The curious functionality of "Report To Admin" button from inside PMs

[GazetaBitcoin]

I an writing this topic as I am sort of curious about what should actually happen after reporting a PM to "Admin".

As we all know,

29. Sending unsolicited PMs, including but not limited to advertising and flood, is not allowed.

Also as we all know, from time to time we receive unsolicited PMs. Take philipma1957's recent case for example.

I don't know precisely how many times I reported unsolicited PMs, but I believe I did it for about 10-20 times. After hitting the "Report to Admin" button, you are asked to which admin(s) you wish to send the report. Options are: "to all forum administrators", to Cyrus, to hilariousandco, to mprep, to Mr. Big or to theymos:



After sending the report the following message is displayed:



And this is also the part which I do not understand: I always sent these reports to all admins, yet I was never contacted back by any of them. Is this normal? Please don't get my question as being sarcastic, because it isn't. I am just willing to understand if admins actually contact those which report unsolicited PMs; or if they usually do it; or if they usually don't do it -- yet they do it from time to time etc.

Furthermore, I also do not know what happens after such reports are being sent. There is no way to see if these reports were flagged as good or bad (or as unhandled) and, since nobody contacts you to let you know if a decision was taken, then there is no way for knowing what happened with the user which sent the unsolicited PM. Was he sanctioned somehow? Was his PM considered as breaking rule 29? And so on.

Am I missing something here? All opinions are welcome, as long as they are on-topic.

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[PX-Z]

I guess, they only respond the report if it was labeled as "unhandled" or "bad report" and explain why it will not be "good" report.
Because if the report is obvious against to the forum rules, it will eventually trashed and punished the reported account, so messaging the reporter isn't necessary, unless it will have a complicated outcome, this will go the first i said about the "unhandled" and "bad" report.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

I guess, they only respond the report if it was labeled as "unhandled" or "bad report" and explain why it will not be "good" report.
Because if the report is obvious against to the forum rules, it will eventually trashed and punished the reported account, so messaging the reporter isn't necessary, unless it will have a complicated outcome, this will go the first i said about the "unhandled" and "bad" report.

But OP says there is nowhere for one to see if the report of PM to admin was labelled as "Unhandled" or "bad report" like how you see with reports of posts made to mods

[SatoPrincess]

I don’t think the admins consider it necessary to give feedback to the reporter but I believe these reports are handled. I know this because sometime this year, out of the blue Royse777 was given a temp ban for sending unsolicited dms to other members. For these reports, I think the context of the message doesn’t matter and is dealt with as long as the recipient finds them offensive.

[PX-Z]

But OP says there is nowhere for one to see if the report of PM to admin was labelled as "Unhandled" or "bad report" like how you see with reports of posts made to mods

Yeah, that's why i used the double quotes for assumed label of the reports. And only message you for clarification that the report is "bad" report sometimes for "good".

[jackg]

The reason to report is tostop the action from being repeated or happening in the first place. If you're not a mod, you perhaps don't need to know how reports are handled to know your report is being read and followed (ie if you're reporting a phishing link, I don't think you need to know if the mod thinks it's suspicious too and it takes time away from their regular work).

If the pm was phishing (or something similar) it might be helpful to post it in meta too.

[mprep]

And this is also the part which I do not understand: I always sent these reports to all admins, yet I was never contacted back by any of them. Is this normal?

Yes.

I am just willing to understand if admins actually contact those which report unsolicited PMs; or if they usually do it; or if they usually don't do it -- yet they do it from time to time etc.

While it may vary between staff members, I tend to only contact PM reporters if their reports are regular, persistent and completely off the mark (so essentially intentional or unintentional PM report spam) or if the report requires follow up (extra info, etc.).

Furthermore, I also do not know what happens after such reports are being sent. There is no way to see if these reports were flagged as good or bad (or as unhandled) and, since nobody contacts you to let you know if a decision was taken, then there is no way for knowing what happened with the user which sent the unsolicited PM. Was he sanctioned somehow? Was his PM considered as breaking rule 29? And so on.

As I've mentioned, if you keep making bad PM reports, one of the mods will probably PM you about it. As for what happens, it really depends: if this is the first report on that user and the PM in question isn't blatant bot spam or malware, it'll probably be noted down and a ban will be issued only when there's more than a single valid report on that user.

Am I missing something here?

Not really.

[rat03gopoh]

What's the point of having the option of sending PM reports to only one specific admin or all? Does each admin have their own personal space to handle PM reports. Is this related to privacy?

It seems everyone prefers "send to all forum admins" for a quicker handle. Or there are certain cases that I don't know where I've to choose one.

[Lucius]

I sent several such reports, but I never expected that someone would get back to me with some information. A few days ago, I reported a PM in which a member offered me his BTT account for sale, and I asked for someone from the staff to confirm that the PM is authentic, but nothing happened. A simple public announcement in the thread I opened would not take much of anyone's time nor would it affect the security of the forum in any way - and who knows, maybe they are still thinking about it.

[Halab]

After sending the report the following message is displayed:



And this is also the part which I do not understand: I always sent these reports to all admins, yet I was never contacted back by any of them. Is this normal?

I think it's just the standard message from the SMF version, so don't pay too much attention to it. If GMs had to send a PM for every report, they wouldn't last long
And if I'm not wrong, Theymos has reworked the reports page (for mods), stats when you make a report and for the reports history. Everything related to PMs report is (more or less) standard (there are no stats, nor history).

[GazetaBitcoin]

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Thank you, mprep and Halab for your inputs and thank you all the others which replied to this topic.

In conclusion, it seems that good reports (on PMs) do not lead to admins contacting the reporters and only bad reports made in a continuous manners, plus those requiring more information, determine a contact of the reporter(s) by admin(s).

Perhaps it would be nice to have a new feature implemented, thus reporters could also see a status for their reports, but I have no idea how difficult it can be to have it done (nor if it is technically possible).

Okay, having the questions answered, I am going to lock the topic. Thanks again for your replies!