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In the past, it was mentioned that the queue for moderator flags was being spruced up to prioritize the flags most likely to be actionable. I originally figured that the flag weight system was the culmination of this plan. But it turns out that this isn't really the case.

What impacts the priority other than flag weight? We have two flags on Gaming at this moment, one coming from Community who has 500 flag weight, and one coming from a user with 120 flag weight. For one reason or another, the latter flag is displayed at the very top, while Community's flag is 3rd (after a comment flag whose source cannot be determined).

I don't particularly mind in this instance, because Community is incapable of being disciplined and it happens to be wrong in this case. But people are expecting that "high flag weight means high priority", so knowing what impacts it to be very much otherwise would be nice.

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    Do they Welbog in the flag? How much are they Welbogging? Are they Welbog enough?
    – random Mod
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 19:44
  • @random No, you're the only one fancy enough on Gaming to pull those kinds of flags.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 19:45
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    Newer flags are weighted a little higher, are they not?
    – mmyers Mod
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 20:05
  • @mmyers - checking code; I honestly can't remember...
    – Marc Gravell
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 20:52

2 Answers 2

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On the dashboard, it does say:

Start at the top. This list is ordered by a combination of number (and type) of issues, the reputation of the user who posted, and the flag history and reputation of the flagging user.

To clarify:

  • The order is based on the sum of weights - so multiple flags on a post will jump it higher and higher
  • Your individual flag-weight gets a boost when flagging a low-rep user (is the higher post by a new user?)
  • The different types of flags get different inbuilt priorities; flagged-comments start lower than moderator-messages, for example
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  • Account-wise, no. Activity-wise, the user is very new, but this is an associated account so I don't know how that figures in. But I think that second bullet point can probably explain why only one of the 185 flags was higher than the 120. None of these were multi-flags, but the lower 185 was on a deleted user.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 20:53
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According to Marc's comment here, the Community user's displayed flag weight isn't used. It has a built-in constant weight used for ordering (I suspect this value is 100). So, I think this may be just a bad data point, and that flag weight is all that's used for the priority.

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    This does account for Community, but I did get a new data point. We got 2 more flags from a user who (had) 185 flag weight. They appeared one above the 120 user, and one below the 120 user. So something else may be at play, nonetheless.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 20:03

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