Or if you wanna retain the anonymous aspect, limit the amount of flags people can use. If they can limit 
's, they can surely limit flags.
And not just as a daily thing...pay attention to who flagged 20 things a month or a 100 a year.
I've never flagged anything, so for me if someone has flagged 5 times, that would be, uhm, er, a red flag.
If there was a badge for GETTING flagged, I'd be all about it.
Seriously though, I got a post sitting at 24 's and a topic hovering at 21 's and I'm just screaming for those sweet sweet badges to drop.
I never flagged, so I don't know how it is.
Do one have to give a reason?
The forum I moderated the longest would have various subcategories.
There were a few easy to moderate (spam, blatant insults etc) and one less specific that could be used for 'problematic' messages.
We would be particularily careful with individuals using repeatedly the less specific flag or trying to trick us (eg. Flagging as spam an opinion they don't like). Because it's always the same in general, it's pretty easy to disregard them after a while.
I'd like to know how mods decide what flags are not pertinent ie. which flagged messages should be kept on the forum.
I did not get enough nice messages flagged and removed to do statistics. But the fact that it happened make me wonder if the flagged messages are actually read. If they are removed in all cases, then that explains why the problem persists.
People are still talking about that art level thread? And wow the behind their back talking and rumor spreading on this thread doesn't actually surprise me at all anymore. I think I know how these popular cool kids operate on this site. You dance around the forum rules just barely breaking them, but nonetheless are very passive aggressive and condescending while at the same time playing a victim, and worst of all not making any substantial arguments at all, rather being pedantic and whining about points that are completely irrelevant for the topic at hand. I really did wish these people here at some point could accept that people have differing opinions, radically different, opinions that contrast the hive mind here so much that it's easy to get offended, but then again, if you counter those argument by red herring and ad hominem, doesn't that mean you admit defeat?
From observations, once the decision to lock the thread is made...they're not going back and restoring community flagged posts. That's one of the points of escalating the conflict...there's been a history of locking down stuff when it gets to a certain point/pitch. Once the thread is non-viable, why would mods go back in to check/correct every post/flag?
Even as much as I hate the practice, I don't expect the mods to be keeping a running tab or go back on old posts to observe the pattern. That's a lot of work to do...that still functional boils down to personal observations that require mods to guess on motivations to establish if it's a plan or just circumstance.
We were once at a point were saying it happens was "crazy talk" but now enough people are aware of it to at least is observable.
No, I meant, at the time they recieve the info something has been flagged, do they read said message?
I saw so many flagged messages from various people, before they were removed, that had no reason whatsoever to be removed, but disappeared anyway. Were they read and considered harmful, or were they not read, is what I wonder.
Same for closed topics. There are topic that got closed, that make me scratch my head. I can't imagine a mod read them and thought, this has to be closed. So I'm wondering whether it's done by s person, but kind of in an automatic mode (whoch I can understand if too much work. I'm not judging, just trying to understand how things works.
Oh yes there are other reasons than spam or insults to flag, the problem is the amount of flagging by same people and how low (or inexistant) the offense is.
It's a good question.
I'm more familiar with the closed thread variety...which usually comes in the form of them showing up at the drunken after party stage of these threads. Logistically, there's just a limited number of them...so it's less like lifeguarding and more like crime scene clean up...right?
When you go back through those locked threads, they're not correcting community flags but they're also not giving you a warning for an actual infraction. The mere fact I've gotten so MANY
automated flagged by community messages but have only been sent to the corner once bears this out.
Ok, good to know.
I actually have very little problems with direct flagging because I understood quickly what not to say and I'm going this way (I shut up and refrain from posting in many threads) even if I'm very disappointed that I have to. But as I got a very nice post flagged and removed, I was just wondering. Must have been a error but it really upsetted me because that was a conciliatory post. That does not encourage people to be nice when such posts are removed. But moderation errors happen.
Most of my posts that got removed were due to the whole thread being removed or archived. The outcome is the same though. Only one is even less in control. And my main issue with getting bullied on this forum is not linked to flagging. More pernicious.
But again I don't have a solution. I'm a bit puzzled by this forum I must say.
You can't silence someone with flags. The message can still be read as long as the moderator hasn't decided it was so rule breaking or destructive that the post needed to be removed. Posts that have been well liked by community members have been flagged to the point of being "hidden" (which you can easily get to show by just clicking the message stating it's hidden) by members that oppose the opinion, I've had this happen to myself multiple times. It doesn't happen on an organized level.
If flagging is mentioned in any of the discords I am in, it's usually just someone saying "I flagged that guy", sometimes stating a reason - usually reasons that are actually relevant to the forum rules!! But rarely if ever have I seen anyone go "guys please flag this person" or "lets flag him so his message is hidden". And if that happened, I think that person would be called out for attempting a conspiracy because quite frankly, the types of people in those discords is of as large a variety as they are in the forum! There's no way anyone would be able to create an organized attack in them lol, if anything things tend to be wilder in the discords because people use them more for emotional venting so that they can stay reasonable in the forums. AS THEY PROBABLY SHOULD, because if people laid their emotional beef out in the forums it would be HELL for moderators to deal with. If you want civilized conversation, you'll have to accept that people need somewhere else to take their emotions. And, on that note, you are not entitled to knowing every little detail of someone elses opinion. If there are certain feelings they would rather keep to themselves or somewhere else, they have every right to do so. That's not a conspiracy, that's just how privacy and social interaction works.
Multiple flags won't lead a mod to shut a thread down in and of itself. There have been occasions before where ratique flat out stated "stop flagging where a flag is not needed" and DIDN'T shut the thread down despite it overflowing with flags. The moderators make a judgement of their own and decide whether or not to ban members or shut a thread down based on the rules of the forum and based on how problematic they deem a thread has become.
I don't always agree with the moderators' decisions either. I've been flagged before too. But I will stand by the fact that there is no way you can genuinely manipulate the forums as a non mod using the flag system.
I've seen ACTUAL manipulation in a forum before. In that case, a neo nazi became friends with the most active moderator and thus managed to get away with continuously evading bans, kept coming back with sock puppet accounts to troll people he didn't like, and then convinced the moderator to ban the people that had enough and told him off for his troll behavior. This gradually led to the downfall of the entire forum, which eventually shut down. After which he tried to lure people to go to his forum instead.
I've seen manipulation in forums, this ain't it.
Well, in my experiences as mod, flagging was misused by default and in certain conditions it does become a real issue.
What is varying is the intensity of misuse and the way mods are reacting. Which in the cases I personnally help manage, was mostly depending on how much time mods had.
It's totally possible to use flagging to control a forum to various degrees without mod's approval or even knowledge. Actually, in most of my experiences, this was happening cyclically when mods were too busy with their own lives, and the problem was disappearing/getting under control with new mods appointed or existing mods became more available.
I have no idea at what point we are on this forum, though, and as I said I don't judge or attack mods.
A ROT? Where's the rot? It's smelled like the same place since I joined in 2016. Dirty, smelly, but with one or two pairs of clean socks every now and again.
All right.
I don't like meddling, I don't like calling names, but this is going too far.
Marius, you are well-liked in this community, and so far most of what I've seen on this forum is love, care and respect. You've been misled by someone who was the first to actually speak behind your back on that server.
That person's thirst for attention knows no bounds, and she prefers whining and sewing discord in any community to actually try to improve her own issues.
I'm sorry that you had to go through such a hard time because of it.
The people on the Discord server that was referred to spent a lot of time and energy trying to HELP her, and thi is how we're rewarded.
There is indeed rot.
But not where we thought to find it.
No, every flag is reviewed by a mod. Extensive, unneeded flagging is actually a reason to get in trouble.
There are always ways to contact moderators in person to point out that someone is singled out by a groups, so that the mod can keep an eye on it and step in if needed. There are really not many other steps that can be taken by a site to stop bullying behavior - our forum very often polices itself with members stepping up for others. You may think that doesn't happen, but it does.
Mods see exactly who flags - you're only anonymous to other users.
I believe there already is a limit. We reached it often when we were flooded by spam bots.
Case by case basis. Some messages are flagged because of personal reasons, and then the flag is usually removed.
Yes, the messages are all read.
Sometimes users remove their own messages, not sure if you mean that. If multiple people flag a post at the same time, it gets auto-hidden and mods restore it if we disagree with it.
Posts are sometimes closed when the conversations have run their course, or if a topic had been discussed in the past and turned ugly. We work with experience at times and don't wait for you guys to become mean to each other.
Also, when a thread receives many individual flags we often decide to close it. It very often means there is a major issue with the thread.
When a thread is long, we also simply don't have the time to read through a hole thread to clean it up and only hide the posts that are the potential issue. Closing it is the simplest solution, even if you don't like that solution much.
ok guys ease off the Mods now before @ratique comes after me with the naughty stick for causing her headaches 
Thank you for taking the time to clear things up, @ratique. As someone relatively new to this forum, I was getting uneasy because I've seen my share of toxic people abusing systems or getting close to admins and mods so they would, often unknowingly, play into their hands. It seems that this isn't the case here, and I truly appreciate that you addressed the possibilities and worries nonetheless. 
I find the politics and drama on this forum very funny. You've got most people here working on comics for little or no money and yet so many issues become LIFE AND DEATH.
Reminds me of the famous quote: Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Psychological science supports that observation. ^^ The smaller the tangible rewards are for holding certain viewpoints, the harder the mind works to make itself BELIEVE that they are correct.
casually pokes head in
Btw I think there was something about the number of flags required to hide a post being an issue (2, right?)
Is that even a parameter that mods can change or is it baked into the forum software? Just curious is all
Also round of applause for this thread actually being really civil and respectful considering the subject. Despite all the concerns, you've gotta admit that it's hard to find places on the Internet where this can happen 
disappears
That can be changed by the administrators, so only the Tapas team. The number of flags had originally been reduced when we were flooded with spam posts a few years ago, allowing the community to quickly remove the bad threads. If we need to raise it again, we can ask the tapas team to do so. Currently I don't believe it's necessary.
No problem. We try to stay as neutral as possible and make decisions as fair as we can. There is always someone who will be unhappy, that's just part of it.
Community mods can also be removed if we (nowadays: me) act out of line. You would simply contact Michael Son with a complaint against me.
Edit: BTW, I'm still on vacation, so don't @ me, bro. (I'm joking, @ me all you like, I just wanted to use that sentence. But I won't take care of your flags for the remainder of the week, that's on the other Mods.)
For me it's all about freedom of speech, which is not a small issue.
I don't really care about people who don't like me or the petty bullying I'm subjected to; I'm more worried about it as a possible symptom of some bigger problem.
I care about big principles for the whole community.
But I actually admit it's a bit idiotic, as it would be better if I was focusing on my own (future) forum project (nothing related to comics) instead of complaining about other forums that I'm on.
But it's actually related: I see all forums with the eyes of someone who's interested as a user and as a mod (or admin), looking at what I can learn. Sometimes I feel a bit outdated thinking forums are for exchanging opinions
lol so @ratique already hopped on to mention it, but ya, i haven't been a mod here for like 2+ years hahaha
that being said, to confirm some things because i did used to be a mod here AND i've moderated much larger communities such as Zelda Universe as an administrator level mod
we absolutely do not get paid to moderate forums (though that would be a dream come true haha), the only thing mods can really do is make sure attitudes within their designated forums follow the guidelines, however that doesn't mean we're allowed to dictate what opinions should be had. if someone has a disagreement with someone else, that's fine, just so long as both people are civil in the discussion and it doesn't turn into any sort of hate speech or insults, etc. and that's ONLY within the forums, discord is a chat app, there's literally no way to make sure people don't talk trash when it's not on a moderator's designated platform.
and ya, there's ALWAYS gonna be some outburst of salt every now and then, that's just how the internet works. all the moderators can do is make sure those outbursts are contained and moderated for the sake of the community guidelines, but it would be foolish to expect everyone to have the same opinions all the time, even if some of those opinions are toxic.
and as ratique said, most people don't have the time or energy to want to organize psychological warfare on the Internet, we've all got better things to do lol those who don't are usually trolls who are very obviously trolls and if you ever run into those, flag them or report them to your moderator to look over and deal with. as long as y'all remember that moderators aren't robots who can be online 24/7 and they definitely aren't paid to do what they do lol
and ya, it "sounds silly until you're in the middle of it" but even in the middle of it it's like, silly Internet BS most of the time. i've had people harass me, i've had people take issue with my opinions, but at the end of the day, it's the Internet, it's an open platform where people can converse, so you can't expect everyone to get along all the time - just as you shouldn't put too much weight into what people say if you disagree with them, life will go on regardless and other forum platforms exist if you get tired of the one you're on. as someone who uses reddit and prefers it for most online communities these days, there are good places to be, bad places to be, and trying to change every attitude in every place is just noooot worth it. just turn your phone/computer off for a bit, don't feed into any troll BS (because EVERYONE can smell it from a mile away) and have fun. that's what we're all here for, anyway, to chill and have fun and talk about webcomics.
For some reason this seems to be some sort of default dismissal of the fact...MULTIPLE people have told this forum it happened. While I'm sure nobody is expecting a scorched earth reaction, it's no longer valid to dismiss it with a hand wave.
The same applies to all those who show up with "testimonials" of how they've never seen it on Discord. Are you on ALL the Discords ALL of the time? Of course not, so just STOP with that silliness. It's not a valid response to people reporting it happening.
You don't think I'll believe some groups of forum members are taking it upon themselves to "police" the board as they see fit?!? It's EXACTLY what I warned about when it happened to me...and what's being discussed in terms of others chasing away people they don't see as "positive" enough for the board.
I don't expect the mods, or former mods, to become hardened vigilantes in response to these events but I would hope they'd take a strong stance on it than shoulder shrugging.
Judging from personal experience, somehow "vague" thread titles required a harder response and administrative action than forum bullying....that's just sad.
That is an assumption on your end. There may be multiple members on the forum that can attest that bullying behavior is taken very seriously, with quick response and usually very drastic punishment for those involved.
In this specific thread, from what I could see, the information given has been very vague. No names were mentioned, including victims or perpetrators. I'm not aware who is the target and who is getting ready to throw out punches. Nor have I seen the conversations that happened and can't make a good judgement on how bad the situation is.
So in other words, you are expecting me to react to something that to me, at this point in time, is little more to hearsay. Likely true, yes - but still hearsay.
Will we act when a user is attacked? Yes.
Will we try to prevent an attack from happening? Yes - you can contact me personally if you have information regarding potential upcoming issues, and I will keep an eye on what's going on.
Will we track forum users on other platforms to police them? No. We don't have the right nor the bandwidth to do so.
For the sake of privacy, I won't discuss accusations against specific users on a public platform. If you have issues or concerns regarding specific people, feel targeted or have damning off-forum information with receipts, please feel free to send them to me or staff. We will review and decide how to best react or prepare.
(Btw: I'm back from Vacay)
In all honesty I thought this thread was done and dusted an little more could be gained from it. I don't speak for anyone else but I would be happy to bring this to a close now.
I'm expecting a definitive statement that clarifies that shifting terms to vague nonsense like calling individuals "rot" or "negative" is equally as much bullying as using specific slurs. So far, all that's been said is differing viewpoints are respected but it's not exactly the response these actions merit. Instead, these new buzzwords are just empowerment to create deniability for new types of bullying. It's wrong and should be directly addressed.
I don't expect you, or anyone else, to time travel and address past issues ...mine or anyone else's.
But how about a strongly worded statement that individuals on the forums are not empowered to judge who should, or should not be, allowed to be active here based on their individual biases?
I may have missed something, but in no way was it made clear that somebody has been called "Rot". The title of this thread didn't get brought up in the OP post, so I didn't consider it to be more than a title. So you are asking me to read into a thread and know information that I can't know about.
Also, I am no politician. I'm not a believer in fancy words and statements. Instead, clear action and quick response often speaks louder than 1000 words. (I'm feeling very melodramatic today, so allow me my cheesy writing)
The forum rules are clear and Marius was so kind to quote it to us. Be polite and treat each other with respect and tolerance.
You, Marius and myself are in the same age range and I did not find it necessary to reply to Marius that "bullying bad" and "people should be nice". That is a basic assumption that even our youngest forum members grasp very quickly.
While I believe that our forum rules already include this point, sure:
The tapas forum is an open, inclusive forum for readers, writers and artists. We welcome all different mindsets and opinions, as long as they are discussed respectfully.
Hate speech, bullying and trolling in both public threads and private messages are highly discouraged and will lead to immediate banning.
Well, I'm going to jump into the fray because I like me some rot. (And probably have too much time on my hands this morning.)
I think @skicoak is trying to bring up a point that is getting missed. While some bullying or prejudices get strongly policed, some don't. I've seen almost no sexism, racism or other ism on the forum--which is great. Thank you, in that regard, for creating a space where it's not toxic. (Read Yahoo comments to see just how messed up people can be.)
However, there is a tendency by a minority on the forum to belittle or make unwelcome people who might be more cynical or less positive or more clear-eyed or just go against the grain--or have an ironic sense of humor that people take the wrong way.
Every once in a while "group think" emerges and the intent is to silence or marginalize dissenting voices. It's a bit more subtle to pick up on--but it is there. Perhaps Tapas should have a policy statement that addresses this aspect of forum interaction. Different viewpoints are not only tolerated but are welcome, even edgy and cranky ones.