Hi. I have recently flagged a post (pets.stackexchange.com/questions/16820/…) as "spam", but my received information was "declined - a moderator reviewed your flag, but found no evidence to support it". Please tell me - was the comment, that I left on this post before flagging, considered as an evidence?

I don't really know how does it work, but I could recall that comments are intentionally not displayed in review queues, so I suspect it could have been missed. My evidence clearly shows author's affiliation to the linked site/blog, but it's nowhere mentioned in the post - it is only said that the author "follows" the blog. For me it fulfills the definition of spam. In case my evidence was considered but proven inconclusive: what should I consider next time to improve the accuracy of my flags?

And considering the account of the author: it has 3 posted answers and 2 of them include links to this site/blog. One I've flagged as spam, the another one I didn't because he disclosed his affiliation by "I wrote a more detailed article [...] here is the link if anyone is interested", for me it's concerning. I'm not salty or anything like that because it was declined. I'm just curious and willing to learn why it was the case.

I've already had a few declined flags in the past and for all of them, except the one I'm raising my concerns about, I agree they could have been inconclusive - but this one, oh, maybe I should find a better hobby, but it's really bugging me. Also, the post in question has quite colourful past, as seen in pets.stackexchange.com/posts/19571/revisions. Please tell me, how could that have affected my flagging report in this context?

I'm tagging @Yvette because you're always helpful and patient with me and I trust your wisdom. I don't know whether you were the one who handled the flag, I guess so but honestly it doesn't matter, I just want to solve this riddle because my surprise to this could mean I am missing something obvious and should be corrected. Thanks in advance.

@Yvette And I also need to learn how to tag someone in the chat, but oh well.

@lila you can only ping someone in chat if they've been in the room recently. Mods do have the power to ping users who haven't been in chat for a while, but it's something that is done infrequently

@lila I declined the flag. I look at the user's profile and all their posts. They have written many posts in good faith and have not always included a link to the blog post. Linking to outside resources is not against the site rules, but coming to the site with the sold purpose of promoting a product or site is not ok. In this particular post I asked the user for more information from the blog post and they provided it. I'm glad you asked, as when I declined it, there was not

the ability to go into this reasoning

I look at spam flags in their totality of the person's account and contributions. Spam posts carry a 100 rep point deduction and it places restrictions on the IP address of the user. They carry serious consequences, so they're not something I will accept lightly - if that makes sense. But you are not to know this without being told :)

You're doing really well on the site, don't take the declined flags as a bad thing, they're a way of communicating with you to say - yeh this is cool - and nah - change the way you're flagging - that's all. Whenever I've modded I've tried to teach the flaggers how to flag. I was a moderator on Stack Overflow and handled 75000 flags, no lie.

I just want to say, I love your enthusiasm for our site, and it's great to have you aboard :)

please feel free to ping me in here any time.

Oh thanks @Yvette for the informative answer and being patient with me! I think I understand and it makes sense, you've cleared my confusion.

@lila I'm not a pets mod but also... if its a bot, we make it go boom. Flags are to let us know we need to look at something and decide on things.

@JourneymanGeek Ah OK thanks for the additional information!

With real people, yeah, we take a look at the big picture

@Yvette I suspect that's more than my total :D

@Yvette And about the guideline to not use spam flags lightly - yes, before I asked on the chat I've googled a little and landed on the main site (I mean Meta Stack, the one with the manuals and drama) and I recall having read something similar. It was helpful but not nearly as informative as your answer because it was lacking my specific context. And regarding 75000 flags handled, I admire you, you must really have a steady head! Must've been really tedious work.

@lila uhh. As a MSE mod....

takes a while to get your head wrapped around where to find things effectively

@Yvette And especially thanks for this, it's heartwarming! It might be anticlimactic to admit that my enthusiasm is, behind the scenes, not a sense of mission at all, it's really just venting the steam of creativity that builds up due to this COVID-19 lockdown.

@JourneymanGeek Oh apologies for the "drama" part, I don't really visit any sites there besides Pets and on occassion Biologist's and Chemist's Stacks, so I'm probably a bit ignorant. What I meant was that on Meta Stack there are specific topics and issues raised, that for me - someone who doesn't really dig deeply into it - looks somewhat like drama sometimes.

@lila more that that's an entirely valid observation

@JourneymanGeek Oh so that's how it is! :D

Not always drama, but a lot of it in the last few months

and yes, manuals. Its a brain dump of sorts :D

@lila yep, that's understandable, strange times indeed

@lila as I said - ping me in here any time you have a question. @JourneymanGeek is also good to answer questions.