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Moderator flags can be dismissed as aged away.

  • What does this dismiss reason mean?
  • What causes flags to be dismissed with this reason?
  • Do aged away flags affect my daily flag amount?
  • Can I cast a flag again if it gets marked aged away?

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What does this dismiss reason mean?

Certain moderator flags are invalidated by age. This prevents flags from accruing over time and allowing actions that the greater community in general doesn't want.

When a flag is aged like this, you see "aged away" for the flag reason (previously, it was "scheduledtaskinvalidated").

What causes flags to be dismissed with this reason?

The checks are performed once a day. The rules have changed over time, but currently they are:

"Harassment, bigotry, or abuse" flags on comments

After 4 days.

Recommend closure flags on questions

These follow the normal rules for close vote aging:

  • For flags to migrate a question: when the question becomes ineligible for migration, which is when the question is 60 days old

  • The oldest recommend closure flag, once per day, at the following times:

    • 4 days after the last close vote if the question has 100+ views
    • 14 days after the last close vote if the question has fewer than 100 views

Note: If a flag gets invalidated in close vote review by three "leave open" reviews, it will be marked declined instead.

Do aged away flags affect my daily flag amount?

No. Aged away flags do not count positively or negatively toward your total count of net helpful flags for the purposes of your daily flag limit, and are not counted when calculating the percentage of flags handled in the last seven days for flag bans.

Can I cast a flag again if it gets marked aged away?

In the case of spam and abuse flags on posts and comments, no.

In the case of recommend closure flags, yes, if it's been more than 14 days after your previous flag got marked aged away. (Exception: if you cast your flag before the status of aged close votes and close flags began to be tracked sometime in 2012, you will not be able to recast your flag. Source)

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  • 6
    What about flags for duplicate questions?
    – StayOnTarget
    Jan 29, 2018 at 16:52
  • 14
    Your answer was helpful, but I disagree with the concept. "This prevents flags from accruing over time and allowing actions that the greater community in general doesn't want." So instead, flaggers have to duplicate their own efforts by flagging again? This doesn't sound like a sensible trade-off.
    – user136089
    Jul 27, 2018 at 18:29
  • How avoid aged away flags?
    – Smart Manoj
    Jun 24, 2019 at 9:29
  • @sampablokuper Note that several years ago, recommend closure flags never aged away, and would stay pending forever until it was eventually handled. This created a problem on Stack Overflow, as it was a major contributor to the close queue peaking at 100,000+ pending tasks. The aging away process removes tasks from the queue to keep the queue size down; while some of those flags will inevitably end up recast, that'll only be a small percentage of tasks staying pending, as opposed to 100% with the older system.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Feb 28, 2020 at 17:45
  • What about flags for moderator attention? // cc @SonictheMaskedWerehog
    – Qwertiy
    Jul 16, 2020 at 20:13
  • 1
    @Qwertiy Those don't age away.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Jul 16, 2020 at 21:00
  • 1
    @SonictheAnonymousHedgehog Would you happen to know whether NAA/VLQ flags can age away?
    – The Amplitwist
    Oct 9, 2021 at 10:58

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