First off, some positive news. We now have our comment flag history visible on the user page http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/users/flag-summary/userID. I'm sure this will make users' flagging better (for they see which comment flags were declined, which can be used to improve flagging practice).
However, some (so far only comment) flags are seen to be cleared as "selfclear". This MSO thread suggests that this happens when a comment is deleted by its author.
There are a couple of problems with that:
- They count neither as "helpful", nor as "declined", resulting in a discrepancy between the total comment flag number and the amount of flags dealt with (be it positively or negatively);
- The "selfclear" resolution is an automated one (including for flags using the highest confidentiality "Other" reason), which can mean that e.g. flagging the top comment of a chain of obsolete comments won't be recognised (meaning that the other comments remain until someone flags them again).
In a more severe context, this can mean that if someone flags a comment with a custom reason (for example repeated harassment), pointing to several other comments as evidence, this information does not reach the moderators, which I think is bad.
So, what is the rationale behind "selfclear"? Am I correct in assuming that flags cleared this way have not been looked at by a moderator (resp. 10k/20k+ user)? Should "Other" flags be exempted from "selfclear" resolution, if such is to exist at all? And why are "selfclear" resolutions not listed among the flag tally in the flag summary?
NB. Tagging this support until it's clear whether bug or feature-request would be more appropriate.
