target of a duplicate flag (I believe the FAQ even suggests that you view close reasons in this manner). I often fat-finger my iPad/iPhone which has resulted in accidentally flagging 1 or 2 posts. Please implement this feature (but of course only for flags that are still "Waiting for review")!

This would also be useful for posts like this: Download a file part by part in Python 3 which I flagged for indicating it should be a comment, but then the answer was edited to include actual content, invalidating my flag (in my opinion) but the flag is still waiting to be reviewed and I cant "revoke" the flag.

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I also support this feature. I have been active for only a relatively short while on this site, but already ran into the situation 3 times where I correctly flagged a question, and then wanted to revoke it later because the TS updated his post with relevant information. Specifically for this question now - it was originally posted as a two-liner, just more or less saying "I've tried to create A and B, but I couldn't do it. How do I do it?". I flagged it, and then 10 minutes later the topic starter adds all his code, with inline comments explaining it. As it became a valid question now, I'd like to revoke the flag, instead of having to wait until the flag is declined and my flag weight thus decreased.

I propose the following features be implemented:

  1. Always allow revoking a flag within 5 minutes of placing it, to prevent misclicks or allow to correct for interpretation errors.
  2. Give flaggers the permanent right to revoke a flag after the question was edited, by anyone.
  3. Consider giving a notification when a previously flagged post was edited (at least by the topic starter).
  4. If a flag was declined after the post was edited after the flag was placed, do not impose a flag weight penalty.

In situation 2 you could consider having it marked as 'no longer applicable' instead, for historic purposes but no longer causing moderation penalties.

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