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I flagged this comment as too chatty. The flag was declined with no reason provided.

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I think the comment is too chatty. It makes no attempt to address the question. It appears to be a conversation between two users about the usefulness of Manifest in Limited and Constructed play. Another user even directed them towards a chat room.

Why was the flag declined?

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  • I agree. Especially since the next comment suggests exactly that
    – Brian Robbins
    Commented Feb 2, 2015 at 21:31
  • This question may be helpful.
    – murgatroid99 Mod
    Commented Feb 3, 2015 at 0:15

1 Answer 1

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I suspect it's because it's not obvious without context that the comment is not relevant to the question. It is a known weakness of the flag system that moderators see flagged comments alone, without the question or surrounding comments for context. In the future, in situations like this, I would suggest using a custom flag on the comment or the question to indicate that the comment thread is too chatty.

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  • When I go through the review queue and I need context, I get context. If our mods are so overloaded that they cannot do that, then we need more. We are perfectly capable of having a better community than that described by the meta answer you linked to. But that's a topic for another day.
    – Rainbolt
    Commented Feb 3, 2015 at 14:09
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    The too chatty flag is generally used for clearly useless comments like "thanks" or "me too" that clearly add nothing to the question. You have here the non-standard situation of comments that appear to discuss the question but are actually slightly off topic. That kind of situation is exactly what custom flags were made for. Plus, flagging a single comment to remove a comment thread is unproductive: at best, just that comment will get deleted.
    – murgatroid99 Mod
    Commented Feb 3, 2015 at 16:42
  • How does one get "comments that appear to discuss the question" without reading the question? That's like saying that my coworker appears to look like you, despite the fact that I have no clue what you look like.
    – Rainbolt
    Commented Feb 3, 2015 at 17:21
  • @Rainbolt I wouldn't assume that the mods are making bad decisions because they're overloaded based on a single case. It could be an honest mistake. It's even a defensible decision; there's some wiggle room in what's too chatty and what isn't, based on the kind of discussion the community tends to tolerate, so someone could've even decided the discussion was ok. (Mods do tend to err on the side of not acting.) It could be something else. Without the mod who actually handled the flag explaining, hard to say.
    – Cascabel
    Commented Feb 4, 2015 at 5:59
  • That said, murgatroid's definitely right that custom flags are really, really helpful for things like this. In my experience, while I do always go look for context when I'm handling ambiguous flags, it's nice when the flag comes with an explanation of what someone already noticed, rather than making me figure it out myself.
    – Cascabel
    Commented Feb 4, 2015 at 6:01
  • @Jefromi I understand that custom flags are helpful. I have not refuted that point. It's in his answer, it's in his comment, and now it's in your comment too. Thanks. I get it.
    – Rainbolt
    Commented Feb 4, 2015 at 14:04
  • @Rainbolt I was just trying to explain why it's a good idea, even if mods ideally should be looking at context and always making perfect decisions even without custom flags. My apologies if you and all future readers already understood that.
    – Cascabel
    Commented Feb 4, 2015 at 16:25
  • I took your advice and flagged the comment in question using a custom flag. I wrote, "Comment thread is too chatty (i.e., off topic, not discussing the question)." It's been sitting there for fourteen days now.
    – Rainbolt
    Commented Feb 18, 2015 at 20:09
  • After nearly 45 days, the flag was accepted. Looks like this answer works after all.
    – Rainbolt
    Commented Mar 13, 2015 at 19:22

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