Inspired by this thread http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...eading-750241/

where acid_kewpie states

I had wondered whether this was a large scale problem. On at least a couple of occasions (OK, at least 4 or 5) I have hit the report button by accident -in my own defence this was while doing something else...multitasking (and not doing either task well). Everytime I've noticed that something is badly wrong and backed out of it, but it seems that some people don't make that observation.

My suggestion is to move the 'report' button away from the quote/blog/thumbs up buttons. So, for example, report would be on its own on the left, while the 'friendly' buttons would be grouped on the right and this reduce the incidence of people hitting the report button by accident.

I still don't think that this will completely cure the problem (another level of confirmation along the lines of 'if you had wanted to reply to this thread click this button and only if you had really, really, really wanted to report click one of the following
a) advertising
b) unnaceptable language
c) failure to observe LQ rules
d) spam
e) poor netiquette...
might also help, in that you force the responder to think a bit about what they are 'reporting' and also give them an 'out' if they had got there by mistake, but you do have to wonder why such a thing might be necessary). Its a bit of a pain, though, so it depends on the volume of the spurious reports whether this would be worth doing.

It's true I've hit it a few times too, but went back after seeing the large bold letters. Well, it could always be moved to the left side away from the often-used quote button.

I've hit report before when going for the Quote button, but like the above posters have backed out straight away when seeing the subsequent screen. Moving it away from the Quote button might be a simple solution against accidental clickage, though how anyone can not notice that they've clicked it on the subsequent screen is beyond me.

It's not the hitting it that's the problem. It's the continuing to type and submit even when you're clearly on the wrong page. It's also been moved around before and, unfortunately, it's always been misused.

Maybe it's because "REPort" and "REPly" share the same first three letters. I think it should be renamed to "grass to the feds". Who's with me?

As has been mentioned in this thread, even if you do accidentally click the button I think we've done everything we can to make it obvious that it isn't a way to reply. I'm open to additional ideas, but keep in mind we have: tested different button placements, changed the button to include a clear strikeout icon, hidden the button completely until you have 3 posts and put a large BOLDED red note on the page.

--jeremy

Can you make the button red Jeremy?

That actually seemed to draw more attention to it and caused *more* incorrect submissions, not fewer.

--jeremy

What we've discovered today:

• People who know what they are doing (and me!) have hit the report button by accident. Broadly, we've all backed out of the situation. So we've all got it wrong and then done 'the sensible thing'.
• Some people don't do this, although it it isn't completely clear whether they think that they are doing the right things in hitting report (incorrectly) and just carry on, or whether they accidentally hit report and then display their determination by carrying on in a linear way, in spite of of warning messages.

So, I am proposing a two-pronged attack; make it less likely that people hit the report button by accident, and if, instead of fat fingers, they choose to employ lack of thinking, then give them a better chance to go back into the 'reply' path, rather than the 'report' path. So, if they are in the report path and take the default, they end up in 'reply'.

I am convinced (& I've been convinced of incorrect things before now) that, taken together, these would reduce the bad reports, but really whether this is a problem worth solving (reducing) is another matter. For that you'd have to ask the people who have to clear up the 'bad' reports.

Anyway, when it does eventually happen that I hit the report button and fill in a bad report, I have an excuse, if not a particularly good one.

You can't say I didn't try!

Well maybe after you fill out the report form we can make people put in a code, like one of those bot detectors or whatever they're called where the text is askew and you have to enter it correctly to finish the report? Just a thought, I thought making it red would work kind of like a stop sign, go figure. LOL

There is no surefire way to protect users from themselves. If we move the button I can guarantee you that we will see posts that read "I tried to report this post but there;s no report button any more" and then inboxes of the mods would fill with emails to report people (with no URL provided to trak down the post) and complaints that the report button is no longer there.

As a test, on your own PC where you have multiple users with access to the system, move the "start" button out of it's normal place and then see what happens when someone tries to open a program.

I have been ing myself for the past week or so by doing just such a thing; consider:

We generally have our taskbar clock in either the top right or bottom right corner, at the end of the taskbar.

I have my taskbar set to "auto-hide", and recently, I have made the taskbar span both monitors.

This got annoying, because my clock was no longer in the top-right of my #1 monitor (basically the center-point of my view) -- instead, it went to the top-right of the #2 monitor (way over there, yes!) Yet still I pop-up the taskbar and look at the top-right of the #1 monitor.

Solution: put a clock at BOTH ends of the taskbar

Does it work? NO -- now there's a clock at top-left of monitor #1 and top-right of monitor #2, but where do I look for the time, when I pop the taskbar up? Right in the middle, where there's no clock

It seems the text you see when you press the "Report" button has been made bigger and I think that'll make a big difference.. it's a lot more noticeable now.

Nylex, astute observation - we have indeed changed the size of the explanation on the report page.

--jeremy

Sarcasm?

In a similar vein, though, what about making the text about thread titles (i.e. the "Bad", "Good" "Best" things under "Subject:") a bit bigger too?

Nope, no sarcasm - you were the first person to note the change (and are a common reporter, which is much appreciated). I've slightly changed the text on the New Thread page.

--jeremy