I just flagged a comment for a non-constructive, borderline rude comment (the first comment to the answer) to this answer, and am wondering if I will be able to see when it has been addressed and what the result will be.

First I replied to the person's comment refuting their comment, and shortly after I received a down vote on my answer. After asking for an explanation, interestingly enough it was the same person and they accused me of copying someone else's answer. Im not so concerned about the downvote, but what I find unacceptable is the behavior. And even worse, this person has 12k reputation, and could probably moderate my flagged comments himself.

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I don't think so, comment flags are very insubstantial –  Ben Brocka Jun 4 '12 at 13:47
@BenBrocka, I can see the logic as to why, but also that can be rather unfortunate considering this person's behavior. –  Brady Jun 4 '12 at 13:48
Great, now it just changed to 2 down votes. I imagine the same user is reading this same post :( –  Brady Jun 4 '12 at 13:49
Just to let you know, downvotes work slightly differently here on meta –  Manishearth Jun 4 '12 at 13:51
@TimManishEarth, ya I knew that, I was referring to my answer on stack overflow, thanks. –  Brady Jun 4 '12 at 14:30
@Brady A user cannot down-vote the same post twice, so it must be someone else. –  Alenanno Jun 4 '12 at 14:35
@Alenanno, good point. Looks like the inappropriate comments have all been cleaned up now. –  Brady Jun 4 '12 at 14:37
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3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

There is no option for moderators to give feedback on comment flags. They can add a comment of their own to the post, but they can't give any feedback specifically to the user that flagged the comment.

The best way to determine what a mod or 10k users thought of the flag is to observe the result, if the comment is deleted the flag was probably valid.

I'm pretty sure that 10k users don't see flags on their own posts, and comment flags are anonymous even for diamond moderators.

If you're concerned about the general behaviour of a specific user, and not just one specific comment, it is better to use a custom flag and explain the situation in more detail. Comment flags are not a good way to deal with this, they're gone once the comment is deleted in any way.

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When you mention a custom flag, on which entity to I raise the flag? my answer, or the OP question? –  Brady Jun 4 '12 at 14:35
The post where one offending comment can be found would be a good idea, somewhere with an example of the problematic behaviour. –  Mad Scientist Jun 4 '12 at 14:36
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Not really. You can monitor post flags, though. Go to your profile, and click the "helpful flags" thingy:

enter image description here

Alternatively, go http://stackoverflow.com/users/flag-summary/1158895

Unfortunately, this only works for post flags, not comment flags. Though IIRC the number in the flag stats on the same page will go up if your flag was deemed "helpful".

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Not really. Once you cast a comment flag, it sort of disappears into the aether.

The only way to know the general moderator response is to watch which number goes up in your flagging summary (accessed by clicking the number of helpful flags in your profile) — the number of helpful comment flags, the number of declined comment flags, or neither.

You can't see the action taken either, other than watching the comment to see if it disappears.

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