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It's a rule to not asking for a reason of downvote, because everyone already encouraged to write a reason of a downvote and when he/she don't want to write the reason, asking again about downvote is totally obsolete. In fact w.h.p downvoter wont be care about the comment and wont provide any helpful information in future.

I marked this comment as obsolete:

no one tried to understand what I'm saying, but I've got 2 downvoting votes, it's really a pitty, at least one user downvoted me without taking in consideration to explain the reason that maid him do so.

Moderator rejected the flag. I'll be happy to know that according to which rule or interpretation of rules or comment my flag is invalid? Also if moderator made mistake he can fix it.

P.S1: I'm personally against downvoting without commenting but that doesn't mean I expect everyone to be like me in this case, I just can encourage to comment and I think this also holds for moderators.

P.S2: I already tagged this as moderation not moderator but in the text I used moderator, because I didn't find a better word to describe the situation, but it is possible that flag being rejected by some users which are not moderators but they have access to flags. So here I have to clear that the audiences of aforementioned situation are not just moderators but everyone who has access to some moderation tools. May be my thought are wrong but we can share our opinions.

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I can't answer your specific question about this specific flag, but I can make some general comments.

In general, I've noticed that handling of flags tends to vary from site to site. My anecdotal experience is that, on this site (CSTheory), flags to flag a comment as "obsolete" are almost always declined. On some other SE sites that I frequent, my flags of this sort are often granted (if they meet the criteria).

For example, reviewing my flagging history on CSTheory.SE, I see that I've raised 23 flags to flag comments as obsolete; 21 were declined and 2 were marked helpful. Looking at my flagging history on CS.SE, I see that in the past 3 months alone, I've raised 46 flags to flag comments as obsolete; 2 were declined and 44 were marked as helpful.

I think it's just a difference in approach between different moderating teams. It's not unreasonable or unexpected. Moderators are people, and different people will have a slightly different approach and different interpretations of what is desirable. Also, different sites are different communities, and different communities will have different values. So, I've learned not to bother flagging comments as "obsolete" on CSTheory, because I've learned that the moderation crew doesn't seem to find those flags helpful; whereas on other sites I do tend to try to clean up old obsolete comment threads if it seems like it will improve the quality of the site.

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  • $\begingroup$ Agreed. I think in this Q/A we can raise the attention of moderators to this problem. Also there is a bit difference in CS.SE and CSTheory. CS.SE I think still is in beta and because of this has much more trusted users than CSTheory. And those trusted users usually are students and they are eager to improve site quality both by answering questions and visiting flags. And same holds for moderators. Here except Artem all Mods and trusted users are profs and I think they usually treat in a way which is much more less risky and simpler to decide. But maybe their way is not the best. -> $\endgroup$
    – Saeed
    Jun 18, 2014 at 13:49
  • $\begingroup$ So while I'm agree with your comments I'm not agree to be careless about this. $\endgroup$
    – Saeed
    Jun 18, 2014 at 13:51
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As a moderator, I only take action on something that the community can't take action on by itself, or needs a referee to make a decision. For example, I won't respond to flags to close a question (because there are more than enough people to close a question by themselves) unless I'd be the fifth one, and so would be acting as a regular user.

In this case, you're flagging a comment as obsolete because you disagree with the comment (that is, we've discussed that downvoting doesn't require a comment). But that doesn't make the comment obsolete: it merely makes it something you disagree with. You could point out your disagreement by adding another comment and linking to the meta discussion on downvoting without comment.

So there's no need for the mods to get involved (at least as far as I can tell).

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  • $\begingroup$ Suresh, I think I said why I flaged the comment. To keep site clean by following rules. Also if you look at the question, before his comment I commented for him and explain the reason of my downvote and I'm not responsible for others downvotes. I ask you two things, please don't judge people if you want to do moderation. It's easy to falling in a wrong way. Second, if someone downvote a question popup menu appears and warns a people to comment. So it's more than clear if someone difn't write a comment he wont do this later. $\endgroup$
    – Saeed
    Jun 5, 2014 at 16:10
  • $\begingroup$ And if u think something is not beyond users u can leave it as is. e.g in this case if you weren't going to reject flag it was possible others flag the comment. And if the flag weight goes high enough comment will be deleted without involving moderators. $\endgroup$
    – Saeed
    Jun 5, 2014 at 16:14
  • $\begingroup$ btw I didn't reject the flag: at least I don't think I did. $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat
    Jun 5, 2014 at 16:22
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    $\begingroup$ Well, sorry, but your answer was in the way that suggests you did it (implicitly). btw I think this doesn't change very much your answer at least says you are supporting this action (rejecting such flags), or I misinterpret it. $\endgroup$
    – Saeed
    Jun 5, 2014 at 17:17
  • $\begingroup$ According to your last comment, I updated my question to be more clear. $\endgroup$
    – Saeed
    Jun 5, 2014 at 20:49

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