I would have far less objections if the comment author was the only person that could mark a comment as such. Unfortunately, I recognize that in the good-faith case this somewhat reduces its utility.
Yeah. I was considering something like “the ‘outdated’ flag can be set by comment author, article authors, or the moderators… but if someone else has set it, the comment author will be notified and can remove the flag, in which case no one other than the comment author will be able to set it again”—but this seems needlessly complicated.
From my perspective, in the case of abuse, the comment is not removed, only collapsed and moved to the bottom, so there remains a clear evidence of abuse that can be called out; which in my opinion is a sufficient protection against abuse. (I guess there should be a small print mentioning who specifically has set the “outdated” flag for given comment.)
Maybe the wording should be specific enough, like “This comment reported a typo which has been fixed”, to make it more obvious what constitutes an abuse of the button.
Yeah. I was considering something like “the ‘outdated’ flag can be set by comment author, article authors, or the moderators… but if someone else has set it, the comment author will be notified and can remove the flag, in which case no one other than the comment author will be able to set it again”—but this seems needlessly complicated.
(If you get a notification on an account you no longer check, that doesn’t really help.)
so there remains a clear evidence of abuse that can be called out; which in my opinion is a sufficient protection against abuse.
Hm. I think you have a somewhat more optimistic view of this than I do.
I do not believe that “a (failed) attempt to fix an issue” can be that easily distinguished from abuse.
It’s not so much “this comment reported a typo”. It’s things like “step 6 of your argument doesn’t follow from step 5″ hidden and the post updated with something that doesn’t actually resolve the problem.
Yeah. I was considering something like “the ‘outdated’ flag can be set by comment author, article authors, or the moderators… but if someone else has set it, the comment author will be notified and can remove the flag, in which case no one other than the comment author will be able to set it again”—but this seems needlessly complicated.
From my perspective, in the case of abuse, the comment is not removed, only collapsed and moved to the bottom, so there remains a clear evidence of abuse that can be called out; which in my opinion is a sufficient protection against abuse. (I guess there should be a small print mentioning who specifically has set the “outdated” flag for given comment.)
Maybe the wording should be specific enough, like “This comment reported a typo which has been fixed”, to make it more obvious what constitutes an abuse of the button.
(If you get a notification on an account you no longer check, that doesn’t really help.)
Hm. I think you have a somewhat more optimistic view of this than I do.
I do not believe that “a (failed) attempt to fix an issue” can be that easily distinguished from abuse.
It’s not so much “this comment reported a typo”. It’s things like “step 6 of your argument doesn’t follow from step 5″ hidden and the post updated with something that doesn’t actually resolve the problem.