Discussions Overview
Not every post belongs on a board. When a member of your site finds a topic or a reply that is offensive, off-topic or breaks the rules of the community, Discussions lets them flag it with one click, and the moderators of the board see the flagged items in a dedicated section of the moderation queue. The post is not hidden by the report — a moderator decides what to do with it. This article describes the member's side and the moderator's side of that workflow.
Who can report
The Report button is shown to users who can post on the board — users with the Add items permission on the site (the Contribute and Edit levels), including guests with that permission — and only under posts written by other people. You cannot report your own topic or reply, and visitors with the Read permission do not see the button at all. Moderators (users with Manage Lists) see the button too, but they usually act on a post directly instead.
Reports are handled by the moderators of the board: users with the Manage Lists permission on the site. See KB10408. Permissions in Discussions: Who Can Read, Post and Moderate.
How to report a topic or a reply
- Open the topic.
- Find the post you want to report — the topic itself at the top of the page or one of the replies in the thread.
- In the row of buttons under the post, click Report (the flag icon).
The button immediately changes to Reported and becomes disabled. There is no form to fill in: the report carries no text, only the fact that you flagged the post.
What happens after you report
- One report per person. The web part remembers who reported each post. You can report a given topic or reply only once; the button stays Reported for you even after you reload the page, until a moderator dismisses the reports.
- The post stays visible. A report does not hide or remove the post and does not change its approval status. Other members see nothing — the Reported label is shown only to the people who reported the post.
- What is stored. The item in the Discussions Topics or Discussions Posts list gets its Reports counter (
VtxReportCount) increased by one and your name added to the Reported by column (VtxReportedBy). Nothing leaves your site. - No message is sent. The web part does not notify the moderators; they see the reports when they open the moderation queue (see below).
📝 Note
Like every other column of the lists, Reports and Reported by can be seen by anyone who opens the Discussions Topics or Discussions Posts list in Site contents with the Read permission. The web part itself never shows the names of the reporters to members.
What moderators see
A user with the Manage Lists permission has the Moderation button in the command bar of the board, next to New topic and Follow. The Moderation screen has four sections, each with the number of items in its heading:
- Topics waiting for approval and Replies waiting for approval — items held back by the Require approval of new posts setting of the board;
- Reported topics and Reported replies — every topic and reply of this board that has at least one report.
Each reported item shows its title (for a reply, the title of its topic), a Topic or Reply badge, a red badge with the number of reports — 2 report(s) —, an excerpt of the text, the author and when it was posted. Click the title to open the topic and read the post in its context. Each section lists up to 200 items.
Acting on a report
For a reported item the queue offers two actions:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Dismiss reports | Resets the Reports counter to zero and clears the Reported by column. The item leaves the queue, and the people who reported it get their Report button back. Use it when the post is fine. |
| Delete | Deletes the topic or the reply. A deleted reply is removed from the thread; replies that were nested under it are kept and are shown at the top level of the thread. |
Two more options are available by opening the topic from the queue:
- Edit the post (a moderator can edit anyone's post), remove the offending part and then return to the queue and click Dismiss reports.
- For a topic that attracts abuse, use the Locked button on the topic page: the thread stays readable, but no new replies are accepted.
❗ Important
Delete in the queue removes the post immediately, without a confirmation prompt. If you want to keep a record, copy the text or note the item ID before deleting; a deleted list item can be restored from the site Recycle bin by its owner or a site administrator.
Getting notified about reports
Discussions keeps subscriptions and mentions for email delivery by a Power Automate flow, but reports are not part of that notification contract: nothing is sent when a post is reported. Moderators check the Moderation screen as part of their routine. If your moderators prefer an email, a site owner can build a flow on the Discussions Topics and Discussions Posts lists that triggers when an item is modified and the Reports column is greater than zero. See KB10414. How Notifications Work in Discussions: Subscriptions, Mentions and Power Automate.
💡 Tip
On a board where the community is new or open to guests, combine reports with the Require approval of new posts setting: new topics and replies then wait in the same Moderation screen before they are published. See KB10409. Moderating a Board: Approval Queue, Rejecting and Dismissing Reports.
