The Tavern

There is a "Report" button on every post to request moderator action for spam, abuse, and the like.

If the button is clicked for a post that is already reported, you get a message stating the post is already reported.

It would be great if the button was disabled (and visually marked) on reported posts. That way, when I see a problem post, I get a warm fuzzy feeling that it's already on the way to being addressed instead of rising anger that not only is someone messing up the forum, but now the moderators won't even listen to me talk about it.

This may be difficult to do with the forum software, and it isn't terribly important, but I thought I would throw it out there.

Another possible solution would be to PM the poster directly.

No, that wouldn't help the situation I'm talking about. PMing a spammer just encourages them; their IP needs to banned, and that shouldn't be within ordinary users' power.

I mean that when I look at the forum and see "Let's sell cocaine to Mexico" as the first topic, and I open the thread and decide to report it, the "report" button should be disabled. It should be disabled because someone else reported it fifteen minutes ago. It shouldn't be an exclamation point button that I can click on. It should be a disabled button, or it should be the words "This post has been reported."

Either that, or the system should accept more than one report on the same post. That's probably not useful, as it seems moderators and admins deal with every report.

I don't know if what you describe is possible. I'm sorry you find this aggravating, but is it really a big deal that you get taken to a page that says "This has already been reported," as opposed to just having the button disabled? I suppose if other people find this annoying, we should look into changing it. (Again, though, I don't know if it is technically feasible.)

I would suggest something more along the lines of "This post has been reported" appearing somewhere, in addition to greying out the button, as doing only latter might be confusing. ("Why can't I report this post?")

For spammers, yes—please do not PM the poster. I hope that is obvious.

For cases of perceived trolling/bullying/being an ass, etc., then PMing the poster may be an option, but again this may encourage a true troll/bully. For arguments that are getting out of hand between people who are convinced of their own viewpoints, though, it is often a good way to defuse a tense situation.

You can always PM a mod if you feel something hasn't been addressed and/or want further clarification. (Though do keep in mind that sometimes we take care of a report, but fail to post a notice in the thread or w/e, so do check on the thing you reported before taking to the private messages.)

Yeah, this is very minor.

And it wouldn't surprise me if it is impossible or at least a ton of work, and thus not worth doing.

If it happens to be a simple check box, my vote is to check it. It might not be worth the time to find the setting.