I'm interested in hearing the answer to this as well.

However I think some reasonable assumptions can be made. First off they place a report button along with every reply so it's clear they are looking for feedback from the community. Given that, it's also clear that different people will have different opinions as to what constitues a reportable offense. Because of that there must be a certain amount of leeway given.

To that end I would expect that if you feel someone is spamming then it's OK to press the report button. However, I would guess that pressing it once should be sufficient. I suspect that reporting a single representative post that exhibits spamming in your opinion is a legitimate thing to do. Certainly the 20 Stardockians that receive notice of this should have no problem even if they don't share your opinion of what constitues "spamming". However if instead you searched out the last 20 posts by a particular user and reported *all* of them then that could easily be considered abuse of the system.

Another thing that Kryo mentioned to me was that it's best if a reported post was obviously offensive of it's own accord. Basically if something was deemed a reportable offense but required knowledge of a history or pattern of abuse or anything else that might require someone to investigate a number of posts then that is best reported to Kryo directly via PM.

Finally, if you have been involved in an exchange of heated words yourself then it's probably not appropriate for you to press the report button. Even if your motives are as pure as the driven snow, the fact that you've been involved casts doubt on your motivation. If the exchange was really as one sided as you think and you behaved as a perfect gentleman then rest assured someone else will press the report button on your behalf.

Basically, all that's really required is a bit of common sense. However from a quote attributed to Mark Twain "the only problem with common sense is that it's not entirely all that common".

I know exactly what you're talking about and I tend to agree, however, I do believe that to be able to complain that you would have to have refrained from responding in kind.

Once you have responded in kind, even though you may have been totally justified in doing so, the issue becomes one of he said/she said. In this case it becomes a matter of justifying your bad behavior by saying the other guy started it.

You need to be careful because to you it might seem that it should be obvious to all that you're the blameless victim but to an uninvolved third party it can get very difficult to assign blame.

This is the point about a situation that requires investigation, where things have progressed over the course of multiple posts in multiple threads. If someone can point to a reply of yours where your response could be considered abusive as well then perhaps this is the case where it's best to make your case via PM to Kryo directly as opposed to using the report function.

As far as the reporting system not making it clear what is expected, I tend to disagree. Pressing the report button brings up the following dialogue. "This form is to be used ONLY for reporting objectional content, etc and is not to be used as a method of communicating with moderators, replying to posts, or for other reasons. Abuse of this form will result in disciplinary action!"

The final sentance seems to be fair warning that reporting is not a trivial matter. Additionally the report function gives you a list of common reasons as to why a post should be reported and SPAM, flaming and trolling are all listed as legitimate reasons to report a post. On the other hand so is a TOS Violation, whatever that may be, so admittedly these offenses are not all that well defined.

Finally, while there are many that would most likely not want to get involved with a flame war that they didn't have to, there are many that recognize who is at fault and have every interest in keeping the peace within our community and would (and have) expressed their opinion to those in charge of who they believe is primarily to blame. But anytime you respond in kind, no matter how justifable your response may be, it makes it much more difficult for those that support your position.

Mumble's covered it pretty well. Basically, the report function is best used for things where an immediate and obvious action is required (to delete, edit, ban, or whatever). Some examples would include spambots, obscene images, pirate links, and so forth.

If there's an argument going on which has gone to far, or if another user is just being a jerk but not taking it to an extreme, or if it's a regular user who has done some bad-but-not-too-bad things in great quantity, a PM to me (or other appropriate moderator if you're on one of the non-games sites) would be preferable. This is because these sorts of things would need to be investigated to see the context, to determine who is really at fault, if anyone has been warned in the past, etc., since the action taken (if any) may vary widely depending on the circumstances.

And as SanChronio noted, IRC works as well. So long as I'm home I'll hear my computer chirp when someone mentions my name, so it's a good option for fast action.

"TOS Violation" - a reference to events in the Star Trek universe that is inconsistent with events in The Original Series.

More likely, Terms of Service.