Woozle Hypertwin

Technical Note: When a site moderator deletes flagged posts in a report via the admin panel, that also deletes their content from the report.

This is bad design, because it means that deleting the posts to resolve a report also removes the record of what was in them That record is often necessary in order to:

  • understand (later) why they were deleted
  • notice if they're part of a pattern which the reported user is continuing
  • share knowledge among multiple moderators

Does anyone know if there's a trouble-ticket for this?

#softwareGripe #Mastodon

Jul 19, 2025 at 9:48pmWeb
Show threadGemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐Jul 20, 2025
@woozle YES, THIS. 1000000% THIS.
Show threadstaringatcloudsJul 20, 2025

@woozle I was a forum moderator for a UK based forum for over a decade

Nothing ever got deleted

We hid posts or moved them to a hidden forum rather than delete them & we'd take copies & merge them with the original reports along with notes detailing why we'd done what we did

But we could always undo any moderation action

Show threadWoozle HypertwinJul 20, 2025
@staringatclouds This is, in fact, how it should be. 
Show threadÖlbaumJul 21, 2025
@woozle Also, if someone breaks the server rules in a reply, and then blocks you, you still see it because it’s in your notifications, but you can’t report it because the process ultimately fails.
Show threadWoozle HypertwinJul 21, 2025

@oscherler Wow, yuck. You should be able to report someone you've blocked.

(What happens if you unblock them long enough to report it, and then re-block them?)

Show threadÖlbaumJul 21, 2025
@woozle It’s the other way round: they blocked you.
Show threadWoozle HypertwinJul 21, 2025

@oscherler Woops! Sorry, ADHD brain.

Yeah, blocking someone else shouldn't give them immunity to being reported, either.