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How easy is it to get away with "borrowing" in the workplace

All of my recent flags have been rejected. So perhaps I need to change my approach.

How should I flag the above question if I believe it to be nothing more than trolling, and I desire to see this forum avoid falling into a never-ending troll spiral? What would be most effective?

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How should I flag the above question if I believe it to be nothing more than trolling, and I desire to see this forum avoid falling into a never-ending troll spiral? What would be most effective?

Generally, it's most helpful to just cast delete votes - this site has a pretty active community of users with 10k+ reputation (and 20k+ which allows "quick" delete votes immediately once a question is closed).

Questions like that which can be deleted via community vote should be done so as a first resort. Moderators will delete content (I just cast the 3rd delete vote on the question you linked) but will prefer to not be the only people deleting content.

Ultimately, the community sets the "tone" here. While we moderators are most certainly opinionated and have our desires for where the community should go, generally we're not going to try to mandate policy on the "squishier" subjects.

From a practical perspective, what that means is I am much more hesitant to delete a question if it has no delete votes. I try to use my votes sparingly - I see casting a third delete vote as more my "user" hat but casting the first (and last) as more the moderator hat. I prefer to be my "user" hat.

This is true in terms of the flags too. Flagging a question asking for it to be deleted will probably be declined, but flagging it saying "this user appears to be blatantly trolling" when there is at least one delete vote on it is far more actionable.

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  • Okay, thanks. One delete vote matters more than I would have imagined. I don't see a way to cast a delete vote for workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/92236/…. Perhaps I'm missing it.
    – Joe Strazzere
    Jun 6, 2017 at 19:07
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    @JoeStrazzere the question has to hit -3 first - from the 20k rep privileges Voting to delete questions with a score of -3 or lower immediately after they are closed
    – enderland
    Jun 6, 2017 at 19:17
  • Got it, thanks.
    – Joe Strazzere
    Jun 6, 2017 at 19:18
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    @JoeStrazzere "One delete vote matters more than I would have imagined" -- it converts an action from a unilateral moderator action to a multi-user action, even with just 1 delete vote. That's very meaningful!
    – enderland
    Jun 6, 2017 at 19:23
  • The mods here are loathe to act in lieu of the community, but if the community shows up with torches and pitchforks..... LOL.
    – Old_Lamplighter
    Jun 7, 2017 at 21:05
  • @RichardU given that mods over here are 20K users themselves I find it reasonable for them to prefer acting based on rep level privileges instead of using "nuclear" diamond options - specifically using delete votes on garbage / troll questions
    – gnat
    Jun 7, 2017 at 21:20
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    Could you possibly add an in the event of a highly voted troll question... section
    – IDrinkandIKnowThings
    Jun 8, 2017 at 16:52

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