Reports should probably just be left in the queue or 'ignored' if that's going to happen though (with some exceptions).
I don't understand the point of leaving reports in the queue. Seems like they should be acted on or deleted.
There's quite a few cases where I'm not sure whether to take action. Leaving the report in the queue (e.g. when you're not completely sure and want to think about it) or "ignoring" (removing from your own queue but not from everyone elses) it potentially allows other mods to act upon the report.
After a certain length of time it should be clear that no action will be taken though right? Why not delete them? What is the benefit of leaving them unhandled perpetually?
Well, there's always a possibility of one of the mods being promoted to global and going through all the reports, including the ones the last few globals ignored. A report might also linger around the queue simply because there's always a crap ton of new reports coming in, to the point that I barely even remember the last time my queue went down to less than a hundred reports.
As for the good reports not getting acted upon, AFAIK it wasn't me. As someone earlier in the thread pointed out, one of the mods could've cleaned up the thread a bit without trashing it or locking it. He also could've handled it accidentally - happens from time to time.