Seeing post while reporting post

[angelwatt]

I regularly report posts, and one thing that would be helpful is that, if on the report page, it included the post being reported below. This would be the same as when posting on a thread, except maybe limit it to just the post you were reporting on.

I find sometimes I want to reference something from the post when I'm writing up the report and can't see it. If I remember beforehand, I can open the report link in a new tab, but generally don't think about it until after the fact and have already started writing. Not sure what it would take to implement such a change, but would be helpful for those of us who report post to keep this place cleaned up.

 

[Peace]

When you report a poster the Mods know what post it is.

 

[iBlue]

Yeah, the report posts input area is very basic. If it helps, on their end it shows what you write in your report above a quote which contains the entire context of the post you just reported. (before anyone speculates, I am married to a (now) retired moderator. I had asked to see how a post report looks and he indulged me.)

It might be nice if the post report area was a little more like how our regular posting area is since it submits that way anyhow. Or perhaps a preview button? *shrug* But maybe they have a good reason for it not being that way. They look into what's been reported themselves so they don't need a lot of fluff in the actual report as it is.
I digress.

 

[miles01110]

You could go "Back." Caching ftw!

 

[iBlue]

You could go "Back." Caching ftw!

I'm sure angelwatt (who is no MR n00b) has figured that out, as have I. Just because something has a workaround doesn't mean it cannot be improved. It's a suggestions type of forum.

 

[miles01110]

I'm sure angelwatt (who is no MR n00b) has figured that out, as have I. Just because something has a workaround doesn't mean it cannot be improved. It's a suggestions type of forum.

Right, but if the workaround is so simple that it's not worth implementing an "improvement" then nothing is going to change. Especially if its a vBulletin thing out of MR's control.

 

[iBlue]

Right, but if the workaround is so simple that it's not worth implementing an "improvement" then nothing is going to change. Especially if its a vBulletin thing out of MR's control.

Well that's for the admins to decide. I'm not sure it's out of their control or not but I'd suspect they can change this if they like. I don't know though.

Anyway, it's not a big thing, I was just lending a little support to the proposed idea. Sometimes when I am doing a post report and I want to link another thread/post, I might like the ease of having the tool bar rather than either writing out stuff here [ /url] by hand or leaving a big long ugly link. *is slightly OCD* Again, not a big deal at all but something that MAYBE could be improved.
Mostly the point of my first post was to let the OP know the mods can see the entire post that is being reported in the report itself.

 

[robbieduncan]

It might be nice if the post report area was a little more like how our regular posting area is since it submits that way anyhow. Or perhaps a preview button?

I think the problem might be that you are effectively creating a new thread or adding to an existing thread in the moderators forum. So the preview (or thread shown on the reply screen) would be that, not the post/thread you are reporting...

 

[sushi]

I like this suggestion -- seeing the post while reporting.

What I do is copy and paste it, then write my post, then delete the post I am writing about.

Of course +1 and other simple ones I don't do this. But for a complicated post, or one that I want to quote part of the text, this work around is okay. Although, see the post would be much more convenient.

 

[Doctor Q]

This would be a good suggestion for a change to vBulletin (the software we use). vBulletin doesn't yet provide the feature.

Seeing the reported post might be a minor annoyance if you were very offended by the post (e.g., one with an inappropriate image) but I think that's minor compared to the convenience it would provide for describing what the problem is.

 

[angelwatt]

When you report a poster the Mods know what post it is.

Seeing the post would be for the sake of the person doing the reporting. I'm aware that the report contains the needed info for the mods about what I'm reporting. Sometimes I just want to read back over the post to ensure I don't miss something or forget a certain phrasing I saw or whatever.

You could go "Back." Caching ftw!

Yes, I have done that a few times, but I'm never 100% sure what I've written will be there when I hit the forward button. I usually highlight everything and copy it before hitting back, just in case.

The suggestion is simply about a way to make it more convenient. It's not a biggie, and I thought it may be something vBulletin would have to modify to make the change. I'm a web developer so I know such features aren't always thought about like this one. It shouldn't be hard to implement though if they decide to considering it already has the information about which post is being reporting. They'd simply need to do another DB call and get that specific post and add it to the page.

This would be a good suggestion for a change to vBulletin

Can non-customers make suggestions to them?

 

[Doctor Q]

Can non-customers make suggestions to them?

Yes, as far as I know.

We've done a few of our own modifications to vBulletin but this doesn't strike me as one we'd do ourselves.

A variation on the suggestion would be to have a link in the Report Post window that pops up a display of the post. Using your post as an example:

Report Post

Click here to display the reported post.

Message: ...​

 

[angelwatt]

Their contact form is currently down and didn't want to create an account for one post. I'll check with them later. I did see there was a thread suggesting a similar idea where the reporting is done on the same page as the thread using JavaScript to bring it up. That would let you still see the posts too.

A simple solution I thought of was if the report post icon link had its target attribute set to open the link in a new window (or new tab depending on your browser). Still not as ideal, but would be an easier thing to change, though from MR's standpoint it may not be worth digging into the code to find that bit of code.

What do others think about having the report link open in a new window/tab?

 

[sushi]

What do others think about having the report link open in a new window/tab?

That would be nice.

Sometimes, I get the post in question via the #N link, then open a new window with that post. Basically the same thing that you are suggesting -- only your idea is much easier.

Occasionally I want to report a post, but find that it would take to long to explain so I skip it.

 

[iBlue]

A variation on the suggestion would be to have a link in the Report Post window that pops up a display of the post. Using your post as an example:

Report Post

Click here to display the reported post.

Message: ...​

That's a good idea.

...

What do others think about having the report link open in a new window/tab?

As a default? I like that idea too. I usually open the post report in a new tab by command + clicking the report post icon anyway.