On smaller sites, it's relatively easy for trolls to do the following things before anyone notices: create a sock puppet account or four, post some bogus questions and answers, accept the answers, attain the flag posts privilege for all accounts, and use those four accounts to unilaterally nuke random posts. While it's possible for moderators and staff to repair that damage, I think it would make sense to withhold the flag privilege, or at least limit it to those flags which do not delete things (this includes almost all comment flags) until 24 hours after obtaining that privilege. An exception could be made for users obtaining the privilege via the association bonus; we've spotted trolls who managed that with one account, but four of them are extremely rare.
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4This issue was previously raised, and at the time, it was deemed rare enough to not be a problem.– Sonic -misses Shadow- HedgehogCommented Mar 27 at 17:29
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4Random musing - maybe allow users to cast modflags only for the 24 (or whatever) period after they obtain the privilege. At most, they'd be able to annoy mods a bit but at least shouldn't cause any real harm. And allows legitimate users to try and raise an alert for something they've spotted.– VLAZCommented Mar 27 at 17:31
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11@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog To be fair, that was back in the era of 6 votes deleting (it has been lowered). And I've seen determined trolls do this twice now using sockpuppets.– MachavityCommented Mar 27 at 17:40
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And the trolls couldn't just wait a day...?– security_paranoidCommented Mar 28 at 2:48
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5@security_paranoid hopefully the fraudulent voting would be noticed within 24 hours.– VLAZCommented Mar 28 at 7:02
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2@SonictheAnonymousHedgehog to be fair, the same minute the moderator posted that he couldn't imagine it happening, there was a prescient comment by a regular user explaining exactly why this was forseeable as a real problem. And later that day a comment by another mod saying the system was not set up to display if it occurs...– Dan GetzCommented Mar 28 at 16:52
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3This is happening just about every day now, mostly seems to be the same troll– greg-449Commented Mar 29 at 17:14
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1 Answer
Suggestion with Charcoal flagging in mind:
Only allow users with an old enough (1 week?) non-deleted post anywhere on the network to use flags other than for moderator attention. This gives some leeway for mods to investigate suspicious posts (or have breaks where they're not on the site every day, whatever that's like). It also means that the association bonus can't be abused by new accounts at all. (Yeah, there are ways this could be annoying with even one troll account with the bonus, I hope you don't expect me to enumerate them.)
As a complementary request, delay the association bonus itself when its first earned: Let's prevent association bonus abuse
Are there any significant downsides? I'd expect there to not be many, since new users rarely flag, much less constructively. Let me know if you think of any though.
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6One consideration is it may risk well-meaning new users using In need of moderator intervention flags for things that would normally be handled by standard flags as they're disabled. In other words, there's a chance it produces mod flags along the lines of "This post is spam", and we'd want a better solution than "decline them and hope brand new users know when it's OK to use a mod flag".– cocomacCommented Mar 27 at 17:59
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3@cocomac TBH, that's a tooling issue, in my book. The mods handling the flag should be able to see that the user cannot do another action. This same thing happens occasionally with other mod flags - it happens that sometimes you notice a problem on a site you're not a regular participant and you can't use the appropriate action. So you flag, and occasionally such flags are declined. The tooling should absolutely be improved, though. In the case described by Laurrl, I'd expect the mods to get some indication that this is the only flag a user can cast.– VLAZCommented Mar 27 at 18:18
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3Perhaps allow flags to be cast and seen in the ordinary places that flagged posts are seen by other users, but simply not count that flag towards auto-deletion. Commented Mar 27 at 18:18
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@VLAZ Sub-15 rep users can only cast certain flags too, but this isn't reflected anywhere. Fortunately, new users don't tend to flag.– LaurelCommented Mar 27 at 18:20
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@BryanKrause That's a possibility, but it could cause some disruption with the other effects of flags (downvotes, entering queues).– LaurelCommented Mar 27 at 18:24
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5@Laurel I don't think being added to queues is a bad thing. If anything, it's a good thing if someone is misusing spam flags to get some eyeballs on it. The thing to prevent against is automatic action that is not clearly visible. I'm not too worried about actual spam getting an extra downvote before deletion, but one could also not apply downvotes from "new" flaggers. Commented Mar 27 at 18:33
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@BryanKrause I'm not worried about actual spam. I'm thinking about what happens when this is malicious, targeted flagging.– LaurelCommented Mar 27 at 18:40
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@Laurel Right, which I think will be evident when non-spam shows up in queues with spam flags attached. Commented Mar 27 at 18:41
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@BryanKrause But spam flagging doesn't show the post in queues to begin with. At that point, the idea might be somewhat complicated to implement.– LaurelCommented Mar 27 at 18:46
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@BryanKrause Oh, I was talking about queues like low quality posts, not the mod flag page.– LaurelCommented Mar 27 at 19:37
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5Yeah, I kind of forgot that was the only queue for spam flags. But anyways, my point is that I don't think we need to entirely prevent any specific users from using the red flags, I'd rather prevent the potentially harmful consequences of those flags. If that basically nerfs the flag into just showing up for moderators to act on, that still seems like a better solution than forcing a legitimate flagger to use a custom flag. Commented Mar 27 at 19:43