Flags wrongly declined?

Question

I've noticed a trend with some flags that I've done where I'll flag a question for a perfectly legitimate reason, although while the question was closed, on hold, for the exact cited reason I flagged it for, my flag will get declined.

Is this done automatically by the system when a question reaches the threshold and is put on hold? Or is this just people who are reviewing the flag being...stupid? I don't know how else to put it.

I'll cite this ethernet question which I flagged for reason it was closed

Answer 1

Are you seeing something like this?

Which I flagged through this interface/pop up.

You will notice that the "moderator attention" flagging is a separate line item. Which implies that the other flags don't.

Up until recently I would never have gotten this flag rejection, because I used the another mechanism that I can't find right now (without needlessly flagging something) . So what I suspect is that this dialog flags the mods regardless, not just the ones in that dialog that state explicitly that the mods will be alerted. The difference is that our old crusty Mods knew about this distinction and understood that there would be multiple flags on the same question etc. I think the newest mods don't know this and just assume that there is needless flagging going on.

Answer 2

Probably who declined the flag didn't agree with closing the question. Perhaps I wouldn't have gone so far as declining, but the fact that the question was closed doesn't necessarily mean that the reviewer was wrong. (I'm not saying he was right either, please note).

Very often there is disagreement on whether we should set high quality standards or being more tolerant towards new users.

Answer 3

You're not the only person who has been doing this.

The closing/reopening of questions is handled by community reviewers (i.e., anyone with sufficient reputation), not by moderators. If you think a question has been wrongly closed, nominate it for reopening and make your case in the comments associated with the question.

Moderators primarily handle other administrative issues, and step in on issues related to closing/reopening questions only when there has been an egregious misunderstanding or violation of the rules.

Whining to the moderators when you feel a question has been wrongly closed is not generally going to help unless we see that a general consensus has already formed among other community members. If we were to react on every single complaint, then we would be abusing our power.

This is why I have been declining such flags.

NOTE: Voting to close a question via the close button is a different operation from sending the mods a message via the flag button, even though the options listed are very similar in both cases.

Answer 4

For questions:

Let us do some math. There are slightly under 7.8 million questions on Stack Overflow, with only 17 moderators. Out of those questions, 347,109 of them are [at the time of posting] closed or on hold. If a moderator would handle each of these flags and close all of those questions, they wouldn't be doing anything productive. Moderators should only work on things that require their special tools to do.

For answers:

Most people think that this answer should be deleted:

You don't need a resistor for a LED. A paragraph of explanation...

Of course, that isn't true. However, incorrect answers do not get deleted. They get downvoted, edited, and commented on. If you flag an answer like that, then it should be declined as not needing moderator intervention because you can downvote it/comment/edit it.

The only time an answer should be deleted:

• Spam
• Low quality answers (not understandable, link only, etc.)
• If the owner deletes it themselves

However, incorrect answers are not deleted. If you flagged one of those, then the reason above is most likely the reason they got declined.

Edit: this post explains this problem with stuff that doesn't need moderator intervention.