Flags are essential for maintaining community standards and managing content within Discourse.
However, sometimes the goal of flagging a message is not to silence a post or topic, but simply to trigger moderators attention. Yet, if the flagger is TL3+, if the setting says so, any flag that user makes will auto-hide the flagged content.
Sometimes, it may be useful to simply call for the attention of moderators: e.g., you read a post which feels wrong, or you suspect the poster to be a sockpuppet, an AI, a troll or some other unwanted character. In this case, you do not want to trigger the poster’s attention, but simply to tell moderators to look into it.
Such an addition to the Flag functionality would enable softer flag behavior. I would suggest such a flag to require an explanation by the person flagging.
----
On another topic, the flag metaphor may feel aggressive to some people: e.g., in soccer, the referee would raise a flag when a foul is committed – i.e., when someone does not respect the rules. This metaphor may feel like exerting power over the flagged person, especially when the immediate result is that the post is hidden. Maybe a metaphor would be more neutral: I feel something is wrong, and I’d like the moderators to look into it and tell me.
Discuss this on our forum.