Firstly, I'm thinking in german-mode, so my english may be somewhat unidiomatic (and hence harder-than-it-must-be to read). I Apologize.

In any case, the backgrund for my proposal:
I have from time to time read posts, which I found to be in violation of the rules and/or common-sensical proper form (see `Smart Questions')--and I generally report those to moderators. Some of those posts violated proper form in more than one way, and when I hit `report to moderator' it says "This post has already been reported ...", and that's when I get doubtful of whether or not the person who reported it has mentioned both proper-form-violations.

So, the idea I have to remedy that: provide subject lines for reports, and show the subject lines that have already been reported. And also a menu of the most commonly used (`double post', `troll', `flame', ...); in that way, one can see what has been reported (so one doesn't reported that too) and what hasn't (so one *does* report that).

Example:
0) JoeN00b has made a flaming double-post.
1) HackerSan reports it for being a double-post (ticking off the double-post box, of course).
2) Mod3ratr0W4nAB clicks `report', reads the list of outstanding reports (i.e. ["double post"]), and adds a report for being a flame.
3) /me clicks `report', and sees that the list (["double post", "flame"]) is (what I consider) complete, and thus don't report it again.

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Potential reasons for *not* implementing this:
1) it's not worth the trouble.

2) if people double-post in forums, they'll likely double-post reports too. But then again, those people might not be the ones reporting things to moderators (if they don't think *they're* doing anything wrong, why would they report anyone else--they're not doing anything wrong either). Then again, they may report someone for winning the discussion (`mommy, my sister hit me!' ).

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(I have (of course) searched the WSS&FB forum (for `report moderator') but haven't found anything relevant -- I assumed the topics for the posts I *did* find were well chosen).

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"beware of he, who denies you information, for in his mind, he deems himself your master" (A quote from one of the wonders-of-the-world videos in Alpha Centauri). I think this might be (subconciously) motivating me a bit too, but I'm not sure.

Don't you trust the mods to know the rules and spot the infractions when they read the post, then?

Well, the way I see it working, is as soon as a post is reported for any infringement, a moderator heads over there and checks the post, taking whatever action is necessary in his/her opinion.

So it doesn't really matter how many times the post is reported (besides nuisance value) or how many infringements there are, the first report is a heads up for the moderator to check the post

Yes(!), I (of course!) expect them to *know* the rules.
And on a good (i.e. normal) day, I expect them to spot the violations too.

And yes, I also expect them to be very busy. And hence, they may (from time to time) miss the things the report doesn't say (most likely it being a double-post if the `similar posts' doesn't show the clone).

I think that the message that you can give the mod lets you say: this is a double post... the other thread is here... yadda yadda... and if you got beaten to it, well, at least you tried. I don't think there is a need for this function. And besides, if someone is taking the trouble to report a problem, then they will probably tell the multiple things.

titanium_geek

As has been pointed out, the main purpose of the "report to moderator" function is to draw attention to the post and make sure a mod doesn't miss something. The comments are just used as a guide by the mods - they use their experience and judgment to make the decision on what to do.

--jeremy

And to top that off, I do like it when the report does have comments of why its being reported. And I also like on the more complicated reported posts if you do explain why your reporting. We're all different and at times a post that offends one person might not offend me of anyone else, so your opinions and feelings when reporting a post do help at times make better judgement on what action to take.

I also don't mind if a member that reports it also replies to let the member know that they broke our rule, etc. If its clearly a rule breaker, kindly point them to the rules so this helps other members who don't realize it's a double post not to post in it cause its only likely to get closed.

If its a flame or something getting out of hand though, better off to report it, ignore it and move on.