Opt-Out for chat flags [duplicate]

Question

Today, we had a user in the PHP chat bug people by repeatedly asking the same question. The user would ping individuals with the same message. I've asked the user to please stop bugging people and moved the messages to bin (message trashcan).

Unfortunately, the OP continued, so I started to flag his messages (about 5). I deliberately flagged all those to give those able to moderate the chance to have some sense of context about whats happening. Then the OP started to accuse us of being unhelpful. We explained once more what we think of his behavior. He started to flag some of our messages in turn.

Shortly afterwards, someone from the C++ chat comes in and complains about the flagging and a new argument started. Since this is not about pointing fingers or who said what to whom in what channel and to what effect, I'll just give you the quintessence:

Every time you guys flag something, all 10k+ users across the whole chat are asked to validate a flag given only a context free message and a link to the chat. That is terribly annoying. […] That button popping up irks me to no end. It's like a phone ringing, I cannot concentrate on anything else, and just have to pick it up.

Regardless of whether you agree with this or not, here is my suggestion:

Since there has been complaints about how the flagging system works in the past, I think we should add an opt-out for those not wanting to participate in chat moderation (or improve the process in some other way). If people simply mass-(in)validate just to get rid of the flags, the tool is ineffective. I'd rather have those willing to participate handle flags with care instead.

Answer 1

If there is a pattern of misbehaviour from a user, you don't need to flag every single message, use one moderator flag and explain that the user is bothering random users with the same question. This will get a moderator involved who can first explain the user that he shouldn't continue this behaviour, and if that doesn't help he can simply suspend the user from chat.

The additional problem with spam/offensive flags is that they are shown out of context and contain no further explanation. I can imagine your flags looking completely innocent when viewed without context.

Dealing with troublesome user behaviour is not something for 10k users, they don't have the tools for that. A moderator can deal with that far more efficiently, so don't hesitate to call one in such situations. Generally, moderation from community members works on a per-post level, for anything that needs to be done on a per-user level you should involve a diamond moderator.

I agree that the flagging system is problematic, the flags are shown to far more users than necessary. I'd rather fix that than work around it by adding a preference to ignore chat flags.