What to do with flags which are valid but not for earth-shatteringly bad content? [closed]

Question

Today I was shown a bunch of flagged posts to review (yellow circle near "review" link).

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/tools/flagged

Some of them were valid, some seemed like errorneous flags (I think, system generated, since it said "Low answer quality score [90], /questions/how-to-answer shown and skipped"). I know there a way for me to "reject" such a flag via a flag popup panel.

But what should I do with the posts that weren't actually THAT bad that the needed flagging for deletion, but the flag itself was a fairly good in a sense of the post being poor quiality (as in, poor enough that I needed to comment on it suggesting what needs to be improved)?

• I don't want to reject the flag as invalid

• Nor do I feel it's appropriate for me to re-flag it to moderators since I have (IMHO) handled the situation enough that a mod attention is not needed.

Answer 1

But what should I do with the posts that weren't actually THAT bad that the needed flagging for deletion, but the flag itself was a fairly good in a sense of the post being poor quiality (as in, poor enough that I needed to comment on it suggesting what needs to be improved)?

This is exactly the case where flags should not be used. Flags are for cases where moderator intervention is required for the necessary action (deletion, VTC in the case where the user does not have that privilege, etc.). Editing or commenting directly is the appropriate user action for posts that just need to be improved, not telling the moderators to do it. One of the moderator decline reasons says this:

flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention

Answer 2

You cannot reject a flag anyway. Generally speaking, only ♦moderators can remove a flag from the flag queue.

There are a few exceptions. For example, if a question gets closed or deleted by community votes, this automatically dismisses canned flags on it. If a question gets 6 spam flags, that automatically deletes it, applies the flag penalty and removes the flags from the queue. But most of the outcomes apart from closure can only be achieved by ♦moderators.

If you agree with a flag, you can re-cast the same flag. That doesn't do anything except give more weight to the flags in the moderators' mind, because they see multiple people agreeing on that flag. Conversely, if you disagree, you can cast an “invalid flag”; this tells the moderators that they should be especially cautious around that flag. If you don't feel strongly, leave the flag alone.

Outside Stack Overflow, the only flags that are usefully handled by 10k users are the close requests. In practice, others end up reaching the ♦moderators anyway.

Answer 3

Meh. Reject them. While borderline content should get the benefit of doubt, borderline flags don't deserve that. The only thing at stake is the flag score (and the two badges that go with that), which isn't serious enough that we should be wasting time or effort to preserve.

I say that knowing with some certainty that one or two of those were probably my own flags.