Report Reform

[Steezie]

I think there needs to be a serious reform of how reports and discipline are handled here. The amount of spite reporting I've seen is epidemic and it puts a huge un-necessary load on staff who then have to sift through the spam reports to get to real problems.

First, there needs to be a limit on how many reports a person can make in one day. Three sounds like a fair number. This helps ensure that if theres a REAL problem poster, they can be dealt with but avoid people who go around spam reporting to get others in trouble.

Second, a limit on reports per person. IE: Jack can only report Jill three times in one week. This helps to ensure that people arent sifting back through another person's posting history to find rule violations and get them into trouble.

Third, have a statute of limitations. A period of time after which a report cannot be made about a post. Three weeks is enough time to catch a problem post while an active discussion is ongoing. This prevents people going back through a person's post history and picking out long-dead posts and reporting them for spite.

Forth, have reports open and visible at least to the subject of the report and have the subject of the report be able to defend him or herself in front of the staff. This prevents the lengthy and time consuming process of appeals and helps keep the forum open and accountable.

I hope these will be taken into consideration as the amount of un-necessary work created for the staff creates problems for the rest of us.

[Conspiracy Theory]

Reports are open to the subject of the report.

The other stuff doesn't work.

[Steezie]

Reports are open to the subject of the report.

The other stuff doesn't work.
And why doesnt it work?

[Conspiracy Theory]

And why doesnt it work?

Because what happens if a poster finds more than three posts in a day troublesome?

[Steezie]

Because what happens if a poster finds more than three posts in a day troublesome?
Ill respond seriously when you decide to, good day

[Richard]

There are people that are reported more then 3 times a day and all the reports are legitimate. Limiting the amount of times a member can be reported will never happen. Spite reporting is something that goes on and its easy to detect, people just have to watch out for it ( by people I mean mods ). The report system will be redone with the Upgrades.

[Steezie]

There are people that are reported more then 3 times a day and all the reports are legitimate. Limiting the amount of times a member can be reported will never happen. Spite reporting is something that goes on and its easy to detect, people just have to watch out for it ( by people I mean mods ). The report system will be redone with the Upgrades.
Im not talking about limiting the number of times a person can be reported PERIOD, Im talking about limiting the number of times a person can be reported by another person. If they genuinely post something inflammatory then more than one person will recognize it.

Actually it's a good question, and in some subforums I've seen multiple post by trolls & spammers that need reporting. Then they will be reported, probably by different people, they will doubtlessly be seen by multiple people so I fail to see the problem

[pgp_protector]

Ill respond seriously when you decide to, good day
Actually it's a good question, and in some subforums I've seen multiple post by trolls & spammers that need reporting.

[Steezie]

Im not talking about limiting the number of times a person can be reported PERIOD, Im talking about limiting the number of times a person can be reported by another person. If they genuinely post something inflammatory then more than one person will recognize it.

Actually it's a good question, and in some subforums I've seen multiple post by trolls & spammers that need reporting. Then they will be reported, probably by different people, they will doubtlessly be seen by multiple people so I fail to see the problem

[NeTrips]

#3 is a valid concern and I'd say two weeks would be ample time for a report if it was worthy of attetention.

the rest are either not needed or are in place already IMO

[Nadiine]

Because what happens if a poster finds more than three posts in a day troublesome?
I agree, I don't like being limited in what I can report or can't... it's penalizing ME for other spite reporters and I don't see how that's fair to me or the other people not spite reporting.

They should just enact a spite report rule and deal with it when the person spite reports rather than place more restrictions on everybody else that aren't necessary.
This is how the public keeps being restricted of their rights & freedoms more and more. I shouldn't have to be put under restriction for somebody elses abuses.
Deal with the abuser correctly by adding a rule on spite reporting (which I've already suggested many months ago becuz it's been done to me many times in the past).

[xMinionX]

Perhaps requiring a post to be reported twice before it goes to staff and the icon shows up might help? If it's a real violation then chances are more than one person will notice it. (just spit balling here, nothing official)

I see a lot of posts reported that contain incredibly minor, trivial rule violations. It makes our jobs very very difficult. In the staff forums I compared it to someone calling the cops every time he sees a jaywalker. Yes, it's illegal, but don't the police have better things to do? Now factor in that we're not getting paid a dime for this job and you'll see why we get so frustrated.

[MachZer0]

Perhaps requiring a post to be reported twice before it goes to staff and the icon shows up might help? If it's a real violation then chances are more than one person will notice it. (just spit balling here, nothing official)

I see a lot of posts reported that contain incredibly minor, trivial rule violations. It makes our jobs very very difficult. In the staff forums I compared it to someone calling the cops every time he sees a jaywalker. Yes, it's illegal, but don't the police have better things to do? Now factor in that we're not getting paid a dime for this job and you'll see why we get so frustrated.Are minor, trivial rules violations considered violations by the mods?

[xMinionX]

Of course. I'm only speaking of the debate section of the board, where there is a huge report load and not many mods. Other sections can focus more on their reports, but we've got a TON in there and someone constantly reporting minute violations that don't actually hurt anyone is very annoying and distracts us from addressing more pressing concerns. I'm not saying that because I don't want to deal with the minor stuff, just that I don't have much free time in my life and I'd like to see the time I do dedicate to this site be well spent.

[Steezie]

Perhaps requiring a post to be reported twice before it goes to staff and the icon shows up might help? If it's a real violation then chances are more than one person will notice it. (just spit balling here, nothing official Thats a step in the right direction, but there are a lot of people on here who have sock puppet accounts and could use them to skirt that rule.

[xMinionX]

Thats a step in the right direction, but there are a lot of people on here who have sock puppet accounts and could use them to skirt that rule.

True enough, but I think we'd pick up on that quickly. Wouldn't take long to notice the same two people are reporting the same posts over and over...

[Steezie]

True enough, but I think we'd pick up on that quickly. Wouldn't take long to notice the same two people are reporting the same posts over and over... Then you shift the workload over from weeding out spite reports to weeding out double accounts. Although admittedly it wouldnt be as much work, but you'd still be wasting time you shouldnt have to

[MachZer0]

Of course. I'm only speaking of the debate section of the board, where there is a huge report load and not many mods. Other sections can focus more on their reports, but we've got a TON in there and someone constantly reporting minute violations that don't actually hurt anyone is very annoying and distracts us from addressing more pressing concerns. I'm not saying that because I don't want to deal with the minor stuff, just that I don't have much free time in my life and I'd like to see the time I do dedicate to this site be well spent.How are the mods prioritizing reports since some seem to be resolved and actioned within 24 hours and others go for weeks with no action?

[MachZer0]

double post

[MachZer0]

triple post

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Another problem concerns the disparity of modding styles and the clear and present evidence of personal bias in working reports.

Some mods can set aside whether they personally like or dislike the reported post's author but several, it seems, cannot, nor can they rise above the temptation to use their "power" to push their personal hate agendas.

Some mods clearly favor party X over party Y and wherever a report involves a dispute will take the side of their "pet", regardless.

Some mods have great insight into the personal situations and needs of individual posters and attempting to take this into account and work these issues and matters, get accused of the above.

And then we have weight ... some mods favor "laying down the smack" punitively for every violation while others favor letting the poster have a chance to correct the matter themselves, and thus gain practical experience in tailoring their posting style to fit the guidelines better. And some only do the "smack" on those they dislike while being gentle with those they favour, etc.

Then on top of it all we have mods/admins whose definition of "bias" consists of having personal awareness of individuals' situations and needs as people and seeking to meld that accordingly into appropriate mod action in a compassionate Christlike fashion -- while their definition of "objectivity" consists of nothing more than adamantly opposing and riding harshly on people. That bes a really skewed definition. When it comes to bias, what bes clear and evident bes when someone (mod or admin) consistently opposes the reported party regardless of the situation, and then freaks out over being called on it and has to play the heavy and demand they be silenced or face immediate banning or infracting. That bes a dead giveaway. But even if they don't freak out (and generally the guilty DO and WILL if you bring it up), bias can be clearly seen where one bes opposed ALL the time by the same mod/admin, because NO human being can ALWAYS be in the wrong EVERY time, any more than they can be in the right every time.

Cleaning up the "human, all too human" components of the process by penalizing mods and admins operating from bias or at least demanding they recuse themselves from working reports on persons they have exhibited biases against, might go a long way in correcting this type of filth and corruption.

Aside from that the only other suggestion Moriah offers at this time would be open the report thread to BOTH reporter AND reportee, but not permit them to tussle in the thread. It would also be nice at the very least if each party could know the outcome of the report because how can you file a complaint if you cannot even see the outcome of the report to know you'd have anything to complain about?

[MachZer0]

Another problem concerns the disparity of modding styles and the clear and present evidence of personal bias in working reports.

Some mods can set aside whether they personally like or dislike the reported post's author but several, it seems, cannot, nor can they rise above the temptation to use their "power" to push their personal hate agendas.Some mods are even making the reports themselves

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Some mods have also attempted to strongarm individual members into obeying "member-specific rules" which bes not part of the written rules on this site nor enforced upon ALL members but which they impose on specific members with threats and intimidation, purely out of spite and control-freak impulse run wild that they refuse to take responsibility for reigning in on themselves. Had that happen to Moriah a couple months ago. They didn't do crap about it in the appeal/complaint process either. They addressed the resulting infraction or whatever, but left the larger and more real and problematic issue of mod bullying/harassment to carry on. In fact instead of addressing this head on some of the RT at the time actually sought to pull it themselves. Inexcusable.

A rule bes a rule bes a rule. If something bes a rule put it in the rules and apply it to ALL folks EVERYWHERE in EVERY context.

[Steezie]

Another problem concerns the disparity of modding styles and the clear and present evidence of personal bias in working reports.

Some mods can set aside whether they personally like or dislike the reported post's author but several, it seems, cannot, nor can they rise above the temptation to use their "power" to push their personal hate agendas.

Some mods clearly favor party X over party Y and wherever a report involves a dispute will take the side of their "pet", regardless.

Some mods have great insight into the personal situations and needs of individual posters and attempting to take this into account and work these issues and matters, get accused of the above.

And then we have weight ... some mods favor "laying down the smack" punitively for every violation while others favor letting the poster have a chance to correct the matter themselves, and thus gain practical experience in tailoring their posting style to fit the guidelines better. And some only do the "smack" on those they dislike while being gentle with those they favour, etc.

Then on top of it all we have mods/admins whose definition of "bias" consists of having personal awareness of individuals' situations and needs as people and seeking to meld that accordingly into appropriate mod action in a compassionate Christlike fashion -- while their definition of "objectivity" consists of nothing more than adamantly opposing and riding harshly on people. That bes a really skewed definition. When it comes to bias, what bes clear and evident bes when someone (mod or admin) consistently opposes the reported party regardless of the situation, and then freaks out over being called on it and has to play the heavy and demand they be silenced or face immediate banning or infracting. That bes a dead giveaway. But even if they don't freak out (and generally the guilty DO and WILL if you bring it up), bias can be clearly seen where one bes opposed ALL the time by the same mod/admin, because NO human being can ALWAYS be in the wrong EVERY time, any more than they can be in the right every time.

Cleaning up the "human, all too human" components of the process by penalizing mods and admins operating from bias or at least demanding they recuse themselves from working reports on persons they have exhibited biases against, might go a long way in correcting this type of filth and corruption.

Aside from that the only other suggestion Moriah offers at this time would be open the report thread to BOTH reporter AND reportee, but not permit them to tussle in the thread. It would also be nice at the very least if each party could know the outcome of the report because how can you file a complaint if you cannot even see the outcome of the report to know you'd have anything to complain about? To be fair, this problem used to be A LOT worse than it currently is. Yes there are still problems with this, but its gotten far better than it used to be.

I remember under the old regime I actually got reported by someone for a post that consisted of "No." and they said it was spam. The staff member looked at it, and I got in trouble for posting spam. The appeals system led straight to a trash-can. Basically all the appeals did was rubber-stamp whatever the staff did. I NEVER had anything over-turned on appeal.

[Conspiracy Theory]

Well, we can't avoid the problem entirely. There are going to be spite reports no matter what we do. I just don't think that most of the people who do report out of spite or report trivial things will want to put the effort into reporting, logging off, logging in a sock, reporting, and then logging back into the main account. Some might, but not many.

You don't even have to go that far.

Anyone that wants to make a report under that system can just have different browsers which use different sets of cookies.

What you do is:

1. Install another browser.
2. Open up that browser to the CF homepage.
3. Log in using that browser as your CF sock.
4. Copy the URL of the thread where you want to report the post. If you're still on the page, copy that URL.
5. Paste the URL into the browser you just opened.
6. Report the post that you want.
7. Close the previous browser and go back to surfing CF as the puppet master.


*For further fun, you can mix and match, having the puppet or the puppet master doing the reporting.

[xMinionX]

It won't solve the problem, no. But it would cut down in the minor stuff cluttering up the report forums. The big stuff would come through and the minor stuff wouldn't.

Perhaps two sections for reports to go to? The stuff that is reported once goes to a low-priority forum, while stuff with more than one report on it goes to a second, high priority forum. That would probably require recoding though. :|

[SallyNow]

Perhaps requiring a post to be reported twice before it goes to staff and the icon shows up might help? If it's a real violation then chances are more than one person will notice it. (just spit balling here, nothing official)

I see a lot of posts reported that contain incredibly minor, trivial rule violations. It makes our jobs very very difficult. In the staff forums I compared it to someone calling the cops every time he sees a jaywalker. Yes, it's illegal, but don't the police have better things to do? Now factor in that we're not getting paid a dime for this job and you'll see why we get so frustrated.

I can fully understand how frustrating it can be, but I don't think requiring 2 reports is the best idea to solve the problem.

Also, a limit on reporting per day could be problematic... I can go weeks without seeing anything reportable and then drift into a thread that has a group of posts that are truly racist, sexist, threatening, and/or downright illegal.

The report system does need an overhaul, because mods can't do their job efficiently if they are stuck sifting through spam reports. But mods are also hampered in their job if harassing, racist, illegal, or spam posts are not being reported. This is NOT a reflection on the mods, who I am sure are doing what they can to make CF a well-run forum.

xMinionX's post above mine seems to have a good idea:wave:

There could also again be a bit more opening up of the reporting system... perhaps not making them so public that regular users can post about reports, but at least opening it up a bit.

[Steezie]

Also, a limit on reporting per day could be problematic... I can go weeks without seeing anything reportable and then drift into a thread that has a group of posts that are truly racist, sexist, threatening, and/or downright illegal. The idea is that if the post is truly THAT BAD then more than one person will probably report it

[Nadiine]

Some mods are even making the reports themselves
yep I had it done to me by 1 - the odd thing was that the rest of them found it not to be any violation - so it was reported by a mod and looked like a spite issue due to the reason of the report I won't mention

[Nadiine]

I don't want my report ability limited becuz of other spite reporters, why restrict me becuz of their actions?

I'd prefer they would recognize what spite reports are & have some sort of system in place to deal with the people doing it.
I don't like the idea of restriction the minute something is abused by some people - esp. if for site supporters who pay for freedoms & priviledges on this forum.

[MachZer0]

Rather than reprot reform, it would be better if people would just post within the rules

[Nadiine]

Rather than reprot reform, it would be better if people would just post within the rules
well that just won't happen for alot of reasons...:cool: ;) & if any of us do alot of debating, it's almost inevitable that we'll say something or other & make a mistake along the line.

[SallyNow]

The idea is that if the post is truly THAT BAD then more than one person will probably report it
..yet I've come across some posts that are quite bad, sometimes downright malicious, that have been up for a few days and that people have replied to, instead of reportion. This is especially true in debate and discussion areas, where there are posters who regularly break the rules, and yet rarely reported. People often just say, "oh, that troll/poe/poel/whatever is up to their old tricks". But it can create a pretty harsh enviroment, something that is not welcoming to new posters... or old ones...

I think the report system needs an overhaul, because I know when I was a mod it was tough... there were mountains of spite reports to sift through, and often some really nasty posts never really got dealt with, because, after dealing with a dozen or so "he spite reported me" and "she reported me in spite" reports in a session, it gets tiresome.

So to make the mod's jobs easier (and the system more efficient) I think the best way is to open up the reporting system a bit. Not make it as fully public as before, but at least have accountablity. Perhaps, the reports could be viewable to the public, but the public could not post in them. And, the names in report threads could be "anon" except to the staff. It would least be a compromise, though imperfect.

Perhaps a rule could be set in place that if a person reports one other member x many times in a week, yet most of the reports are deemed a non-violation, the reporting member would have a warning sent to them, or a certian number of blessings taken away, or something along those lines. But the reports would actually have to be deemed non-violations, and not just not dealt with because of time contraints.

[clarksided]

Rather than reprot reform, it would be better if people would just post within the rules
Idealist.

Any I like #3, #4 is already in place (I know this because I get reported way too often), and I don't think #'s 1 and 2 are necessary.