5

I flagged this comment as 'Not Constructive' but it was declined.

  • Was it wrong to flag it?
  • Is this a constructive comment?
  • Should I "relax" and understand that heavily upvoted and humorous content is welcome and is not vulnerable for deletion?

I'm being totally serious. I want to flag material that should be flagged. I don't want to create noise for the moderators.

I feel like I've encountered this special exception before, so I'd like to understand what I'm missing.

EDIT: I'm not against having a little fun. Stackoverflow veterans know that there is a lot of humorous content on the site. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I've upvoted some of this humorous content myself. I just want to know where we're drawing the line.

EDIT 2: Also, I suppose that I should consider that some content (and humor) ages better than other content. Moderation norms, standards, and enforcement change and evolve too. Perhaps I need to evaluate this comment in the context of the time that it was posted, which was four years ago when Stackoverlow was much younger.

Improve this question
5
  • 4
    Meta is a little more informal that the main sites. Also there was a picture of a rabbit with a pancake on its head so.....
    – Richard Tingle
    Oct 3, 2013 at 6:32
  • 3
    Yeah. Plus you can't flag a mod ;) Seriously though, you would have to remove every comment under it too - you are setting a precedent.
    – Josh Crozier
    Oct 3, 2013 at 6:33
  • 2
    @JoshC: Right - And I'm not trying to change norms here or establish a new precedent. I'm simply trying to understand and comply with existing norms so that I know which content should be flagged.
    – Jim G.
    Oct 3, 2013 at 6:50
  • 2
    You really want to clean the thousands upon thousands of "fun comments", not to mention posts, on Meta? Good luck with that.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Oct 3, 2013 at 6:59
  • 2
    @ShaWizDowArd: Two things: 1) I won't resist flagging an item simply because it's old. 2) Please read my comment. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/199302/…
    – Jim G.
    Oct 3, 2013 at 7:06

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
12

It was a comment about a post. There is a bunny with a pancake in the answer, so it was on-topic comment. To emphasise agreement with one of the post's points is constructive.

And meta is a bit more crazy than main site. Smile and go on.

Answer itself is mostly serious, and comments are second class citizens, so it's probably only for the better they were used to blow some steam off and lower the mind-pressure :)

Improve this answer
2
  • Thanks, man. I can totally appreciate your reasoning. And I think the my question may be rooted in the fact that some moderators more aggressively clean up comments than others. I guess I was just wondering if they were all informed by a Jeff Atwood blog post that established the original guidelines for this kind of moderation.
    – Jim G.
    Oct 3, 2013 at 6:48
  • 4
    May be putting such comment on this answer will be removed. :P
    – Himanshu
    Oct 3, 2013 at 6:50

You must log in to answer this question.

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