@Cyn Additionally, chat flags are actually separate to main site flags and can be reviewed by moderators/high-rep users from any site. Therefore they typically get handled in seconds rather than minutes.

@forest For what it's worth, yes it definitely matters if the person could be a minor. Not least because there are things that are fine to say to an adult that could land you in jail if said to a minor. While neither should be acceptable on this site there is a big difference in consequences.

@linksassin Well yeah but I assume it's troll harassment and not like, generic sexting.

Which is against SE rules for people of any age.

@forest In some places there are specific cyber-bullying laws that do have age restrictions. So even troll harassment would matter.

SE operates under US jurisdiction doesn't it?

If I say I'm 10 will I get extra protection against harassment here? ;)

@forest I'm not a lawyer but I don't know if that's how it works. It does as a company but I imagine the actions of the users can be affected by the laws of the places it is available in.

I see.

From what I know running my a few sites and dealing with legal issues, that only matters if you host servers in those areas, not if the site is accessible there. E.g. if the RKN (Russian version of the FCC) tells you to take down certain content, they can only enforce it if your site is hosted in Russia. Otherwise all they can do is order their ISPs to block it and you'll lose your Russian visitors.

@forest Ah, that makes sense. Are there any US states with those protections? Surely at least one of them has rules to protect minors online?

I don't believe so. The only protections I know of are for exposure to sexual material.

And that risk is mitigated with an agreement that you are over 18 when you visit the site.

In the US, I'd be able to insult a minor to their face as well as online, as long as it doesn't reach the point of harassment, in which case I would get in trouble regardless of their age.

@forest Well I guess there is no legal reason why it matter if they are a minor then. But for us as people I like to believe that we can do a better job of protecting minors than the law can.

Ok then, I guess I'm a minor, for future reference. Shield me from bad things that wouldn't otherwise have qualified for moderator protection.

We're not talking about legal issues here. It's common sense. I don't know why anyone thinks there is no difference between a teenager being verbally attacked by adults and another adult being attacked. Of course a minor is more vulnerable; that's why they're not a legal adult yet. In this case, the teen told one of the attackers she was a minor and the adult continued the attack.

We as experienced users have a responsibility to step in and help when anyone is being attacked. Not a simple disagreement but when there is harassment or a barrage of comments or, in this case it turned out there was also systematic downvoting. We can speak up and/or we can flag. As an adult I feel an additional responsibility to watch for known children on the site and do what I can to keep them safe from harassment online. I would do it for anyone though.

@Cyn You need 10k total network rep, then you get a message when you are in chat while a normal chat flag happens (the one you cast on the right side of the message). That's also why you should be careful with normal chat flags. You may very well summon lots of people from StackOverflow and other big sites that don't know anything about the site and a user's past. You can't leave a message with the standard flags, so that can turn real weird.

You can use a mod chat flag though (the one you can use when clicking on the left side of a comment) to only send a flag to mods of the site that the chat belongs to, which is often preferable if there is not blindingly obvious "rude / abusive" behaviour that can be solved by simple message deletion of the thing you flagged.

@Secespitus Thanks that's really helpful. I haven't been a big chat user so it's new to me. Are the flags on the right of the message the same as the flags on the left of the message (so long as you don't pick the mod flag)?

@Cyn Nope, right summons everyone currently online with a total of 10k network wide rep, left is like a normal mod-only flag on Writing.SE main site (in the case of The Overlook Hotel). If you need speed because something is massively and obviously getting out of control use the right one. If there's time, but you need to inform mods of things like "This user has done X and Y again" so that they are aware of a pattern/ can clean whole rooms/ think about suspensions/ ... use the left one.

At least that's my experience with chat flags. They are rare and if you are online while one is raised you get a little box above the box where you type that basically has the flagged message and a button for "Yes, that's rude, delete" and "Nope, not worthy of deletion". And many, many people check out the room for a bit more context. if there are suddenly a dozen new faces in the room someone likely raised a flag. And if there are no obvious problems they might very well not like that.

You can click on the flag symbol and the "flag for moderator" to see how much you can "customize" the two options as long as you don't click on "send" afterwards. Mod flags allow you to leave a message, the other one is just "spam, inappropriate, offensive".

If you know a few mods in other rooms you can theoretically ask them to step in if none of the site mods is online. Mods should be able to clean all chat rooms, though many prefer to leave stuff to site mods. There is often a lot of context surrounding discussions, norms, user behaviour patterns, ... that only the site mods have.

@Cyn Here is some context on the information and experience I have with this topic

Best to click on the first link and read a bit in the transcript. But just so that we are clear on what might happen if you summon everyone from everywhere - they might very well think that you should not flag an on-going discussion...

@Secespitus Thank you for the information and the examples. It's very helpful. Next time (God forbid there should be a next time), I'll use the mod flag and add an explanation so a site mod can review the situation in context of previous Meta discussions and take care of it.

@Cyn that's why they're not a legal adult yet - Actually, that's not the reason at all, although it is a common ad hoc rationalization. Furthermore, minor is a legal concept and is distinct from child. A 17 year old, for example, is a young adult and not a child, but legally a minor (in the US).

Unfortunately, your reasoning implies that, after a certain age, a person no longer qualifies for moderator protection against certain types of harassment, which I find quite offensive. If that is not the case, then there is no difference between harassing a minor and a legal adult.

The whole "help anyone at all, but this group especially" has absolutely zero informational value.

It's logically equivalent to "1 + 1 is equal to 2, but 3 + 3 is very equal to 6", an obvious non-sequitur.

That isn't to say that I don't understand the feeling. As humans, we feel more empathy for children than for adults. It's a simple fact of our behavior psychology, no different from how we feel worse when we observe a puppy in pain than a wild boar. Constant reinforcement by the law has also equated the status of minor with the status of childhood, so it's understandable how a person would be more capable of suppressing their feelings seeing an adult suffer, under the guise of "common sense".

@forest if you say you're 10 you risk having SE delete your account for violating the terms of service. Because of laws like COPPA (US) and GDPR (EU), we can't have nice things -- younger folks participating responsibly on our sites. Minimum age is now 16 in the EU and 13 everywhere else. :-(

oh my

@Cyn @Secespitus all moderators (who are in chat at the time) see moderator flags, not just the site mods. If a site mod is around then other mods usually defer, but if it needs to be handled quickly and no one's around, they can and do step in.

@forest You're missing my point by a mile. Yes, someone doesn't magically become more competent and able at 18 and a day than at 17 and 360 days. But the lack of an obvious dividing line (aside from a legal one) doesn't mean there's no difference between a teen and an adult.

@forest 13 has been the rule for as long as I've been on SE, and I assume is because SE is a US-based company and thus has to follow US laws. The EU thing is newer.

@MonicaCellio The tooltip especially says that it's for site mods

@Cyn Sure there are differences, but those differences aren't relevant to dealing with harassment. Age should not be a qualifying factor for moderator protection.

Everyone deserves and gets moderator protection. And support from other users. But we need to be especially mindful of people who may not yet have the skill set to protect themselves as well as others (this isn't always about age, but age is important).

@Secespitus oh, interesting. I never noticed that tooltip. I know I've seen flags from other sites' rooms, though.

@MonicaCellio Maybe the tooltip needs to be updated?

@Cyn A 10 year old may not have the skills to protect themselves in a heated argument, but a 17 year old and a 25 year old will have, on average, very similar skills.

@MonicaCellio thanks for stepping in here. I have a question. @Secespitus says anyone with 10K+ rep on SE will see chat flags (I'm not on chat often enough to say that isn't true cause I haven't seen one). And you're saying it's all mods (from any stack). Can you clarify?

@Cyn Monica is talking about the left mod flag

I've seen chat flags, but I've never seen mod flags as I'm not a mod. :P

Oh I thought you said the left mod flag only went to site mods.

@Cyn Yes, that's the misunderstanding with the apparently-incorrect tooltip that we were talking about. Left is apparently for all mods everywhere, right is for every 10k+ currently online.

Got it.

Question: do moderators get notification of chat flags (any of them?) if they are not on chat? (the way any user does if tagged in chat when no chat window is open)

I think I've never seen this room this active.

You're welcome. :-D

@Cyn two different types of flags. Anyone with 10k rep on the chat server (for historical reasons SO and Meta.SE are on different servers, so that rep doesn't count here) sees the regular flags (rude and spam, IIRC). The flags where you type custom text are seen by moderators, not 10k users, but it's all moderators on that server. For all of this, though, flag notifications are ephemeral, so you'll only see them if you're in chat at the time.

Oddly enough, the chat flag notification often doesn't vanish.

When you click on the blue icon, it just says "there are no active flags".

@Cyn no, and there aren't good tools for reviewing history. Yes mods have complained about that. :-) Answering the question "has anything concerning happened in my site's rooms recently?" is not straightforward.

@MonicaCellio I see. Yeah, chat seems to be this different entity in many ways, with some crossover to the rest of SE.

@Cyn yeah, separate code base, different tools, and definitely lagging behind the rest of the network when it comes to what moderators can do.