When & How to Use the Report Button

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Vauthil

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Jul 29, 2019
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When & How to Use the Report Button

Hi folks!

The "Report" button is a valuable tool for allowing moderators to target and deal with posts that require our attention. While we do make a best effort to keep on top of posts as they come along, sometimes these things can be missed; the Report button is the way you, members of the community, can help us out in making sure things don't fall between the cracks.

When to use the Report button:
  • When a post clearly violates the Forum Rules (http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/pages/rules/).
  • When a thread is clearly in the wrong forum and needs to be shuffled over to the correct forum (e.g. discussions of Mods should go in Mod Discussion).
Perhaps more importantly, when not to use the Report button (i.e. you may actually get warnings yourself if you do these things repeatedly):

  • When somebody disagrees with your view on the topic (we aren't the Point-of-view Police, and if they aren't violating the rules it isn't something we will address).
  • When somebody has made a typo (we aren't the Spelling Police either).
  • When you feel like sending a goofy message to the moderators (we have senses of humor, but we also have posts to get through).
  • When you've already sent a report and you just want to "make sure" (we got it, see below on what happens with these as to why you may have heard nothing back).
How to use the Report button:

At the bottom of the post you want to report should be the word "Report". Click that and a window should pop up to report that post with a "Report reason" dialogue box. If you are reporting a rule violation, please specify the rule broken. If this is a request for thread movement, specify where you think it should go. Then click "Report Post". Done!

What happens now?:
The report is filed in a nice central place where all moderators for that forum can see it. When a moderator is free to deal with the report, they'll take a look at your report and read it and act on it. You probably will hear nothing back on this count. This doesn't mean was rejected or ignored; sometimes our action does consist of deleting offending posts outright, but other times we may simply edit offending language, provide a private warning to the offending party, or even just drop into the thread and say "Hi, we're watching this now" as a general notice to folks to be on their best behavior. How we choose to handle these issues is determined on a case-by-case basis and is at our discretion. Please do not issue follow-up reports demanding a response.

So all you need to do now is sit back and bask in the glow of helping us out. You deserve it.
 

Vauthil

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Jul 29, 2019
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What? Do people actually do that?

Man I must have a ton of reports on me then. I feel for you guys having to wade through stuff like that.
It's not an endemic issue but it has happened.

Part of why I wrote this up is in trying to strike a balance between "we really like good reports because they make life so much easier" (and they do) and "we really dislike frivolous reports because they're silly". Report should be the first resort for things breaking the forum rules and the neverth resort for things like what's on that short list. =)
 

SpitefulFox

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What? Do people actually do that?

Man I must have a ton of reports on me then. I feel for you guys having to wade through stuff like that.

One time on a forum I moderate, a person reported a post for "Disagreeing with Notch". Reports on forums can run the full spectrum of "Helpful" to "Sending Insults At Moderators" :p
 

MilConDoin

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Jul 29, 2019
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Looks like there's no meta forum- if there was, I'd be tempted to report this thread (it's clearly about the forum itself, rather than FTB) and request it be sent there.
*wink*
"General FTB": Stuff that concerns FTB and there exists no specialised sub-forum where it would fit. This is the FTB forum, so it concerns FTB. Perfect Fit ;) (Although "Web Feedback" could maybe fit the bill.)
 

Hydra

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Jul 29, 2019
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  • This isn't going as a sticky. This is a reference I'm including in my signature that others may also reference to help folks out with using the Report feature of the forums.

Nice work. However; keep in mind that a lot of people disable signatures on forums because a lot of people put annoying crappy pictures in them.
 

Vauthil

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Jul 29, 2019
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Nice work. However; keep in mind that a lot of people disable signatures on forums because a lot of people put annoying crappy pictures in them.

Yeah, I'm just loathe to turn the forum first page into a list of stickies though. We'll see what makes sense as we go. ;)
 

Skirty_007

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Jul 29, 2019
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Yeah, I'm just loathe to turn the forum first page into a list of stickies though. We'll see what makes sense as we go. ;)

Signatures are rarely visible to me as I'm mostly on my phone using tapatalk, but I've read the above anyway :).
 

001100110

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have a question, for spam posts, eg: posts five times in a row, would I just report the last post and say that they were spamming on such and such thread or what?
 

Vauthil

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have a question, for spam posts, eg: posts five times in a row, would I just report the last post and say that they were spamming on such and such thread or what?

Yes, just notate that it's something being posted all over by that poster. No need for you to run around hitting report on them all, this is why we have the "Recent Activities" panel.
 
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Jess887cp

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Jul 29, 2019
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I see this has become a sticky, along with a couple of other threads.

Vauthil, are you going to edit the post?
 

Vauthil

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Jul 29, 2019
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Sending PMs with personal messages is permissible. Reporting is just how we make sure the moderation team as a group can tackle things that require our immediate attention. =)
 

Derpysauce

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Aug 29, 2013
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Ben shapiro
Not to steal your job but is there a reason for this thread being open? I understand people have questions but would it not be better to just msg you and add the answers to the post?
 
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