Okay, so recently there have been a lot of posts that have been flagged without deserving the flag. In fact, it's been happening so much that I'm beginning to wonder if we have a flag spammer on our hands...But it's more likely that there are just some new users that, despite all our posts(such as this one: http://pokemondb.net/pokebase/meta/7370/flags-vs-down-votes ) and rules about flags, still have been flagging things that should not be flagged. Some examples are Flare's recent RMT, and various comments. I'm sure I'm no the only one who has seen needless flagging in the past week or so.
I have a few suggestions on how we can stop this.
- Really stress it in the Rules the difference between flags and down votes in the rules, or have a link to the Flags VS Downvotes post in the Rules Page.
- I suggest that when new users come on chat for the first time, instead of everyone saying "Welcome to the site" we say something like "Welcome to the site user ___. Please read the rules before posting, and I hope you have a great time on the site!".
Now, don't get me wrong. People already do this, I know. But I would like to it happen more often, in a friendly way, just to reduce the amount of users who ignore the rules.
- Raise the amount of points needed to flag. Many new users can get enough points to flag within the first few days, and I think that they should spend more time on the site before being able to flag, so they can learn a bit more about what we expect from our users, and what and what not to flag.
I'm going to edit this as I think of examples and ways to reduce needless flagging.
Oh, and one more thing... I've noticed that often, someone(either an idiot or a new user) will flag a post that shouldn't be flagged. That one flag isn't too bad. But then, another user who doesn't stop to think "Hey, maybe it shouldn't actually be flagged." flags it as well. I have seen this happening a million times, and many times a perfectly good post gets three or more flags before someone says it doesn't need flagging, just because people see the first flag and follow suit.
Please understand that I don't want drama, nor am I complaining about the site. I just want it here, for new and old users alike, to see and listen to.
