Possible "Report PM" mechanism?

[Ezzaral]

Having just forwarded yet another scam spam PM to a couple of mods, I was wondering if a mechanism like the "Flag Bad Post" option on forum posts would be useful on the PM interface. Every time that I've received one of these messages I've been unsure as to who I should forward the message.

(The current spammer is "marie20088", who is still online and at it, by the way)

[Narue]

>I was wondering if a mechanism like the "Flag Bad Post"
>option on forum posts would be useful on the PM interface.
I'm torn on this. On the one hand it's a good idea. On the other, we don't have the rule framework in place for dealing with problematic PMs. Presently it's most often dealt with on a case by case basis by Dani, happygeek, and myself.

>Every time that I've received one of these messages
>I've been unsure as to who I should forward the message.
Forward them to me and I'll either deal with them personally, or pass them on for discussion by the admins and mod team.

[Ezzaral]

>Every time that I've received one of these messages >I've been unsure as to who I should forward the message. Forward them to me and I'll either deal with them personally, or pass them on for discussion by the admins and mod team.

Ok, thanks for info on that. Previously I've just randomly picked one of the mods that I knew was online frequently during the times I'm usually online.

[John A]

I think it would be a good idea. Presently we have no way of knowing if the "forwarded message" is in its unaltered form (or whether the alleged sender actually sent that at all). Creating a "report PM" feature would provide a foolproof mechanism for ensuring that the PM is in its unaltered form.

Of course, then we'd also have to deal with the people who mistake the "report PM" button for a "reply" button. :icon_rolleyes:

[cscgal]

A "flag as spam" link is pretty standard in webmail applications nowadays, and so I think it would be reasonably unconfusing.

[The Dude]

Some sites i am on have a "Report to Mods" on PMs...

[Nick Evan]

I vote in favor of any kind of reporting system for PM's

[~s.o.s~]

> Of course, then we'd also have to deal with the people who mistake the "report PM" button
> for a "reply" button.

...which is what we still do sometimes in the Reported posts forum. :-)

BTW, this sounds like a good addition to the current spam handling system as long as moderators don't get *personal* notifications of such things are they are processed in the same way normal spam gets processed.

[Ezzaral]

Yes, I was thinking the mods might prefer that as well. Currently we can only forward those as a personal PM. If a report mechanism could place those in a common area it would probably ease the burden on the mods' inboxes.

I'm not certain though if that is possible with personal messages as it is with forum posts.