I have finished work on our post moderation section for administrators and moderators and would like to kick this off with a tutorial on users best tool in fighting suspected trolls and spammers, the report button. Many have told me they do not know how to do it, so I thought a tutorial was needed.

First off when to report a post. Basically whenever you think moderation is needed. I have compiled a quick list below.
1) Any time someone advertises a website or product on the website with a very low post count. IE they have a post count of two and just pasted about a breakthrough nail care solution.
2) Any time someone posts anything you suspect to be illegal.
3) Any time someone starts insulting another outside the confines of the colosseum.
4) Any time you find political bickering outside the pit of politics.
5) Any time a thread gets threadjacked and you would like a moderator to come in and get it back on track.
6) Anything questionable that you would like to have a moderator look at.

Now before I show you exactly how to report I will show you why to report a thread. When a thread is reported it focuses every available moderator and administrator. Below is what a moderator or administrator sees when a post is reported.





As you can see the reported post gets highlighted in red. It grabs ones attention rather quickly. In addition to this, even if we are not looking at the specific category the reported post is on, we get a nice alert on any page of the website detailing that a post has been reported.






When you report a post it is the absolute fastest way to get the attention of the moderators. As you can see we have very good tools to alert us when a post has been reported. Now I will explain how to report a post yourself. First off, an example of a post to be reported.





Once you identify a post you want to report, the process of actually reporting it is very simple. Just click the exclamation point shown below.





After you click the report button this page will come up.





Just select the reason in the drop down menu, select whether you want to be notified upon closure of the report and include any further information you would like us to see. Click submit to file a report and it is done. This will cause a swarm of moderators to converge on the topic and make a decision on what to do.

Usage of this tool will help us keep this site spam and troll free. I encourage everyone to use this whenever they would like a moderator to take a look at something. Do not feel afraid to report a post, unless you are intentionally spamming the mods with reported posts they are happy to take a look at a post for you.

I hope this tutorial was helpful.