How many flags do I have?

September 11, 2007 8:03 AM

Can we find out how many flags our posts get?

I don't want to know who flagged my posts, and I don't want to know how many flags are on other peoples posts, but it would be nice to know if any of my fpps or comments was heavily flagged for being noise or whatever.

posted by empath to Feature Requests at 8:03 AM (66 comments total)

I'd say no, for all the reasons I've said before in the past.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:04 AM on September 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

We could let you know that sort of thing occasionally, but it's not the sort of thing we want to keep any sort of public running total of. It just leads to "wait his post got ten flags and wasn't deleted and my post got nine flags and was deleted, wtf?!" The flags are really supposed to be sort of an admin-facing "these are things the community thinks you should pay attention to" indicator and we don't want them really getting any more weight than that.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:07 AM on September 11, 2007

Just for the record, empath, I flag everything you say as "noise". Flagging this post riht now...
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:08 AM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Flag Hag.
posted by ND¢ at 8:11 AM on September 11, 2007 [11 favorites]

Ha! Aaaaaaand scene!
posted by shmegegge at 8:12 AM on September 11, 2007

This is not an unpopularity contest.
posted by Dave Faris at 8:15 AM on September 11, 2007 [4 favorites]

Heh. Yeah, seems like a bad plan. I think this kind of data is really interesting, myself, so I can sympathize with the urge, but presenting that kind of data on a per-individual basis has a lot of baggage attached to it.

Aggregate analysis of flagging data—now that is sexy.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:17 AM on September 11, 2007

I just flagged your post as "other". just trying to help you out.
posted by matteo at 8:18 AM on September 11, 2007

How much baggage, exactly? What kind of baggage? Could you break down my baggage by category (vertical axis) and date/time (horizontal access) and user number/comment number/fave count (hue/saturation/brilliance)?
posted by Wolfdog at 8:22 AM on September 11, 2007

I agree with empath. If flags are only visible to the poster/commenter, why would the popularity/fairness problems exist? If #1 doesn't want it, I guess it's not going to happen, but I think getting negative feedback is helpful.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:25 AM on September 11, 2007

You're ugly.
posted by ND¢ at 8:26 AM on September 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

I don't think you truly understand the magnitude of negativity involved.
posted by Dave Faris at 8:27 AM on September 11, 2007

You're ugly.

Yes, and you are drunk, but in the morning I'll... oh, wait, nevermind.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:30 AM on September 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

Sometimes I don't type exactly what I mean to type.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:30 AM on September 11, 2007

but it would be nice to know if any of my fpps or comments was heavily flagged for being noise or whatever.

Why would it nice? What good would this information do you?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:32 AM on September 11, 2007

*Queues up behind matteo.*
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:34 AM on September 11, 2007

poolio's has 50, right?
posted by yhbc at 8:38 AM on September 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

but it would be nice to know if any of my fpps or comments was heavily flagged for being noise or whatever.

And yet it'd be a complete pain in the ass to hear "wait, since when is four 'a lot of flags'? This deletion is BULLSHIT." Etc.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:38 AM on September 11, 2007

Let's not ask for stupid things anymore, amirite?
posted by mattbucher at 8:38 AM on September 11, 2007

all the flagging this thread's gonna generate will seriously screwing up my process control charts. :|
posted by boo_radley at 8:45 AM on September 11, 2007

If we can't find out how many flags we have, can we at least fly them at half mast today?
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:57 AM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Half-mast? But I was kinda planning on burning mine.
posted by box at 9:11 AM on September 11, 2007

And yet it'd be a complete pain in the ass to hear "wait, since when is four 'a lot of flags'? This deletion is BULLSHIT." Etc.

Wait, you guys count four flags as a lot?! That's BULLSHIT.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:42 AM on September 11, 2007

the two are not mutually exclusive, box.
posted by dismas at 9:42 AM on September 11, 2007

“If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it.”
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:49 AM on September 11, 2007

Is there an explanation somewhere of what each of the flags mean? I know some are self-explanatory, but others I'm a bit puzzled on the distinction between the two - noise and derail, for example.
posted by agregoli at 9:51 AM on September 11, 2007

noise = nonsense
derail = talking about your own nonsense not the topic at hand

We treat them both mostly the same but some of it's contextual Noise in AskMe is a bigger deal, in MeFi less so and in MeTa pretty much not at all.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:59 AM on September 11, 2007

Is there an explanation somewhere of what each of the flags mean?

offensive content: Bush is a Nazi
noise: nazi nazi nazi nazi fishpants
derail: by the way, wasn't Prescott Bush a Nazi?
it breaks the guidelines: What do you think of Bush? I'll go first: he's a Nazi.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 10:03 AM on September 11, 2007 [17 favorites]

Flagging something as "noise" in MeTa is like spitting in the ocean.
posted by edgeways at 10:25 AM on September 11, 2007

"Fantastic comment"

Is there an explanation somewhere of what each of the flags mean?

offensive content: Bush is a Nazi
noise: nazi nazi nazi nazi fishpants
derail: by the way, wasn't Prescott Bush a Nazi?
it breaks the guidelines: What do you think of Bush? I'll go first: he's a Nazi.

posted by edgeways at 10:27 AM on September 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

The flagging will not be televised. Besides, what has flagging ever done for us, I mean besides improving the quality of content here, highlighting new and useful ways to do unexpected things, and eliminated the dreck? I mean, come on!
posted by blue_beetle at 10:47 AM on September 11, 2007

In many cases flagging is just inviting the Mods to a lynching.

But anyway, has anybody noticed that "soft taco" sized flour tortillas just ain't big enough and "burrito" sized is too big? I think we need an intermediate size; let's call it "penis."
posted by davy at 11:05 AM on September 11, 2007

Hmmm. My interest is flagging.
posted by grateful at 11:33 AM on September 11, 2007

But my penis is as big as a tamarind glazed pork shank.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:47 AM on September 11, 2007

Speaking of aggregate data, here's a rough graph of the distribution of flags. Each row item is the number of flags assigned, with the x's showing log10 + 1 of the number of items (comments and posts) flagged exactly that many times, with the number listed after in parens.

That monster outlier is the metatalk announcement of ajax flagging.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:53 AM on September 11, 2007

that's not a graph it's a freaking LIST requiring READING. Get on the ball pls kthxbi.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:00 PM on September 11, 2007

So, the number of contributions that have been flagged by exactly 2 persons is 6 times as small as those that have been flagged by exactly 1 person, is this correct?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:02 PM on September 11, 2007

Why does n = 1 appear in multiple rows? (Same with n =2, n =3...)
posted by found missing at 12:10 PM on September 11, 2007

I need to know, very badly, what was flagged 526 times.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:10 PM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

I just took a shower, who wants to smell me?
posted by vapidave at 12:10 PM on September 11, 2007

goodnewsfortheinsane: exactly correct.

found missing: because only one thing has ever been flagged exactly 97 times, and only one other thing has ever been flagged exactly 89 times, etc.

TPS: read previous comment, click on second link.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:13 PM on September 11, 2007

cortex, we've gone over this before- I can't read.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:16 PM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh, funny. I thought the outlier was at the bottom, and something had gotten 31796 flags. Yes, I'm an idiot.
posted by found missing at 12:16 PM on September 11, 2007

Stynxno reads all of Mefi aloud to me, and then types up what I want to say. Sometimes, accounts get crossed, which explains why Stynx keeps posting about Lindsay Lohan.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:17 PM on September 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

Interesting. I wouldn't have expected such a large gap between 1 and 2 flags.

The obvious question is, of course, which contribution got the second largest number of flags.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:17 PM on September 11, 2007

Okay; so what was flagged 97 times?
posted by yhbc at 12:19 PM on September 11, 2007

Every time a Lohan post is made, cortex gets a giant donut.
posted by Stynxno at 12:26 PM on September 11, 2007

I thought the outlier was at the bottom, and something had gotten 31796 flags.

It's okay, man; it's a kind of a weird way to present the data, but I wanted to do a superquick dump from my perl script for the time being. I need to get friendly with some graphing routines, I think, so I can do these up right.

I wouldn't have expected such a large gap between 1 and 2 flags.

It is interesting, but it didn't actually surprise me when I saw it. A lot of things get flagged only once, because it only takes one person to decide there's something notable and flag it. Anything flagged more than once, though, takes a concensus of active opinion—which means that, whatever it is, it's probably a bit more overt.

There's also a time issue, there—if something is reasonably overt and would garner more than one flag, but one of us sees the queue when it's fresh, we may well fix the problem before more folks get a chance to see it and flag it. So the number of flags that any particular item got is really a subset of the number of flags it would likely have gotten—not a proper subset, though, since many things get flagged but don't actually get deleted.

Okay; so what was flagged 97 times?

I can go through and sort through the highlight reel at some point, but the short answer is (a) I don't know, actually, I didn't look yet, and (b) a couple of those other high water marks are comments within the crazy-outlier metatalk thread, too.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:31 PM on September 11, 2007

But my penis is as big as a tamarind glazed pork shank.

Dude, we all know that's Astro Zombie 3.
posted by languagehat at 1:11 PM on September 11, 2007

I'm kind of surprised at how few flags there are overall. Is it only after a certain date?
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:14 PM on September 11, 2007

Is it only after a certain date?

Yes. There are two dates actually

1. when flagging started, 20feb05
2. when we stopped tossing flag info once we'd dealt with the flags (which we no longer do)
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:27 PM on September 11, 2007

What I want to know is who has flagged things the most.
posted by thirteenkiller at 1:28 PM on September 11, 2007

The reason I'd want to know is so I have negative feedback as well as positive feedback on my posts, i figured that was pretty self-explanatory.
posted by empath at 1:36 PM on September 11, 2007

Sometimes I don't type exactly what I mean to type.

Yeah -- kinda like Larry Craig not meaning to plead guilty.
posted by ericb at 1:39 PM on September 11, 2007

Data! I demand more data! I want to know the mean median and mode of the number of flags per user. What's the standard deviation? I MUST KNOW!
posted by [expletive deleted] at 1:43 PM on September 11, 2007

The reason I'd want to know is so I have negative feedback as well as positive feedback on my posts, i figured that was pretty self-explanatory.

And what would you do with this information?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:10 PM on September 11, 2007

But my penis is as big as a tamarind glazed pork shank.

Comment flagged as delicious!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:27 PM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

The reason I'd want to know is so I have negative feedback as well as positive feedback on my posts

There are much richer ways for people to offer you negative feedback. For example, typing the comment "This post sucks" or some variant. You can rest assured that the negative feedback is genuine, and a bonus feature is that you have a choice of response—either flag it, take note, and move on or flame right back.

cortex, I'd like to know what those three posts were that irked the tender sensibilities of 57 people apiece. Unless they're again part of the ajax flagging advent thread.
posted by carsonb at 5:07 PM on September 11, 2007

I just flagged Mathowie's first comment in this thread as "noise", and my heart grew two sizes. This flagging, it zings!
posted by davejay at 5:17 PM on September 11, 2007

I'd love a way to see all the posts/comments that have been flagged as "fantastic".
posted by tehloki at 5:21 PM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

tehloki, you just gave me my 500th favorite. Not only have I favorited you in return, but I just flagged your comment as "fantastic". In regards to the content of your comment, the idea behind the "fantastic" flag is that if enough people think the same way on it, the comment/post will be featured on the MeFi sidebar. What that threshold is I do not know.
posted by carsonb at 5:38 PM on September 11, 2007

Could we also have more flag catgor...ow! I got shocked by my keyboard just now.
posted by ctmf at 5:54 PM on September 11, 2007

carsonb, you should know by now that my favorites are like the sexual favors of a cheap mexican hooker; they will only leave you feeling empty and cold, once you know where I've been.
posted by tehloki at 7:01 PM on September 11, 2007

1/100

Anyway, if you go the cheap mexican hooker route you always know that you'll have enough left over for a taco. So cold perhaps, but not empty.

Mmm, tacos!
posted by carsonb at 7:32 PM on September 11, 2007

Is it weird that I dreamt about getting flagged last night?
posted by ageispolis at 5:50 AM on September 12, 2007

...and now your dream has come TRUE!
posted by tehloki at 9:16 AM on September 12, 2007