FAQ: How And When To Report a Post

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What Does It Mean To Report A Post?

Sometimes you'll be happily reading along on AW threads when you hit a post that makes you blink rapidly and re-read it, because you can't believe someone actually posted that.

It might be something that you think is just hate-mongering and mean. (You might want to read the section on Language in the Newbie's Guide.) It might be something that strikes you as coming from someone who needs help, either in terms of how to use AW from a technical point of view, or in terms of someone needing mod intervention before they completely ruin their reputation with the rest of the community and the Internet as a whole.

What to do? You could PM the mods for a particular forum, or MacAllister, the owner. All the mods are listed on the top page, to the right of the forums they mod. There's also a complete list of all the mods here.

But often is quicker to use the Report Post function.

To Report a Post

To the left of every post, under the poster's avatar, is a little warning triangle like this:
report.gif


That's the Report Post button. Click the button, and fill out a form that looks rather like this:

report_post_form.png


Please fill it out, including the reason you think the post needs to be reported.

  • The form will magically attach a link to the thread, and to the specific post.
  • It will identify you as having sent it.

When and Why to Report a Post


As the form says, use the Report Post funtion to:

  • Report spam
  • Advertising messages,
  • Problematic (harassment, fighting, or rude) posts.
  • When something seems off, or odd, or troubling about a post or poster.

Don't use the Report Post Function

  • Simply because you don't agree with the post or dislike a poster. Disagreement is not a problem; hostile disagreement might be.


If there's a poster that always pushes your buttons, you can put that member on Ignore. Here's How To Put Another Member On Ignore.

What Happens When You Report A Post

A a highly-focussed laser initiating from the super-secret mod-hiding room will automatically target the offending poster's entire posting history, and obliterate it.

No, that doesn't happen. Yet.

A copy of the report will go to all the mods of the forum where that post lives. If the forum has no mods, it goes to MacAllister and the Admin.

Reporting a post doesn't result in automatic bannanation.

It might result in a thread being locked, or a mod posting in the thread, or contacting the poster behind the scenes, or in spam magically disappearing.

You might not hear back from anyone about the reported post, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't read (it was!) or that nothing was done.

The form doesn't say this, but sometimes, you might see a really good post and think "Gee, that ought to be stickied," or just see something that you think the mods really ought to know about.

Feel free to let the mods know about good stuff too; mods and supermods and MacAllister hear a lot more negative stuff than they hear positive stuff.

ETA: Feel free to report this FAQ post all you want. JVC and jst5150 love to get mail. Be sure to use lots of smilies.
 
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alleycat

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You might not hear back from anyone about the reported post, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't read (it was!) or that nothing was done.

Adding one little comment to this. Sometimes it might seem like a report has not been noticed when the reported post is obviously spam. The regular moderator(s) will probably be working behind the scene to get an administrator/supermoderator involved so that the offending member can be, uh, kindly shown the door.
 
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alleycat

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Actually, just posting to say 'See, someone does read your beautifully written and artfully crafted FAQs.'

I thought it was terrific too. It even includes graphics!
 

Wicked

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Actually, just posting to say 'See, someone does read your beautifully written and artfully crafted FAQs.'


What's a FAQ?













I'm kidding.
And look, I brought gifts to make up for it.
spam3.gif
:D
 

Silver King

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It should be noted that if you report a mod's post from a room in which they help to moderate, the complaint will go directly to them.

If that's not your intention, then simply send Mac a private message, with a link to the post, describing your grievance.

This message has been brought to you by SK, who has received complaints about his posts which were surely not meant for him to see...
 

FabricatedParadise

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It should be noted that if you report a mod's post from a room in which they help to moderate, the complaint will go directly to them.

If that's not your intention, then simply send Mac a private message, with a link to the post, describing your grievance.

This message has been brought to you by SK, who has received complaints about his posts which were surely not meant for him to see...


*blushes* woops.
 

Fallen

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The form doesn't say this, but sometimes, you might see a really good post and think "Gee, that ought to be stickied,"


Ooooh. I didn't know that... there are some gems in the Grammar & Sin section. Thank you!


P.S. is it a laser like in War Of The Words: attached to tripod and going ash on ass, 'cause you could have this whole musical score going like Jeff Wayne's musical version. But you'd really have to give members a five-minute headstart, give the rest of us warning with the Richard Burton narration bit coming in first:


"No one would have believed, in last last years of the 'not-effin-again' century, that AW affairs were being watched from the timeless voids of the mod-rooms...few men even considered the possibilty of 'crap-there's-a-big-frickin-laser-pointing-at-my-ass-back-there', and yet, across the gulping of many coffees, minds imeasurably superior to ours regarded this board with endless 'pack-it-fricking-in-for-godssake' eyes... and slowly, and surely, they drew they're 'run-rabbit-run-rabbit-runrunrun,' plans to protect us." :) ;)
 
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MacAllister

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We have a Grammar & Sin section? That's awesome!
 

Deleted member 42

All grammar discussions ineitably devole to Sin.

Because Grammar involves both Sintax [sic] and gender.

And gender, as all Right Thinking Beings know, in our current devolved era, is merely a substitute for Sex.
 

Fallen

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It's a dark, dark place to be. *shakes head at the wantonness recorded witnessed in there*

:D
 
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