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We just had an incident with a user trolling the site using what appears to be multiple accounts. A few hours ago, they did something similar, but moderators were never made aware of it.

They insulted multiple users in an answer that racked up an impressive 11 "not an answer" flags, one offensive flag, one custom flag explaining the trolling going on, and 8 offensive comment flags. None of these were seen or handled by a moderator, because they all were automatically cleared by the system when the user deleted their own post.

That doesn't seem right to me. Moderators still should be made aware of flags like this, because we probably will want to look into what's going on there.

I propose that offensive and custom flags be left on a post, even after a user has deleted it themselves. If the problem has already been taken care of, that's easy for us to see and validate. If not, we can take additional action, such as warning or suspending an abusive user.

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  • 2
    If you think that's bad, I wonder what your thoughts are on this...
    – yannis
    Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 22:51
  • 13
    Wow, 20+ flags on one answer? That is something special!
    – nneonneo
    Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 22:53
  • 1
    Your proposal makes sense. Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 22:54
  • @Yannis - I apparently voted for that a while ago, but isn't that now the case? I seem to recall a custom flag hanging onto a post that was closed. Deletion definitely clears them. Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 22:54
  • No, it's still happening, I noticed it on ProgSE 8 days ago and verified it (I remember when exactly I noticed because I set a bounty to the request). If you saw a custom flag on a closed post, could it have been that the flag was casted after the closure?
    – yannis
    Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 22:58

1 Answer 1

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Spam and offensive flags on a post will be preserved when the post's author deletes it starting with the next build (rev 2016.1.20.4108 on MSO/MSE, 2016.1.20.3201 elsewhere).

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  • What about custom mod flags (for instance, for plagiarism)? Commented Jul 22, 2018 at 12:23
  • 4
    @T.J.Crowder IIRC custom flags are never automatically dismissed.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jul 22, 2018 at 17:55

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