Manually unflag a user who's flagged as abusive

Lennert Fransen Just to be sure, have you checked all three tabs in the Moderation menu to make sure the member isn't marked there? Is the user a member of any roles that would qualify them as "abusive?" Are there any similarities in the content being posted by them, maybe their signature has an "abusive" term in it that is triggering the moderation? Does their user name possibly have an "abusive term" in it (for example, the middle three letters in my last name have caused me to be automatically flagged in the past )?

Alex Nassi , yes I did, the user isn't showing up in any of the thress moderation tabs anymore, all posts are approved, even the one that was identified as abusive. 

All the other posibilities you mention are also not related to this case unfortunately. In this case, which was us testing some things, we posted a question, which we then marked as abusive with another account. The post got into the moderation queue and the user was flagged as abusive automatically by the system. Which is all correct. 

We then approved the post and made sure nothing was still in the moderation queue. Then we tried posting again, which was not possible anymore as the "user is identified as abusive". 

I would assume that when the posts are approved and there's nothing else 'wrong' with the user, he/she should be alllowed to post again but the user remains flagged as abusive for a certain time

Approving the content is not enough, you must also go in and approve the user who if is marked as abusive will appear on the appropriate tab in moderation.  If you are seeing something differently I suggest opening a support case.

It's hidden and isn't visible on their user profile or in the user's settings. It's completely separate.

Make sure you're checking here, in the moderation queue, under each 'status' and that you type in their username to filter by it.

They may be under 'denied' or 'awaiting appeal' if they haven't appealed the fact that they're marked as abusive.

They could be under 'expired'.

If they were properly unmarked as abusive, they should be under 'approved'.

That just did it for me! Thanks Christopher G. Stanton  learned something new today

 Patrick M. I would expect, after I approved the post in the first place, even though the user did not appeal, the user would immediately be approved or unmoderated again.

What it looks like happened here, I think might be a logic flaw. As I have already approved the post from the user before. The user never appealed which resulted in a moderated user which is not shown in the user's profile. Only by going into the above solution Christopher explained, the user was able to be unlocked from moderation again.

Yes, it appears that it is an entirely parallel logic process and system which isn't tied into the journey or flow of moderation entirely, so it is easy to overlook and miss.

For example, you can have a user who is 'approved' and still marked as 'abusive'.

You can have a user who is 'approved' and 'moderated' but still marked as 'abusive'.

You can have a user who is 'disapproved', 'moderated' and still marked as 'abusive'.

This can result in a scenario where:

The user account has been marked as abusive for content on or in their profile due to automation.

The abusive process has marked their account for going through the 'abuse process' and also marked their account as disapproved.

This means that the user cannot go in and edit their profile, and it requires manual intervention from the administrator or moderator.

The administrator or moderator can then mark the user account as 'approved' so the user can make the required change. However, the user is still marked as abusive.

The user now believes "I have done everything I need to, why is my content still being treated as abusive?" and doesn't realise they need to or can re-appeal for their account to no longer be marked as abusive.

The administrator then needs to monitor the account, go into 'in process' and mark the account as 'approved' rather than monitor the user's profile/settings in administration and update it there.

An ideal solution for this use case, and similar, would be if "requires review" also showed if the user is marked "as abusive" and allowed you to "approve content and no longer mark the user as abusive".

Not having a drop-down for 'Is user abusive? yes/no' breaks the expectant flow of how users are managed, instead this  'yes/no' is hidden away in the 'in process' because the logic appears to be "well they're abusive, so they are now in process of being ultimately deleted" but this would be better if on their user profile in administration, it showed whether or not they were marked as abusive, and what the remaining days they had to appeal, having the data 'in one place' makes sense and their user account is the authoritative place to show that, makes sense (along with their last logged in IP address which also isn't shown there for some reason).

Approving the content has no direct affect on the user state, you have to deal with them seperately