[mod says]
People do it to let others know that it has been flagged so that they know they don’t need to flag it.

As moderators we are really grateful that people flag stuff. This helps us keep on top of moderation. Flagging spam is good. Commenting that you have flagged isn’t neither helpful nor unhelpful for moderators.

Because they think that clicking “flag as…” means “cure the world of all ills and open the gates of a new era of peace and harmony”. It’s like they pushed the button that stops Tzar bomb or something.

They did help the site, but there is no reason to inform the world about it. Just click and move on.

So others won’t be duped and spend effort on a fake question .

And I have seen perfectly reasonable questions that some people flag as spam and I don’t get it. Do the mods just go by what one person thinks is spam?

@chyna, no. They will evaluate it themselves. I’ve flagged things I think are spam (or the precursor for spam) and they haven’t removed the question. I can’t remember now, but I think you get an email each time someone flags a post. So if someone writes ‘Flagged xxx’ at least the mods only get one post notifying them of the spam.

@Sneki95 Don’t pull your cynical trigger. I think of the same thing as @Stinley, sometimes people just want to inform others that they have already flagged the question so that others don’t need to flag more. It helps me, at least.

That saves the mods’ mail box from being flooded with the same notification from a question too.

As someone who’s not a mod, I appreciate it when someone else says they’ve flagged a spam question, so that I don’t have to.

It’s also fun sometimes. The spam that arrives in the night mail is often so badly written it is hillarious. I think they use bots as interpreters. For a time, a few of us would cut and paste random setnences from the details into interesting little blank verse poetry before the spam would be zapped by the mod and disappear forever into neverland. Or write fake cover letters and outrageous resumes in the same bad English when the spam is advertising for scam work, or for content writers who must pay up front for work. Some of it was pretty good. . It’s just something to do on the way back to bed from a pee run and it helps the mods out.

Yep, when I post the time and date it is show it has been flagged and therefore saves the same post from being flagged multiple times. I am also in @Espiritus_Corvus camp, it fun sometimes to comment on the content if it is exceptionally badly composed.

The comments do make me smile (don’t tell the other mods I said that)

@Stinley Don’t worry, you have the Mafia’s protection ~

I have fun crafting jokes on spam threads too.

@chyna “And I have seen perfectly reasonable questions that some people flag as spam and I don’t get it.”

Sure, some people are a bit quick to flag a question. It’s unfortunate, but we can’t control what other people think or post. When the accusations prove false, we remove them so that the question can progress uninterrupted.

“Do the mods just go by what one person thinks is spam?”

Of course not. There are plenty of questions that have been flagged but were never pulled. The whole reason we use human moderators instead of an automated system is that a single flag—or even a whole slew of flags—is not enough to determine that a question or an answer should be removed.

@Stinley I also like the comments. I used to participate them before I was a mod, but now I just try to get rid of the spam as soon as possible.