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Because I have 40.3K rep across all Stack Exchange sites, I get that blue orb above my avatar whenever someone flags something in chat, with the options to validate or invalidate a chat flag.

I don't want that pressure. I don't have the social capabilities to judge whether a flag is valid or not, especially in those cases where there is no clear violation of chat rules. Something like curses or offensive language I can just about judge that it's a valid flag. But more often than not, I simply cannot personally judge whether the flag is valid or invalid, and I feel like it's a waste of a potential flag judging to let me judge them. Especially considering the "Not sure" option actually is closer to "a little bit invalid" than it is to "don't ask me".

On top of that, there is the issue of emotional instability. Due to the inherent nature of a feature used to moderate offensive messages, nearly every message which appears in a blue orb is offensive content. People who use offensive language, or who voice racist or sexist opinions, or showcase political extremism.

I don't want to see stuff like that. The world right now is going through some rough patches, with terrorism, political extremism and highly flammable rhetoric from many sides. I'm already emotionally much more susceptible to bad news, and my happy/sad scale rarely measures above the neutral level. I'm not depressed, mind you, but I'm not happy either. I use the Bridge, the chat room I am a regular of, as a sort-of refuge from the worst of what's happening out there.

Having those offensive messages from the flags appear on my screen on a regular level confronts me with the negative sides of the world, and it moves my scale closer to the sad level. I fear that too much of that negative stuff will make me sad, and eventually depressed. I obviously don't want that.

Is there a way that I can say "stop giving me flag requests, because I can't handle them, both in the "I don't know what to do with them" and the "they're too much for me to handle mentally" senses"?

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marked as duplicate by Mithrandir, Cai, Taryn♦ Sep 27 '17 at 15:14

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    And just ignoring it isn't an option? – Taryn♦ Sep 27 '17 at 15:01
  • Write a userscript to remove the blue thingy and you are done. – Patrick Hofman Sep 27 '17 at 15:05
  • @bluefeet nope. That orb does not go away until i click it. It bothers me. In fact, I am even willing to abuse the validation mechanism until the system says “this guy is incompetent, let’s not have him handle chat flags anymore. “ that is how much it bothers me. – Nzall Sep 27 '17 at 15:12
  • @PatrickHofman do you have a userscript i can use that does that? I also don’t think that asking users to solve a defect in the product they are using is the best option. – Nzall Sep 27 '17 at 15:14
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    It is not a defect. – Patrick Hofman Sep 27 '17 at 15:29
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    @Nzall Abusing the mechanism enough to annoy someone to stop you is going to result in you getting the whole account suspended, not just having that one privilege revoked. – Servy Sep 27 '17 at 16:53
  • @Servy That was pretty much hyperbole, although if a ban of a certain length would forever make me unfit for moderation purposes, including those from reputation gains, I'd be begging for that ban in an instant, as long as the ban itself is not permanent. – Nzall Sep 27 '17 at 20:08

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