13
\$\begingroup\$

I'm not sure if this is too specific a question for meta, but I figured if it happened to me and I was confused it may be helpful to others to understand.

Yesterday, I flagged a bunch of comments on this question for not being needed anymore since they were all talking about past edits and debating whether it was a duplicate or not (it was reopened after a meta post came to the conclusion it was not a duplicate yesterday).

Today it looks like all my flags were declined, but the comments themselves have been removed.

declined comments

Can anybody explain why that might have happened?

Was there a reason for the declines or was this all related to some sort of mod system?

And why were all the comments deleted despite the declined flags?

\$\endgroup\$
4
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ I'll leave the specifics to the mod who handled those flags, but I'll say that I still, one year in, have trouble with some elements of the flag-handling interface. I know that there are times I've been brought to a post by a flag, agreed, deleted the comment, and somehow done it in a way that made Stack software think I was disagreeing with the flag and an auto-decline went to the user. \$\endgroup\$
    – nitsua60 Mod
    Commented Jan 24, 2018 at 14:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ Where do you go to view the information included in the screenshot (the results of your flags)? This would be relevant to me, but I've not found it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Bloodcinder
    Commented Jan 24, 2018 at 16:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Bloodcinder: If you go to your user page, look on the far right side for a box that says "Impact". In it is something that should say "# helpful flags" click on that and it will take you there. You may be able to get there directly by using this link as well. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rubiksmoose
    Commented Jan 24, 2018 at 16:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ah, thank you. The one place I didn't look. I appreciate it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Bloodcinder
    Commented Jan 24, 2018 at 18:45

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
17
\$\begingroup\$

That was me. Sorry about the mix-up.

When I received your flags I looked over the situation. I thought it was still a developing situation, which means the comments would need to stay. I dismissed the flags. (The only option we get for comment flags is to delete the comments or dismiss the flag — there is no “mark helpful but do nothing”.)

... Then I looked over it again and realised, whoops, the situation had been sorta settled. I'd be inclined to let comments stay for longer in case the situation develops further but in this case anything really important to the situation is occurring over in meta. So after declining the flags I removed the comments anyway.

So, yeah, knowing what I know now, I would've just deleted them, which would validate all your flags as helpful. Having them dismissed shouldn't have major ramifications for you. If there are ramifications then please let us know and I'll see what I can do for you to clean up a mess I created.

If there's a comment chain like this, it's often helpful for me to do something like flag the last comment that needs deleting and use a custom reason to say "these changes were all made and the question is reopened, please remove these comments up to here."

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ No need to apologize and no corrections needed. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't doing anything incorrect and clearing up my confusion on the matter. And the flag technique you mention in your last sentence will be useful and I'll use that going forward for cases like these. Thanks! \$\endgroup\$
    – Rubiksmoose
    Commented Jan 24, 2018 at 14:47

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .