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There are a couple of chatrooms on chat.SE where strong language is considered OK. By this, I mean that room regulars may use possibly offensive language (no racial slurs, just words like f**k) and talk about possibly NSFW stuff (no pictures, just text. Jokes and the like). It's always in good humor -- there's no hostility here, just a more adult environment. I personally don't see much of a problem here; it may scare off a few users but I'm not really sure if that happens much. The main site is supposed to be professional, and its looks reflect that. Chat is supposed to be informal, and it looks informal too. I personally would be surprised to see such language on main, but not so much on chat.

Sometimes, these things get flagged. There have been multiple occasions when a user sits and looks for stuff to flag in the transcript. Not only is this annoying, but it also leads to people getting chatbanned. If strong language is allowed in chat, I'm not sure if disallowing users from flagging is the way to go here, flagging is an escape route for legit problem situations.

So, I have two questions here:

  • Should strong/NSFW language being used in good humor (not meant as an attack) be allowed in SE chat if the room regulars are fine with it? As in, should we allow a per-chatroom policy on the language being allowed? Rules against personal attacks et cetera still hold.
  • If so, should anything be done about users who go through flagging everything? By "something being done" it need not be a mod action like suspension, it could simply be something like linking the user to a policy or explaining what sort of things are allowed in the chatroom.

To be perfectly clear, I am talking about offensive/strong language used in good humor only (and not in a way that is attacking a group of people or a person in absentio). If directed towards someone, it must be as a joke where you're reasonably certain the receiving party (usually a regular) will not take offence.

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    Per chatroom. Some rooms are fine with it, others are not.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:46
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    I wonder about this, too; Especially when I see chat flags for rooms I'm not familiar with. I generally ignore them, because I wouldn't know nearly as much as someone familiar with the room.
    – Andrew Barber Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:47
  • @MartijnPieters Yeah, that's my take too.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:47
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    @MartijnPieters Not exactly, I'm trying to address the situation specifically when (a) the room is OK with it, and (b) it's all in good humor. I'm not entirely sure if that question addresses that.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:52
  • @MartijnPieters Also, the bit about flagging. That's not addressed there
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:54
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    @Manishearth: I recall a different post here on Meta, where the metaphor of walking into a random social situation was given; look around and see what's happening in that room. NSFW imagery and language is definitely out of bounds at a kids birthday party, but when among 4chan regulars you'd never be done flagging.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:13
  • @Manishearth: "all in good humour" is also context specific.
    – Martijn Pieters
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:14
  • @MartijnPieters Me too, but I don't see where a policy on flagging was made.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 19:43
  • @MartijnPieters Sure, I was basically saying "No threats or attacks". I know it's context specific, me telling one user to f*** off is not the same as me telling another user to do the same -- in the first case I may barely know the user, in the second case we may exchange banter of this kind every day.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 19:45
  • I don't really see any reasons for reopening this. @Manishearth Can you point out why this wouldn't be a dupe?
    – ɥʇǝS
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 20:18
  • @Seth If so, should anything be done about users who go through flagging everything? By "something being done" it need not be a mod action like suspension, it could simply be something like linking the user to a policy or explaining what sort of things are allowed in the chatroom.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 20:19
  • @Manishearth I recommend making your question a little clearer on those lines, but I'll give you a vote.
    – ɥʇǝS
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 20:40
  • @Seth I can change the title, not sure what more I can do. Also, the other part was to clarify about the language being in good humor (sort of covered there). Thanks anyway.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 20:44
  • A relevant Q&A from 2015 by Shog9: Toward a philosophy of Chat
    – V2Blast StaffMod
    Commented Oct 6, 2023 at 21:05

6 Answers 6

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Porn == bad.

Threats == bad.

Everything else, just grow up and deal with it. The Comms Room, for example, has people cursing each other, racist stereotype jokes, and more innuendos than a bus load of 13 year old boys at a breast augmentation convention. We all love each other and know, in context, that we mean no harm. Even the few times we've had dust-ups and disagreements on what was okay to say, we handled it directly with each other like grown up men and women and came to an amicable resolution and still send each other Christmas greetings. Seriously, I challenge anyone to find a more closely knit Stack Exchange group than the hive of scum and villainy that is The Comms Room. We're scum, but we're mature and loyal scum.

On the topic of when to flag:

You should only flag something if you know for certain that the context deems it to be offensive. Walking into Christianity.StackExchange and cursing like George Carlin drunk, stumbling barefoot through a showroom floor full of ottomans, is probably not okay. Doing the same in The Comms Room is however, okay. Sort of. Why only sort of? If you don't know the answer to that contextual question, you're not ready to flag anything. Same with any other room.

The measure of a dialog's offensiveness is not if someone could be offended, or even if you are offended, but if it is offensive to the denizens of the room in which it was said. Posting a drawing of Muhammed in Islam.StackExchange would be disrespectful and probably flagged, and rightly so (correct me if I'm wrong). Doing so in another room might not be offensive. Once a flag is raised, yes, I believe the policy is to evaluate the flag based on if the flagged item is offensive / shocking to the individual inspecting the flag even if they're in another room with a different culture. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it's what we have to work with.

Nevertheless, before a flag is even raised, the content in question needs to be evaluated in the context of where it was said and what the intent was. If you don't know enough about the room to evaluate it in proper context, then leave it alone. If you want to know if the context of the content in question is offensive, then stick around for a long time and learn. You might find that, rather than the content in question being a flaggable offense, that you simply don't fit in there.

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  • Maybe I'll show a lack of understanding here.. but why would a picture of Muhammed in the Islam chat room be considered offensive? I can understand posting that in the Christianity room would be offensive, just not the Islam one. Like I said, I could be totally missing something here.
    – ɥʇǝS
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:35
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    @Seth In some circles, showing a representation of Muhammed is blaspheme in Islamic doctrine. For more information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:36
  • @WesleyDavid Oh OK. That makes sense.
    – ɥʇǝS
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:37
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    @Undo Stop vandalizing my post.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 22:29
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    I'm not sure we're "mature" scum over in The Comms Room (any group of sysadmins left to themselves will vacillate between the maturity of a bunch of dyspeptic 50 year olds, and a bunch of 12-year-olds - with attendant humor on both sides), but we are remarkably difficult to offend. Remember, we've seen your email - nothing you can do will shock us after that.
    – voretaq7
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 22:50
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    @voretaq7 Yeahhh, about that. =) I meant "mature" in that we air our differences in generally grown-up ways, and either change or stand up for ourselves with a minimum of fallacies or "your mom" jokes.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 23:15
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    I'd also add that you probably shouldn't flag anything unless you're a regular in the room and know the norms, unless you're really, super offended. On a similar note, if you're a moderator on another site with access to the chat flag queue, and you're not a moderator on that target site and you're not a regular in that room, you shouldn't try to handle the flag, unless it's really obvious that something bad is happening, which will be indicated by the entire room going ballistic and asking the offending party to knock it off or leave.
    – jmort253
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 1:46
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    [cont'd] I've seen moderators swoop in, thinking they're saving the day, and disrupting a community by alienating its users. I was almost "that guy", lol. Hope this helps! :)
    – jmort253
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 1:48
  • It was just that one time. And there was no permanent damage to any of the furniture.
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 2:05
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    @jmort253 You sire, are most gentlemanly among scholars. Among gentleman most scholarly.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 2:07
  • @jmort253 Sometimes there is something bad happening (bullying, etc), and you can still cause a fuss, though. I usually tent to unsuspend the folks chatbanned for dropping the f-bomb (after checking context), but there are cases where there's real fighting/attacks/etc.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 5:06
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    The measure of a dialog's offensiveness is not if someone could be offended, or even if you are offended, but if it is offensive to the denizens of the room in which it was said. Couldn't have said it better myself. "Potential offence" can eff off!
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 9:13
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    Doing so in another room might not be offensive. Unfortunately you may still end up with a fatwa on your head! Islamic extremists should read this answer.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 9:14
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Some chats have a dynamic where the f-bomb is considered offensive. Others do not. This isn't a one-size-fits-all situation, so trying to make a 100+ site wide policy on it would ruffle many feathers.

If someone is offended, they should flag. If no one is offended, then no one will flag. If the people answering the flags don't find the profanity offensive, then no one will be chat banned. I'm not seeing the problem here.

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    Part of the problem comes when people who are accustomed to rooms where profanity is verboten respond to flags from rooms with more relaxed crowds.
    – Iszi
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:50
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    A policy which says "rooms are free to set their own civility rules within these bounds" is what I'm looking for.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:51
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    @Iszi that's a whole different problem. The scope of who can respond to chat flags has been brought up in other questions. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/125192/… for example
    – MDMarra
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:51
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    @MDMarra But the two are rather intertwined. Without a global understanding of the profanity policy - whether it be globally permitted or forbidden, or left up to each room to decide - there's no way we can expect anybody to properly react to a given profanity flag from another room.
    – Iszi
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:54
  • Exactly, what @Iszi said. We don't have a concrete policy on how much freedom rooms have to set their own rules, if they do have that freedom in the first place.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 17:59
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    Honestly the users should have 10k rep on the same site as the chat so flags are handled by those familiar with the environment
    – Nathan C
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:04
  • @NathanC That...doesn't work so well for smaller sites. Of course, if mods are still allowed to handle these, it could work. See also: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/123468/…
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:05
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    The problem is that flags are site-wide. They should not be. Simple as that.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 9:15
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Perhaps without intending to do so, WesleyDavid has reiterated the FCC's rules for determining the nature of a broadcast in his answer.

These rules, though written by a government agency, are actually pretty sane.
They rely on applying "contemporary community standards" - the Stack Exchange equivalent would be "Would this offend the room's regular denizens?"

Along those lines, I would suggest the following Stack Exchange rules for chat:

  • Personal attacks/threats are bad.
  • Posting anything that meets the FCC's criteria for "Obscene" or "Indecent" is bad.
  • Posting anything with the intent to offend/annoy/irritate others is bad.
  • Posting anything that meets the FCC's criteria for "Profane" should be judged by the room.
  • Don't Be A Dick.

Note that these rules get tighter on actual sites/meta sites -- for example while Server Fault has a general tolerance for cussing like a sailor in chat, it is as a rule not tolerated on the main site.

The site is your office, and the chat room is where you gather for drinks after work.

On the subject of flagging

If someone is genuinely offended by something in chat they should raise a flag.
They should also understand that their flag may be declined (either by a preponderance of 10K users on the chat system, or by a moderator). Part of being an adult is understanding that people don't always agree with you, and learning to handle that is an important life skill.

Remember that there is an Ignore this user option in chat.
If you really don't like someone and you can't muster up the maturity to ignore them on your own, let the technology do it for you.

Use of flags as a weapon is inappropriate, and frankly a nuisance.
I won't speak for anyone else but I'm in chat frequently and it annoys me when the flag counter keeps lighting up and the only discernible reason is "I don't like ThatGuy so I'm going to flag all of ThatGuy's posts". At a certain annoyance level I'm likely to give the flagger a few hours off from chat to spare them the offensive content.

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  • The trouble with leaving the decision to flag entirely up to the viewer is that their decision making will have a high probability of being wrong. If the rule is "I am genuinely offended" then we have the nonsense we see coming out of certain other rooms (on top of the "flags as a weapon" behavior). It should more accurately be "is this offensive given the group setting." Dropping F-bombs in the parenting.SE chat isn't likely to be okay (seriously, there's not one in their entire chat history). The Comms Room is more suspicious of someone who doesn't drop F-bombs. =)
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 1:02
  • Each room has their own culture, flavor, and mores. If we leave it up to "Does this genuinely offend ME." Then we bubble everyone down into a homogenized nothingness that can't cultivate any interaction among people because what is offensive in Academia isn't for Android Enthusiasts, and what is offensive for Biblical Hermeneutics isn't for Skeptics, and what is... etc. We need to maintain some level of cultural autonomy. Thus, "outsiders" to a room should avoid thinking "What offends me" and should focus more on "What is okay here." Porn and threats notwithstanding.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 1:06
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    @WesleyDavid If flags aren't for when it offends me then when are they for? That's the main reason the flagger doesn't get a ban when his flags are declined. Offensive is subjective.
    – ɥʇǝS
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 1:37
  • I think this is showing that the chat system is mostly okay, until vexatious litigants start abusing it. Which is the case for this whole thread...
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 2:14
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    By and large the system works, if people are honest about whether or not they're offended. There will be some outliers, but they are infrequent. Note that some standards of offense would effectively require scrapping the entire Stack Exchange network: For fun I searched for occurrences of the F-word on Stack Overflow, and Google said there are About 81,800 results. (There are currently 6 on the main server Fault site... I'm very proud of you all.)
    – voretaq7
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 4:16
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Basically, I believe a flag should be made, when a profanity such as f**K or any other, is directed at someone in the chatrooms, or at a specific group of people based on their race, religion etc...

On the other hand, I think it is perfectly ok to use that or any other word, when it is made to other things, like objects, or saying something like saying "fk my pc," or "java is fking horrible..." that kind of insult is honestly ok imho.

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    I think you need to understand the context of the profanity - spend any time at all in the comms room and you will see examples of all your examples but none of it is likely meant to be offensive.
    – user147520
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:20
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    Insulting java! Infidel!
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:25
  • so, "your answer is a steaming piece of sh*t" is perfectly fine, but it's not valid to respond to that with an f-bomb?
    – John Dvorak
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 18:45
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    @RichardTingle Defending Java? I challenge you to a duel sir! Pistols at dawn (...or whenever the GC finally runs)
    – voretaq7
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 22:46
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    @voretaq I'll be there! Make sure the bullets don't fall out a memory leak
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 8:19
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Chat.SE is, by necessity, a site with global moderation. This means that there must be some globally valid standards for people to uphold. This is in fact true: there is one guideline that exists, and it's:

Do I have to be nice?

Yes. We expect community members to treat each other with respect … even when they don't deserve it.

You can push the guideline, but you do so at your risk and peril — and that's a good thing. While every room is different and no two rooms are the same, it's not good to let rooms drift away too much from what can be considered acceptable in general.

For example, using the f-bomb in chat should not automatically mean a 15 minutes ban — and from what I've seen in the last two years of moderation, it normally doesn't mean that. If the problem of banning users could be Turing-solvable, it would be. The system isn't in the hands of humans to have them decide appropriateness by running regular expressions. You can try to codify your "code of conduct" in writing, but that won't stop people from forum lawyering around it and create more trouble than it's worth. This standard is too strict for the network. Summum ius, summa iniuria.

On the other hand, having rooms drift away so far in the other direction that recreationally calling each other cunts or posting pictures of ponies in bondage becomes okay is also right out. There's no reason to be using that language and there are better sites to discuss that; the intent to offend counts but let's not forget that "inappropriate" is also a valid flag reason. This standard is too loose for the network. Dura lex, sed lex.

Do I have to bring up again the rooms on chat.SO where people were shielding themselves behind a language barrier to talk behind people's backs in unkind terms? In a perspective of what feels okay and is expected in a room by its frequent chatters, there's nothing wrong there. Does that mean we should've let that continue "because the insults were good spirited"? Says who? No, it shouldn't have. Room standards only matter so much.

Comraderie only applies between comrades. Comrades don't flag comrades for friendly banter. If your comrade flags you, you've gone too far. Unfortunately, the information of "who flagged what" is only available to moderators of the site under which the room is affiliated, which imho is a little too restrictive and hinders the managing of serially awful flaggers. (I'd understand if the SE team would rather deal with that directly, but...)

Lacking this information, people reviewing this flag just have to make heads or tails of the situation on their own, applying their own standards, on a medium that by necessity strips the tone of voice you would've used, the gestuality you would've used and all other symbols necessary for people to decode your message correctly. But those tells are as unavailable to people reviewing your flag as they are to the subject of your "friendly banter." Going over the line is easy and one's gotta be careful.

There's no way around this and, for bonus points, it keeps rooms from drifting too far from what one should expect from a chatroom of the network. Anybody with 20 reputation can join any room on chat.SE and, while they're certainly expected to try and blend in with the general tone of the room, they also shouldn't leave it in disgust. Different people have different triggers and, within reason, we have to be respectful for that.

Here's a final reminder. While any one moderator can decide that any one message is offensive and deserving of a 30 minutes ban, any other moderator can also disagree and decide to unsuspend the user immediately. While "stupid flags" are things that exist, if no moderator unsuspends you for it... chances are it wasn't that stupid or undeserved anyway.

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    In other words, IRC is a thing that exists. If your room's "own culture, flavor, and mores" doesn't fit with Stack Exchange's, you don't have to use their chat service.
    – badp
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 1:16
  • Why is it "by necessity" that chat moderation be global? 1. to make sure that all rooms' behavioural standards are only so many deviations apart from each other 2. because most rooms or sites don't have thirty eyeballs on chat at any one time to do all of the flagging on their own
    – badp
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 1:19
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    How would I, as a moderator, know that someone had even gotten such a suspension?
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 1:57
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    "Comrades don't flag comrades for friendly banter. If your comrade flags you, you've gone too far." Very true. The trouble is that a very, very small number of non-comrades have come in to certain places and been sending up litigious flags that just happen to have an F-word here or there. (Ask The Bridge about GnomeSlice. Or a few other places about a person whose initials are "E.C.") Flags for things that have not been flagged in more than four years. In fact, this topic would not even have been made if it were not for one particular, very new, and vexatious person.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 2:06
  • @MichaelHampton The usual method is out-of-band contact (e.g. when people in SF chat get temp-bans they usually have a good natured whine about it on Twitter). (Of course for my part as a moderator I usually just laugh, let them wait until the ban expires, and then make fun of them for it when they sign back in to chat. That requires fewer steps than finding their chat user and un-banning them, and as a sysadmin I'm lazy by default.)
    – voretaq7
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 4:20
  • @voretaq7 Clearly I'm even lazier than you, because I don't feel any urge to use Twitter.
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 4:21
  • @MichaelHampton Check their chat profile. It's listed (for kicks you can try to chat suspend a volunteer and then unsuspend if you haven't seen this yet)
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 4:37
  • @Manishearth Whose chat profile? The whole point is, unless I happened to see the flagged message and have a suspicion that it was validated, I wouldn't have any way of knowing who might have been suspended. There is no chat flag history that I'm aware of.
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 5:04
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    @MichaelHampton Oh ah, no. Usually the regulars find out -- all of a sudden it's like "Where's Wesley? THEY KILLED WESLEY!!11" (no offence meant to Wesley or cats around the world). Someone's talking and suddenly .. stops talking. Usually someone notices and then it's easy to verify.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 5:08
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    People notice when I'm gone. And rejoice.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 5:09
  • @MichaelHampton You simply review the flag while it's live, then the flag vanishes on its own. You look at the author and he's suspended.
    – badp
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 9:17
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    @WesleyDavid ...I'm afraid the specific case (person or group of people that starts a barrage of stupid flags until something sticks) falls under a very different problem category than "but it's fine for our room", and a problem category that does need some work by the team.
    – badp
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 9:24
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    " You simply review the flag while it's live, then the flag vanishes on its own. You look at the author and he's suspended." This isn't part of the main thrust of the Q/A, but might be something to take note of for a future meta discussion. A person has a 5 to 20 second window to see an active flag, and if someone gets suspended and you weren't there for that few second window, you then have no reason to suspect that there might be a user suspended to even check them for a suspension. This happened in real life a few days ago:
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 19:34
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    Someone got suspended based on a litigious flag that was erroneously agreed upon by outsiders to the chat room. The person got banned, and no one knew. They came back 30 minutes later and then we found out, but there is no queue or list of banned members to check and see if anyone is in need of an unbanning. But again, it's not the point of this thread, I know.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 19:35
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    AH MAH GAD COMMENT OVERFLOW
    – badp
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 19:43
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Adding to Wesley's excellent answer, if flags were room-specific, then you wouldn't get one misled sap flagging the f-word in, say, The C++ Lounge, and thereby inviting 20 people from some non-swearing room to approve it and get the original poster a 30 minute chat ban. Such a ban would be completely undeserved because the language is okay there, and thus the flag was extraneous... but those 20 people to whom the flag was noisily advertised in their chat UI don't know that.

In short, if we're going to allow per-chat "policy" of sorts (and we do/must), these site-wide flags have to go.

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    Using the f-word should not be enough to get suspended period.
    – badp
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 9:25
  • Can't believe I got only downvotes for this completely obvious suggestion.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 9:49
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    I've seen many a temp ban put on people for exactly this reason. They say something completely within the realms of normal for a certain room, and some smart ass comes along, flags it and then the OP get's banned. It's a <-------> joke. ¬_¬ Take a guess what word I left out.
    – thecoshman
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 9:57
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    @thecoshman: "blooming"?
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 10:00
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit because it's a very toxic idea. It allows rooms to weaponize flags into tools of removal of any person they don't like basically without peer review, or shall we call it, supervision.
    – badp
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 10:33
  • @badp'skitten: Eh, that can happen already even if the flags are chat-wide. You just need 6 people in one room that agree on the flag, and they can act pretty quick if they want.
    – Xeo
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 10:35
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    @Xeo which is why it's so critical that flags get as many eyeballs as fast as possible.
    – badp
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 10:35
  • @Xeo With chat wide flags, mods still notice and provide oversight in the case of an erroneous suspension. For that matter, other 10k users give oversight too.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 10:36
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    This is why I hate going to chat sometimes.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn Mod
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 10:39
  • @badp'skitten: Ah, finally! Rationale! It's a good one, too, I must admit. The problem is... the flags system is already being abused, so the supervision is ineffective.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 12:49
  • "Using the f-word should not be enough to get suspended period." Unfortunately, it is, if a flag is used as a weapon and then members of other, more conservative room validate it based on their own culture and preferences.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 19:39
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    @badp'skitten "which is why it's so critical that flags get as many eyeballs as fast as possible." No, flags do not need as many eyes as possible. Flags need as many good eyes as possible. Eyes outside of a room are not good eyes as they have very little basis for judging what is okay or not okay. I have no idea why some people flag things in other rooms. I'm not a good eye for why a critique of a science paper was flagged in "Mathematics" so I just ignore it. What good am I? Maybe it really is flaggable for that room. I have no idea - it's their problem. They alone should deal with it.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 19:43
  • 2
    @Manishearth "With chat wide flags, mods still notice and provide oversight in the case of an erroneous suspension. For that matter, other 10k users give oversight too." I have never seen an erroneous ban be rectified as a result of chat-wide flags. There's no way to know someone got banned as a result of it. The trail of evidence to lead one to know who got banned is so thin, so convoluted, requires so many steps and coincidences, that it's not practical.
    – Wesley
    Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 19:44
  • 2
    @WesleyDavid FWIW I'd like better handling of chat moderation overall. More report pages for mods showing recent flags, recently banned users, etc and better chat flag escalation.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jul 17, 2013 at 17:53
  • 1
    Flapjacks. If you need to ask...
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Dec 13, 2013 at 6:27

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