19

I flagged a post yesterday as a duplicated question and now its status is set to eventinvalidated. I can see this in my Flagging History section.

I'm not sure I understand what it means since the post is still there and has not been deleted. It's the first time I have seen this status.

Could someone enlighten me about that?

enter image description here

Improve this question
0

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
14

The flag was invalidated, but not declined, it doesn't count against you. This particular flag result reason exists because:

  • All flags are kept in the system, even ones that are impossible to resolve or act upon (we don't hard delete much of anything here)
  • The system needs to be able to resolve them when impossible scenarios (like the target duplicate being deleted) happen.

If this weren't the case, we'd have the following options:

  1. Automatically mark the flag as helpful (bad, as many flags aren't helpful)
  2. Just delete the flag (bad, as people would wonder where their flag went)
  3. Nullify the flag like this, in a way that doesn't count for or against you

It's not anything you need to worry about. It's just a plug that fills a gap when a scenario sets up that makes your flag impossible to resolve as helpful or unhelpful. The flag is in its final state - it's not lingering, it's fully resolved. We should make this more obvious on the flag summary.

The reason has since been modified to say "removed during a deletion" instead of "eventinvalidated" to make this more clear.

Improve this answer
5
  • 1
    Also, is such a flag counted as "disputed"? If not then which of the counters?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 11:11
  • 1
    @ShaWizDowArd No - It's just nullified. It's in the system to remain in your history but is neither helpful, disputed, or unhelpful (declined), those are three totally different resolution types in the DB. Think of it like garbage collection (not to imply the flag was garbage, more the principle).
    – user50049
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 11:14
  • Fair enough, just nitpicking now - why not add "X invalidated" below "moderator attention flags", same way there is count for everything else? :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 11:20
  • 3
    @ShaWizDowArd because that isn't nearly cryptic enough and I value my job security.
    – user50049
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 11:21
  • 1
    Thank you very much for that clarification. Correct me if I am wrong but I think I have now understood why I can also see on my flag history page *older flags were not recorded helpful/declined
    – Chris
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 12:22

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .