Let's talk about the report button.

[M.J.]

Hey folks,

Let's talk about this guy:



That's the report button and it lives on the top of every post of this forum, right next to the quote button. Most people have gotten to know the quote button by now,

Hi! I like to talk a lot! Hi!

But we thought that the report button might need a leg up as it were, and a proper introduction to the community.

What does the report button do?

When you click the report button above a post it takes you to a window that looks like this:



When you type a message into the text box and hit ”submit” a report is sent that can be accessed by all mods and admin. They see the message you typed and which post you made the report about. Unlike PM:ing a specific mod or admin, who may or may not be online at the same time as you, using the report button ensures that whatever issue you are reporting gets seen by the moderation team as soon as possible.

So when should I use the report button? I don't want to make a big deal out of nothing.

The report button can feel a bit intimidating or scary. No other user can see if you've reported one of their posts, and reporting someone's post will not lead to any automated negative forum effects like the post being deleted, the poster getting auto-banned or anything like that. The report button does one thing and one thing only: It sends a flag for attention for the mod team and we look at each report individually.

The mod team is an active bunch and we together try and read everything that goes on in here but even if we read everything we can miss things. We are not immune to our own prejudices or slip-ups and there are going to be issues that are sensitive that we are simply not aware of sometimes.

This is why we need your help to make this forum as good as it can be.

Okay, so what should I report?

You should feel free to report anything you think is a problem – we’re happy to fix minor issues and take bigger problems very seriously. If you ever feel like writing in a post "if a mod sees this could you X?" it's a good idea to use the report button. Even if you think someone else has probably reported it, please do press the button! Knowing something is bothering more than one user is valuable information for us to have. Some examples of things you should report are:

Forgetting to put trigger warnings on a post and running out of time
A post contains private information, like an email address
Use of slurs, or problematic language
Posters behaving badly to one another

What should reports look like?

When you make a report, please try and be as specific as you can manage. Sometimes it's hard to put a finger on what it is, that's okay, but clarity helps a lot in moving forward with an issue.

So, for example "I'm worried about this post" is a bit unclear but, "This user is being very aggressive, I'm worried it's going to end badly" gives more information.

Or, "this post lacks tw-triggers" can be made clearer by saying "This post lacks trigger warning for racism. Especially the thing they said about X."

And so on.

What happens when you make a report?

We won’t tell anyone outside of the moderating team you’ve made a report unless we absolutely have to. In fact, we won’t even say something has been reported unless it becomes completely necessary to do so.

We get a notification that a report has been made and then decide what to do with it. If it’s a simple ‘please put this behind a trigger warning’, a single mod generally does that and then closes the report. You can ask to get a notification on closure when you make your report.

If it’s something more complex, we discuss it in moderator forums, and work out what our team response will be. This can take some time! We’re all very busy, and generally we like to have a decent number of people make the decision on what to do. Sometimes, we’ll lock a thread while we have this conversation, but often we won’t. Rest assured that even if you can’t see anything happening, we are definitely keeping an eye on it.

When we’ve made a decision, we try to let the original reporter know, by PM, what we decided to do. We then close the report.

EDIT: One user cannot report the same post multiple times. We currently do not have a solution for that (if you know a technical or non-technical idea that you think helps, please post and let us know). If you feel the need to report something again, the best bet is currently to PM one of the mod or admin that has been active in that thread. If none has been you can PM any mod you feel comfortable contacting.

Someone else probably already reported this...

If you see something and find yourself thinking something like this, please report it anyway. If no one else has, you are bringing something unnoticed to our attention! And even if others have, the more reports we receive, the more important we know a particular issue is to the community. Your opinions and thoughts and feelings are important and valid.

Can I report a moderator/admin?

Yes, absolutely. We are not perfect and we make mistakes. If you see something we hope you will feel comfortable bringing it to our attention.

None of the categories fit what I need to report?

In this case, use the option "This reported message does not fit any other category". Admin can and are willing to add more categories for reports (we recently added "ablism" and "sexism" as an example) so do let us know if you feel a particular category is missing.

In closing,

Please, please use the report function. The mod team works pretty hard – we all have other jobs, relationships and commitments, and sadly we can’t be everywhere! Using the report button makes it far easier for us to keep this space as safe, welcoming and fun. You can use reports for problems big and small - we’re more than happy to fix trigger warnings for you as well as handle more contentious issues – simply press the lovely red exclamation mark to summon us!

If you have any questions about how reports work or anything related to reporting things, please use this space to ask questions and we will do our best to answer them

- Quisty and the FOCA Team

[solecism]

Quisty, thank you for posting this handy tutorial on a feature of the forums that I am unfamiliar with. I'm still having problems with the quote feature working properly for me.

Questions:
I am not particularly timely in my reading quite often, checking back with threads later, etc. What should I do if I notice something, but it's been days or weeks since it was originally posted? Is there some sort of expiration date, say, like an informal statute of limitations? I know that CA eventually instituted a 30 day comment period.

Or let's say that I suspect a pattern and explore the forum to find evidence one way or the other and find multiple related instances that to my mind confirm that pattern that I'd like to report? Should I report each instance of a pattern, or just one with pointers to other similar instances?

[CodaSammy]

Hi solecism, thanks for reading! Good questions. There's no time limit: if something bothers you, reading 3 months later, it's likely to bother others who are also catching up on old threads. So, report it and we'll deal with it :)

As for a pattern, erm, either of those says would work, I think? Use your judgement. Links to the other posts would help if you're only reporting one, and if that's too difficult then feel free to report them all - you can put an explanation in one and "see first report" in all the others, maybe. It's not something that's come up before, so you can trailblaze!

[M.J.]

Re the second instance, you can also include links to other instances in one report. Reports don't format URL, I think. But as I recall there is no word limit either, so you could just paste the links directly.

[liyyspoon]

Hey thanks for this explanation - I now feel much more confident about using the Report button should I need to :)

[CodaSammy]

Solecism, if you're struggling with the quote button, feel free to practise in the "Trouble posting anything? You're not alone" thread in Support Groups. It's absolutely fine to use that thread as a space to mess around with and learn the functions.

On that note, if anyone wants to try reporting something so they know how it works, I made a post in that thread here specifically for reporting. If you're nervous about what happens, feel free to report that post. The mods will just close the report, and it won't irritate us, but you'll get to see what happens when you click it and what the notification of closure looks like.

[solecism]

Solecism, if you're struggling with the quote button, feel free to practise in the "Trouble posting anything? You're not alone" thread in Support Groups. It's absolutely fine to use that thread as a space to mess around with and learn the functions.

Thanks for the suggestion. I definitely appreciate the testing area for figuring out the forum. I can see the code now and thus why my posts earlier today didn't provide attributions. Good to know.