How does the ‘Report Upheld’ system work?

The ability to mark reports as ‘not upheld’ (mark them as ‘unsubstantiated’) has two benefits.

Highlight where no further action will be taken

Keep track of reports that are either false allegations, or legitimate but cannot be proven or are not in the interest of the site in general. This can be useful where an activity may be controversial, but still within the terms of your site.

You can quickly see any reports that you have marked as not upheld on the reports list, as they will have a green circle at the far right.

Adjust the number of times a report will count towards auto-moderation

When you mark a report as not upheld, it will not count towards the auto-moderation threshold point. For example, you have a threshold level of 5 for a group to be auto-moderated. The group was legitimately reported twice. But the next two reports were made by users who have a grudge against the group creator. Without the ability to mark the latter two reports as not upheld, the 5th report would have hidden the group.

How do I change the ‘upheld’ status?

Go to the report in question, then the ‘Report Moderation’ box. You will see a button to mark a report as upheld/not upheld. The action is immediate, and you do not need to update the report afterwards.

Initial uphold status

It is important to recognise that reports start as upheld. If you receive an extreme number of reports overnight, these should trigger the auto-moderation system. By expecting an administrator to have to uphold each report before auto-moderation is triggered, abusive, illegal or offensive material may be left visible for too long.

In the unlikely event that auto-moderation was triggered, but you do not agree with the reports made, you will need to mark those reports as not upheld, and manually unmoderate the activity.

Do I need to use the ‘Report Upheld’ System at all?

Not at all. It is just another tool you can use if you wish to have more control over your reports.