Need your input: Making reports on members public
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We're discussing changes to the member reporting system and I wanted your input as a sanity check. At the moment when a member's account is closed due to reports, it disappears. It's like it never happened and no one can prove anything. It's like we provide the alibi and the getaway car. We're going to change this so that if an account is closed due to a member or members reporting that account, a list of all those who reported the account will be shown. I would be proud to have my name shown as the one who stopped a spammer in their tracks, and I'd also be happy to hold my head up if I had to close an account of a member who was being abusive and disruptive. Not everyone feels the same, however, and so I'm expecting some members will stop reporting spammers/abusers when this change is made. That's fine, as long as there are members still willing to do the right thing. So my question is: Do you feel these changes will have a net positive or net negative effect on our site's membership and its ability to control spam and abuse?
cheers Chris Maunder
The retaliation problem some people are worrying about is already around. But I believe it might rather get lowered since the retaliators are getting named aswell. Pressing a button is so much easier than standing for your opinions. As an addition I vote for a field where you can have to add your "Reason for reporting" (Not for spam). Not just because some reports are a complete mystery to me, but also because having to add a motivation might also stop a few itchy fingers.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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We're discussing changes to the member reporting system and I wanted your input as a sanity check. At the moment when a member's account is closed due to reports, it disappears. It's like it never happened and no one can prove anything. It's like we provide the alibi and the getaway car. We're going to change this so that if an account is closed due to a member or members reporting that account, a list of all those who reported the account will be shown. I would be proud to have my name shown as the one who stopped a spammer in their tracks, and I'd also be happy to hold my head up if I had to close an account of a member who was being abusive and disruptive. Not everyone feels the same, however, and so I'm expecting some members will stop reporting spammers/abusers when this change is made. That's fine, as long as there are members still willing to do the right thing. So my question is: Do you feel these changes will have a net positive or net negative effect on our site's membership and its ability to control spam and abuse?
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris, my 2c worth: Accountability is good, although retaliation is bad and could well be pernicious. If a party retaliates, then it sort of confirms the bad report. The real potential problem is buddies who retaliate or even creating new accounts for the purpose. A better mechanism might be to allow a reporter the option to be publicly shown, but always store who reports for admins to see. A lot will depend on the relative workloads created:
- How much effort and inconvenience is it now to restore an account now?
- How about dealing with retaliation, especially as it might be somewhat hidden?
- Maybe a reasonable compromise would be a more flexible system where any account with high rep is harder to remove (perhaps only after manual confirmation) and low rep accounts, not so much
- Do you currently tap over-zealous reporters on the shoulder? How much effort would it be to do so?
Only last week I reported someone with high rep for spamming. In that instance, you intervened and read them the riot act. I removed the links on S&A after a nudge from Nelek, but I don't believe there's a mechanism for me to withdraw my actual report on the user (I believe you reduced his abuse report count). I don't think I was trigger-happy, and I was glad it got resolved. I have no problem with my name being seen on a report and anything short of concerted retaliation isn't likely to bother me. I'm not here for rep points! If you want a hard Yes or No, then I'd say give it a go.
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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We're discussing changes to the member reporting system and I wanted your input as a sanity check. At the moment when a member's account is closed due to reports, it disappears. It's like it never happened and no one can prove anything. It's like we provide the alibi and the getaway car. We're going to change this so that if an account is closed due to a member or members reporting that account, a list of all those who reported the account will be shown. I would be proud to have my name shown as the one who stopped a spammer in their tracks, and I'd also be happy to hold my head up if I had to close an account of a member who was being abusive and disruptive. Not everyone feels the same, however, and so I'm expecting some members will stop reporting spammers/abusers when this change is made. That's fine, as long as there are members still willing to do the right thing. So my question is: Do you feel these changes will have a net positive or net negative effect on our site's membership and its ability to control spam and abuse?
cheers Chris Maunder
Although I would have no problem being it public, the biggest danger at all is revenge. But... if done I would do it in combination with other things (some already commented in previous posts) 1) Add some kind of weight to the reports (based on reputation and activity on the site) as in the reputation system. The older a member and the higher the reputation, the more weight of his reports to youngsters and the more reports needed before closing his/her account. 2) Add some kind of limitation on new accounts based on time and activity but not in reputation. It is very easy to join, subscribe newletters, vote up things give some easy answers in QA and "voila" you have 500 or 1000 rep points is very short time. That way puppets would be harder to grow and to be used, still not impossible but there is a lot of lazy people out there. 3) If reports public first after account nuked (as in QA posts), then I would add a report-counter always visible (at least for the reported user). That way a legitime user could inform the staff in the B&S if suspects something is going wrong. Spammers and abusers are usually nuked fast, cases like Nagy go over the time. If we combine #3 with #1 then it could be like "number of reports - % to get nuked". I mean if 150 points to be nuked then... 80 of 150 report points by 8 users (reporters are "high level") 30 of 150 report points by 20 users (reporters are "low level" - probability of puppets revenge very high, still time to react) 4) I think it could be a good idea to add a "2nd chance" timeout as well, i.e. a user get some "abuse" reports due to polemic discussions. If (let's say) 6 months get by without any report, the counter goes back to 0. As I said in #3 real abusers and spammers get nuked quite fast, so that would just protect legitime users (Nagy's case as example another time). Taking this points in consideration I think all other positive aspects of making it public stay, but some security is granted to the people trying to keep CP a nice site with quality contents.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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We're discussing changes to the member reporting system and I wanted your input as a sanity check. At the moment when a member's account is closed due to reports, it disappears. It's like it never happened and no one can prove anything. It's like we provide the alibi and the getaway car. We're going to change this so that if an account is closed due to a member or members reporting that account, a list of all those who reported the account will be shown. I would be proud to have my name shown as the one who stopped a spammer in their tracks, and I'd also be happy to hold my head up if I had to close an account of a member who was being abusive and disruptive. Not everyone feels the same, however, and so I'm expecting some members will stop reporting spammers/abusers when this change is made. That's fine, as long as there are members still willing to do the right thing. So my question is: Do you feel these changes will have a net positive or net negative effect on our site's membership and its ability to control spam and abuse?
cheers Chris Maunder
Why introduce a completely different voting system only to report users/messages which should not belong to CodeProject? If you want to have a open and transparent voting system, then why not start with the Q&A and articles as well where everyone can see who has given a particular vote (be it positive or negative). I see a lot of opinions in this thread where people support the transparency. But please keep in mind that these are the bunch of matured and dedicated members of this site. Not every user of your 10 million user base would think same. What about having a group/setting where you can specify if you want to have your name openly published that you have reported a particular user. That way you are providing the users with an option where they can chose if they want to keep their vote private or public.
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Chris, my 2c worth: Accountability is good, although retaliation is bad and could well be pernicious. If a party retaliates, then it sort of confirms the bad report. The real potential problem is buddies who retaliate or even creating new accounts for the purpose. A better mechanism might be to allow a reporter the option to be publicly shown, but always store who reports for admins to see. A lot will depend on the relative workloads created:
- How much effort and inconvenience is it now to restore an account now?
- How about dealing with retaliation, especially as it might be somewhat hidden?
- Maybe a reasonable compromise would be a more flexible system where any account with high rep is harder to remove (perhaps only after manual confirmation) and low rep accounts, not so much
- Do you currently tap over-zealous reporters on the shoulder? How much effort would it be to do so?
Only last week I reported someone with high rep for spamming. In that instance, you intervened and read them the riot act. I removed the links on S&A after a nudge from Nelek, but I don't believe there's a mechanism for me to withdraw my actual report on the user (I believe you reduced his abuse report count). I don't think I was trigger-happy, and I was glad it got resolved. I have no problem with my name being seen on a report and anything short of concerted retaliation isn't likely to bother me. I'm not here for rep points! If you want a hard Yes or No, then I'd say give it a go.
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
PhilLenoir wrote:
I removed the links on S&A after a nudge from Nelek,
It was not a nudge. It was just a suggestion to avoid reports of people that doesn't read the full thread and reach Chris' intervention. Back to the question, I agree with some of your thoughts, that's why I suggested some ideas below (we posted with 1 min difference ;P)
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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PhilLenoir wrote:
I removed the links on S&A after a nudge from Nelek,
It was not a nudge. It was just a suggestion to avoid reports of people that doesn't read the full thread and reach Chris' intervention. Back to the question, I agree with some of your thoughts, that's why I suggested some ideas below (we posted with 1 min difference ;P)
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
LOL, great minds? Nudge = suggestion in Britslang!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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Why introduce a completely different voting system only to report users/messages which should not belong to CodeProject? If you want to have a open and transparent voting system, then why not start with the Q&A and articles as well where everyone can see who has given a particular vote (be it positive or negative). I see a lot of opinions in this thread where people support the transparency. But please keep in mind that these are the bunch of matured and dedicated members of this site. Not every user of your 10 million user base would think same. What about having a group/setting where you can specify if you want to have your name openly published that you have reported a particular user. That way you are providing the users with an option where they can chose if they want to keep their vote private or public.
Manas Bhardwaj wrote:
What about having a group/setting where you can specify if you want to have your name openly published that you have reported a particular user. That way you are providing the users with an option where they can chose if they want to keep their vote private or public.
Then 90% of the users would not set it and remain private, keeping the current problems. If done, it should be done for all (as you say with the votes in the articles). That's the only way, retailation and too fast reporters (what actually is the problem) can be englobed.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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We're discussing changes to the member reporting system and I wanted your input as a sanity check. At the moment when a member's account is closed due to reports, it disappears. It's like it never happened and no one can prove anything. It's like we provide the alibi and the getaway car. We're going to change this so that if an account is closed due to a member or members reporting that account, a list of all those who reported the account will be shown. I would be proud to have my name shown as the one who stopped a spammer in their tracks, and I'd also be happy to hold my head up if I had to close an account of a member who was being abusive and disruptive. Not everyone feels the same, however, and so I'm expecting some members will stop reporting spammers/abusers when this change is made. That's fine, as long as there are members still willing to do the right thing. So my question is: Do you feel these changes will have a net positive or net negative effect on our site's membership and its ability to control spam and abuse?
cheers Chris Maunder
I agree with public accountability. Retaliation is of course a concern, though I think some minor additions should minimize it. I'm envisioning a scenario of "Marc votes to ban SpammerX", which is publicly reported. SpammerX creates another new account and votes to ban Marc. To prevent/minimize this, maybe only expose the list to people who have >1k rep (arbitrary number, something low but high enough that you cant get it in a couple of days, but regular visitors will see it, or a minimum account age in addition to rep). Or something similar to minimize retaliation.
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LOL, great minds? Nudge = suggestion in Britslang!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
Not so positive in proposed traduction to german ;P
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I would consider making it an option on showing there name and maybe giving a little more weight to those that do.
This defeats the purpose.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Positive, I think. Yes, there will be those who retaliate - but I suspect that they do that against those they suspect of downvoting / abuse voting then anyway. If it introduces a realisation that the authority to do something comes with responsibility to use it appropriately, then it can only be a good thing.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
I have made some suggestions in my answer to Chris below, I would like to know your point of view about it. Would you have a look?
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Positive, I think. Yes, there will be those who retaliate - but I suspect that they do that against those they suspect of downvoting / abuse voting then anyway. If it introduces a realisation that the authority to do something comes with responsibility to use it appropriately, then it can only be a good thing.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Negative. It creates a potential for retaliatory responses (which in turn would create a blood feud between various cliques). Whichever clique is the biggest wins, everyone else becomes an outsider. Positive. It creates a form of self government so the hamsters don't have to monitor everything. --- So um... I guess the question is... Is this the best form of stopping abuse? I'm not sure it is, but I don't have any other suggestions that don't include manual effort by the staff. Wouldn't it be possible to track which accounts were closed unjustly (based on response from the closed account) and then see who is abusing power...
Pualee wrote:
Wouldn't it be possible to track which accounts were closed unjustly (based on response from the closed account) and then see who is abusing power...
Yes, and we have this already. However it feels...undemocratic, for want of a better word. We see who does it, we talk to them, they do it again. We nuke their account and no one sees the debate or the reasons.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Whether positive or negative (only time will tell), I do however promote public accountability. Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
Marc Clifton wrote:
public accountability
And this, in a nutshell, is what it's all about.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Not so positive in proposed traduction to german ;P
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
Then I apologize for implying to our German contingent that you beat me black and blue! :D In any case, I was appreciative of the suggestion and did not feel coerced. It was exactly the right thing to do.
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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Chris, my 2c worth: Accountability is good, although retaliation is bad and could well be pernicious. If a party retaliates, then it sort of confirms the bad report. The real potential problem is buddies who retaliate or even creating new accounts for the purpose. A better mechanism might be to allow a reporter the option to be publicly shown, but always store who reports for admins to see. A lot will depend on the relative workloads created:
- How much effort and inconvenience is it now to restore an account now?
- How about dealing with retaliation, especially as it might be somewhat hidden?
- Maybe a reasonable compromise would be a more flexible system where any account with high rep is harder to remove (perhaps only after manual confirmation) and low rep accounts, not so much
- Do you currently tap over-zealous reporters on the shoulder? How much effort would it be to do so?
Only last week I reported someone with high rep for spamming. In that instance, you intervened and read them the riot act. I removed the links on S&A after a nudge from Nelek, but I don't believe there's a mechanism for me to withdraw my actual report on the user (I believe you reduced his abuse report count). I don't think I was trigger-happy, and I was glad it got resolved. I have no problem with my name being seen on a report and anything short of concerted retaliation isn't likely to bother me. I'm not here for rep points! If you want a hard Yes or No, then I'd say give it a go.
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
Reports are always stored and viewable by admins.
PhilLenoir wrote:
allow a reporter the option to be publicly shown
This defeats the purpose
PhilLenoir wrote:
How much effort and inconvenience is it now to restore an account now?
Almost none.
PhilLenoir wrote:
How about dealing with retaliation, especially as it might be somewhat hidden?
This is the main issue for me. Retaliations will be far and few, and we will see them. A retaliatory vote will result in account closure, which could then incite the person to create sock puppets and go on a voting rampage. We can nuke the reports and close the account but then they may just keep popping up. ie. No different to what we have now anyway.
PhilLenoir wrote:
- Do you currently tap over-zealous reporters on the shoulder? How much effort would it be to do so?
We do. It has not been working consistently though.
PhilLenoir wrote:
I don't believe there's a mechanism for me to withdraw my actual report
No there isn't. We could add this, but not sure if it would help.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Why introduce a completely different voting system only to report users/messages which should not belong to CodeProject? If you want to have a open and transparent voting system, then why not start with the Q&A and articles as well where everyone can see who has given a particular vote (be it positive or negative). I see a lot of opinions in this thread where people support the transparency. But please keep in mind that these are the bunch of matured and dedicated members of this site. Not every user of your 10 million user base would think same. What about having a group/setting where you can specify if you want to have your name openly published that you have reported a particular user. That way you are providing the users with an option where they can chose if they want to keep their vote private or public.
Manas Bhardwaj wrote:
Why introduce a completely different voting system only to report users/messages which should not belong to CodeProject?
We aren't. We're simply making the reporter public. This is exactly the same code we use on Quick Answers for reporting questions and answers.
Manas Bhardwaj wrote:
If you want to have a open and transparent voting system, then why not start with the Q&A and articles as well where everyone can see who has given a particular vote (be it positive or negative).
It's not about votes (ie ratings). It's about spam/abuse reports. One is an opinion; the other is about protecting the site and the community. Very different.
Manas Bhardwaj wrote:
What about having a group/setting where you can specify if you want to have your name openly published that you have reported a particular user
This defeats the purpose.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Reports are always stored and viewable by admins.
PhilLenoir wrote:
allow a reporter the option to be publicly shown
This defeats the purpose
PhilLenoir wrote:
How much effort and inconvenience is it now to restore an account now?
Almost none.
PhilLenoir wrote:
How about dealing with retaliation, especially as it might be somewhat hidden?
This is the main issue for me. Retaliations will be far and few, and we will see them. A retaliatory vote will result in account closure, which could then incite the person to create sock puppets and go on a voting rampage. We can nuke the reports and close the account but then they may just keep popping up. ie. No different to what we have now anyway.
PhilLenoir wrote:
- Do you currently tap over-zealous reporters on the shoulder? How much effort would it be to do so?
We do. It has not been working consistently though.
PhilLenoir wrote:
I don't believe there's a mechanism for me to withdraw my actual report
No there isn't. We could add this, but not sure if it would help.
cheers Chris Maunder
What about my suggestions below this message? I would like to know your opinion
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Reports are always stored and viewable by admins.
PhilLenoir wrote:
allow a reporter the option to be publicly shown
This defeats the purpose
PhilLenoir wrote:
How much effort and inconvenience is it now to restore an account now?
Almost none.
PhilLenoir wrote:
How about dealing with retaliation, especially as it might be somewhat hidden?
This is the main issue for me. Retaliations will be far and few, and we will see them. A retaliatory vote will result in account closure, which could then incite the person to create sock puppets and go on a voting rampage. We can nuke the reports and close the account but then they may just keep popping up. ie. No different to what we have now anyway.
PhilLenoir wrote:
- Do you currently tap over-zealous reporters on the shoulder? How much effort would it be to do so?
We do. It has not been working consistently though.
PhilLenoir wrote:
I don't believe there's a mechanism for me to withdraw my actual report
No there isn't. We could add this, but not sure if it would help.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris, How about this as an idea? Instead of the "strength" of someone's report being based on current rep points, how about a separate (and possibly hidden?) counter that records the validity of their previous reports. It would work something like this:
- I report a user, my "reporting strength" is recorded against that user
- If the member reports are successful, my "reporting strength" goes up, if unsuccessful it goes down
- If found guilty over over-zealous reporting, my reporting strength goes down
- Members with longevity and/or high rep points must have more points against them for a ban to be successful, possibly requiring manual confirmation from a restricted subset of members
I can see that, with the amount of spam we've had lately, it might be easy to get high "reporting strength", requiring some tuning of the sensitivity. If this counter is kept hidden it would prevent "farming" as no one would know their own score. It would mean that a very large number of puppet accounts would be required to put an existing account under threat. You've spent a great deal of thought on this and I'd be more than happy to "give you my proxy". I very much support the concepts of openness that you advocate, but I'm also painfully aware of some of the pitfalls of human nature. Programmers should be inured against review and criticism, but sometimes ....!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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Pualee wrote:
Wouldn't it be possible to track which accounts were closed unjustly (based on response from the closed account) and then see who is abusing power...
Yes, and we have this already. However it feels...undemocratic, for want of a better word. We see who does it, we talk to them, they do it again. We nuke their account and no one sees the debate or the reasons.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
t feels...undemocratic
Democracy gave us George Bush (both of them), Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin.. perhaps it's not all it's cracked up to be? :laugh:
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
