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an alert, especially if any discussion of what to do is required instead of moderators acting quickly when they see a clear violation. But often quick editing of a problem post is a much better response than simply removing the post - especially if a fairly low number of removed posts can.result in permanent suspension.

You do need experienced moderators, though.

There's jury bias, too. There wouldn't be a jury blocklist at all if there wasn't. And the more heated any debate on DU, the more likely some people are to abuse the jury system to go after others. I've never forgotten a thread I saw here where there was open discussion by some DUers who'd been here for years about trying to get rid of another DUer who'd been here for years by alerting on all their posts for any possible reason in the hope of rolling the dice enough and getting enough hides to get them FFR'd.

Nor have I forgotten how often I had posts alerted on in the 2019-2020 primaries forum. I'd get email about many of the alerts, along with guesses about who was alerting.

It's a crowdsourced substitute for moderation, but it has plenty of flaws.



I suspect one reason there are fewer alerts is that unless the motivation is animosity toward the DUer being alerted on, most DUers DON'T want to alert on a problem post or vote to remove it if that makes it at all likely that DUer will be suspended. There have been a lot of times I've refrained from alerting on a post for that reason, and I even emailed you about one when it was a newcomer I didn't want to see get a hide even though they'd ignored advice on the board (and you told me to alert on them).

I wish the number of hidden posts resulting in an FFR resulted in only a temporary suspension, with that DUer then offered a second chance (but that second chance allowing for more than one hide before a second, permanent suspension).

Moderators who are in contact with people posting messages that are problematic can get a much better sense of which ones are trolls or unable to adapt to a forum's rules than random DUers on a jury are likely to have.

But again, it takes experienced moderators.