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
I'm having mixed feelings about this. A lot of opinions have already been expressed, especially when it comes to retribution. I'm not really afraid of retribution. After all, what can a new user do? Downvote my articles for -3 rep per vote? It's annoying, but hardly damaging. However, I think it would make sense, only to avoid retribution, to limit the amount of reports and downvotes that a user with less than x rep can make to a single user. Especially when the downvoted items are older than, say, a week. Let's be honest, how often does a new user come along, read an article, decide it deserves a 1 vote and then reads another article by that same user and again decides it deserves a 1 vote? And then even a third article, on the same day? And articles that most other users found to be worthy of a 4 or 5? Then that's obviously a troll at work! That said, I love my 'anonimity'. Sure, admins can probably see everything I do, but the regular CP user can only guess. And I'm more than willing to explain my choices against any admin or, more generally, any reasonable user who isn't out for revenge :) And when we have anonimity we don't have retribution (unless someone goes all out offensive against a user, but then you're just asking for it). Coincidentally (or maybe not completely by coincidence) I explained why I love my anonimity in this post just a few pages up in the lounge[^]. Perhaps you should simply have some extra admins, trusted CP members who can see what everyone does. It's a bit of both worlds. I'm not completely anonymous, but it isn't all up to you, Chris Maunder, (hypothetically speaking) to keep 11 million members in check. So when Sergey get's his account deactivated (or whatever happened) an OriginalGriff (most obvious example), or any appointed/chosen/'automatic-by-rep' admin can do something about it too. I'll refrain from saying if your suggestion nets out positive or negative. There's certainly a bit of both. Maybe it's a break-even, only time can tell.
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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
As we're talking only when an account is closed (rather than just a message deleted) : 1. It is (or at least should be) relatively hard to have a 'regular' user account deleted (i.e. someone who has a few rep points and has been here a while) - so this should be rare. 2. It is (or at least should be) relatively easy to have a new account deleted (i.e. someone who creates an account and just uses it for Spam) In case 2, the op would never bother with retaliation. In case 1, they may, of course, but they must surely have done something pretty bad to deserve that sized slap (think MM and elephants) and they would, one hopes, just get back on and ask you nice chaps for their account back But I don't see what advantage this has? Keeping spam accounts seems a waste to me - they're never coming back and seeing thousands of one-off accounts being nuked just lets one see how much spam there is. Keeping 'real' member's accounts seems like a good idea - don't nuke them - just disable them with an appropriate message on their account page ("nuked due to angry mob") - but listing who voted them off the island? No advantage, I think... **EDIT** Having seen your comment in bugs & sugs it seems this move is prompted to stop people abusing their power and leading to the removal of an account... by naming and shaming you hope they won't vote abuse unless they feel they can stand up to their claims, I guess? But, to me, it seems that the problem might be that it it too easy to nuke an account via the abusive vote Do we need to differentiate between an abusive post and an account ? Nuke the post if necessary - and maybe suspend an account with > x abuse votes for a period of time, rather than nuking it? Are the people really voting to remove the user's account, or just to give them a slap? If the latter (which I think in general is likely) then give them a slap - not a rocket ?!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Chris Maunder wrote:
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 have reported a reasonable number of messages as either abuse or spam. I think that I did it properly and did not abuse the privilege. I figured that administrators had access to my activity and if I did something wrong I would hear about it. I know that some people don't like being classified in such a manner. Some people who advertise black magic, UFC PPV or male enhancement pills consider themselves in the right to do so anywhere they please. Retribution for these folks is not limited to account deletion on CP. If you make the above info public, I won't likely do any of the spam/abuse maintenance any more.
I'm retired. There's a nap for that... - Harvey
H.Brydon wrote:
If you make the above info public, I won't likely do any of the spam/abuse maintenance any more.
Out of interest: why? Because you fear retribution by the black magic spammers? (And no, I'm not being facetious). I think you over estimate the amount they care.
cheers Chris Maunder
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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.
Brent Jenkins wrote:
Democracy gave us George Bush
You seem to have a different understanding of American politics than I do. ;)
cheers Chris Maunder
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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.
Thanks for your thoughts. The huge issue, though, is that abuse has come from members who have otherwise reported along the consensus.
cheers Chris Maunder
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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 am a bit surprised by this change : I have requested several the same thing for those who approve articles, and it was always rejected. I fail to see why reporting someone should be public whereas rejecting articles should remain private, or vice-versa.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Entropy isn't what it used to.
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I am a bit surprised by this change : I have requested several the same thing for those who approve articles, and it was always rejected. I fail to see why reporting someone should be public whereas rejecting articles should remain private, or vice-versa.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Entropy isn't what it used to.
Part of the issue is a basic "why and how" issue: where do we show approvers once an article is approved, and what value does it add?
cheers Chris Maunder
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As we're talking only when an account is closed (rather than just a message deleted) : 1. It is (or at least should be) relatively hard to have a 'regular' user account deleted (i.e. someone who has a few rep points and has been here a while) - so this should be rare. 2. It is (or at least should be) relatively easy to have a new account deleted (i.e. someone who creates an account and just uses it for Spam) In case 2, the op would never bother with retaliation. In case 1, they may, of course, but they must surely have done something pretty bad to deserve that sized slap (think MM and elephants) and they would, one hopes, just get back on and ask you nice chaps for their account back But I don't see what advantage this has? Keeping spam accounts seems a waste to me - they're never coming back and seeing thousands of one-off accounts being nuked just lets one see how much spam there is. Keeping 'real' member's accounts seems like a good idea - don't nuke them - just disable them with an appropriate message on their account page ("nuked due to angry mob") - but listing who voted them off the island? No advantage, I think... **EDIT** Having seen your comment in bugs & sugs it seems this move is prompted to stop people abusing their power and leading to the removal of an account... by naming and shaming you hope they won't vote abuse unless they feel they can stand up to their claims, I guess? But, to me, it seems that the problem might be that it it too easy to nuke an account via the abusive vote Do we need to differentiate between an abusive post and an account ? Nuke the post if necessary - and maybe suspend an account with > x abuse votes for a period of time, rather than nuking it? Are the people really voting to remove the user's account, or just to give them a slap? If the latter (which I think in general is likely) then give them a slap - not a rocket ?!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
_Maxxx_ wrote:
by naming and shaming you hope they won't vote abuse unless they feel they can stand up to their claims, I guess?
Correct
_Maxxx_ wrote:
But, to me, it seems that the problem might be that it it too easy to nuke an account via the abusive vote
Also correct, and something we fixed.
_Maxxx_ wrote:
Do we need to differentiate between an abusive post and an account ?
Nuking spammer accounts quickly helps make life inconvenient for them.
_Maxxx_ wrote:
Are the people really voting to remove the user's account, or just to give them a slap?
This one I don't know. I'm not even sure it's purely to give a slap or just to stir trouble.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Brent Jenkins wrote:
Democracy gave us George Bush
You seem to have a different understanding of American politics than I do. ;)
cheers Chris Maunder
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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
YES Just do it already!
veni bibi saltavi
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Part of the issue is a basic "why and how" issue: where do we show approvers once an article is approved, and what value does it add?
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
where do we show approvers
At the start, at the bottom, hidden in a tab, etc... plenty of possible places.
Chris Maunder wrote:
what value does it add?
- Stop rep points harvesting that cause bad articles to be approved, so prevent bad articles from being approved - Discuss about content with the people having approved by articles - Discourage "fellow" approvals
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Entropy isn't what it used to.
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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
It will exclude people who do not feel strongly enough to (or are not able to adequately) back up their decisions, so it will improve accuracy and appropriateness.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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This defeats the purpose.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Marc Clifton wrote:
public accountability
And this, in a nutshell, is what it's all about.
cheers Chris Maunder
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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
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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
Isn't the problem that some of our longest serving members do things that could be classed as abusive sometimes and we are being asked to 'vote abusive' rather than vote for a 'member to be removed for abuse'. I'm assuming this change in thinking has been triggered by recent high profile members accounts being removed. I'm also assuming that these were closed because of Abuse votes rather than Spam votes and that these abuse votes were collected over a period of time. I also get the impression from some of your comments in this thread that there were some high-ranking or 'upstanding' members amongst those who voted for those accounts to be removed. (I'm guessing that if you looked back at why they voted at that point in time there will be a genuine reason for it) For example a long-standing member might call someone an 'anal-pore' or get drunk and make a post with a lot of unnecessary swearing in it or be condescending to someone in Q&A. a.) Do we vote those as abusive. b.) Or do we say to ourselves he's made a big contribution in the past so we ignore it. Now nobody wants those members to removed, but at the same time the posts still can be classed as abusive. If we select b.) then we are being asked to judge members differently, depending on who they are. I guess what I am trying to say is 'vote abusive' gives the impression that your single vote will go straight to an admin, who will read it immediately and then give the recepient a scolding and a warning for being abusive. It doesn't imply that your vote will go on some database somewhere and it will stay there and not be looked at until sometime, far of in the future, when that account has accumulated enough votes to be closed.
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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
My concern is that without additional changes it will only encourage more bad behavior. Currently if Idiots 1-N gang up on Respected Member Y and suspend Y's account; the peanut gallery in the Lounge is limited to raging about the idiots in a new thread. If you make the votes public I worry that Peanutters 1-M will instead go on a rage banning rampage against Idiots 1-N creating a larger mess at least in the short term. My bigger worry is that letting spammers/trolls know who's repeatedly nuking them until they glow will end up with them creating a swarm of sock puppets to wage banfare back. To limit the problems I'd suggest: 0) Preventing new/low rep accounts from being able to raise abuse flags entirely. (Or at least limiting their ability to do so severely; reduced weight and unable to do anything without at least one flag from a more senior account.) 1) Don't allow any number of flags to kill platinum (and gold?) members accounts without confirmation from at least one CP Staff Member or user with Protector status. (I'm assuming that you've kept any of the flag abusers out of that group since the last thing they need is more power on the site.)
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
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This defeats the purpose.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris, I do not think it does (or more correctly, that it has to) As a NEW user, I would not feel confident with that information showing up. But after a year or two, I think it would be a badge of honor. Is there any way to tie this to the members choice + their rank? (The demi-gods on the forum cannot opt out. But us lowly servants can?)
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Chris, I do not think it does (or more correctly, that it has to) As a NEW user, I would not feel confident with that information showing up. But after a year or two, I think it would be a badge of honor. Is there any way to tie this to the members choice + their rank? (The demi-gods on the forum cannot opt out. But us lowly servants can?)
Making it a choice defeats the purpose.
cheers Chris Maunder
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My concern is that without additional changes it will only encourage more bad behavior. Currently if Idiots 1-N gang up on Respected Member Y and suspend Y's account; the peanut gallery in the Lounge is limited to raging about the idiots in a new thread. If you make the votes public I worry that Peanutters 1-M will instead go on a rage banning rampage against Idiots 1-N creating a larger mess at least in the short term. My bigger worry is that letting spammers/trolls know who's repeatedly nuking them until they glow will end up with them creating a swarm of sock puppets to wage banfare back. To limit the problems I'd suggest: 0) Preventing new/low rep accounts from being able to raise abuse flags entirely. (Or at least limiting their ability to do so severely; reduced weight and unable to do anything without at least one flag from a more senior account.) 1) Don't allow any number of flags to kill platinum (and gold?) members accounts without confirmation from at least one CP Staff Member or user with Protector status. (I'm assuming that you've kept any of the flag abusers out of that group since the last thing they need is more power on the site.)
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
Dan Neely wrote:
Preventing new/low rep accounts from being able to raise abuse flags entirely
Already in place. You need to be silver or above.
Dan Neely wrote:
Don't allow any number of flags to kill platinum (and gold?) members accounts without confirmation from at least one CP Staff Member or user with Protector status
This is something we need to add.
cheers Chris Maunder
