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Sometimes, when flagging an answer, this message appears:

Attention: some of your recent flags have been declined - please review them before flagging this post!

What I am supposed to do? I follow the link to the review, but I can't see any action, button, link or nothing.

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  • 1
    What is the nature of your question? Which posts have been flagged, why were they flagged, or what do I do now?
    – Nick Gammon Mod
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 20:34
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    @NickGammon - rather obviously, those are things the system should be directly showing. The quoted uninformative message is a severe site design error.
    – Chris Stratton
    Commented Feb 19, 2018 at 19:28

3 Answers 3

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There is no particular action to take. I got this message a while back when I was going through the review queues and flagging posts. If the (then) moderators didn't agree I would eventually accrue enough "flag declined" messages that the "system" (Stack Exchange) started automatically warning me.

I think the warnings eventually expire through time.

You might consider doing less flagging of things that should (could?) be handled by community moderation. That is, just vote an answer down if you don't like it. Or, if you don't want to take the reputation hit, post a comment explaining how the answer could be improved, or explain why you think it is wrong.

See my Meta post about not flagging answers as "low quality" just because they are a bit short or you think they are wrong.

Flagging as "not an answer" should be reserved for answers that are simply not answers. Like, gibberish, spam, not in English, or asking another question.

Even link-only answers are marginal, they are answers after all, just not good answers.

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It's supposed to make you aware that you have been flagging incorrectly and that way teach you what is considered a good flag and what isn't.

There is no real actions to take on the website except to flag better.

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  • But it keeps appearing, which looks like I haven't complete some action somewhere.
    – user31481
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 9:45
  • @LookAlterno nah it looks like it alerts you every time you flag (presumably until you are back to being a "good flagger"). On the mod interface you're marked NOT banned from flagging / Warned when flagging.
    – Anonymous Penguin
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 20:53
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You can actually view a list of your flags and how they were handled if you would like to review. If you go to your user profile on the Activity tab, you can click on the XX Helpful Flags and you get a list of all of your flags.

I don't know exactly how the algorithm for warning works, as roughly 90% of your flags were deemed "helpful." If you're worried about it, look at your declined posts to look for a pattern (in your case there does seem to be a specific type of flag).

Also, when looking at your flag history, please note that Disputed is not Declined. Here's what it means: https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/95277/190823

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  • How do I dispute a flag? Not interested in disputing a flag, I just want to know how this UI works.
    – user31481
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 21:10
  • @LookAlterno you can't. The name is confusing, but a flag is marked "disputed" when it's ambiguous how a moderation responded to it. This post explains it: meta.stackexchange.com/a/95277/190823
    – Anonymous Penguin
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 21:29
  • I think all of this is oscure on purpose, to get you spend time here collecting bits of information here and there, like trying to reconstruct the rules of a game long time forgotten. Only the true believers will reach enlightment.
    – user31481
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 21:57

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