Reporting posts ***IMPORTANT***

[Steve]

Hi everyone,

A quick request.

When reporting posts, please don't post "reported" or similar in response to it, simply use the report button and then let the mods take care of it.

We can easily mop up all of a spammer's posts, but not those made by people who refer to it, and once the spam posts have been deleted, the posts saying "reported" will remain if they're in an existing thread, and that can cause a great deal of confusion.

Thanks!

[kalniel]

Would you rather we didn't add reported tags as well?

[Agent]

Would you rather we didn't add reported tags as well?

Please. As it's something we have to manually remove for every thread.

[kalniel]

Please. As it's something we have to manually remove for every thread.

Understood.

[blueball]

must resist temptation to report Steve's post

[chrestomanci]

Just a random thought, but I recently joined the candlepower forums, and over there they have a policy where new users who join have to have their first two posts moderated, before they are promoted to normal status. It is supposed to prevent spammer's posts from appearing in the forum at all.

I guess the downside is that the mods have more work to do.

There is a loophole in the candlepower system, in that new users are allowed to edit their posts, so in theory, a spammer could post something normal as their first post, get it approved, and then edit the post to spam afterwards.

[Steve]

We already have moderation mechanisms like that but they are not applied to all new registrants, only ones that trip certain undisclosed triggers.

[Lucio]

We already have moderation mechanisms like that but they are not applied to all new registrants, only ones that trip certain undisclosed triggers.

No wonder my post count is so low! I'm being supressed by the Man!

[jim]

Is there no way that we could tick a box on the report post page to make the report public, which would then add a tagline saying "This post has been referred to the modsquad/modmins"?

That would also enable users to keep reports secret if they're reporting another member's post rather than plain old spam.

I'm sure it's not worth the effort it would entail, just thought I'd throw it out there.

[handscombmp]

Is there no way that we could tick a box on the report post page to make the report public, which would then add a tagline saying "This post has been referred to the modsquad/modmins"?

That would also enable users to keep reports secret if they're reporting another member's post rather than plain old spam.

I'm sure it's not worth the effort it would entail, just thought I'd throw it out there.

Sounds like a good idea.

The reason i would post 'reported' is so the mods don't receive 10 reports all for one past.

Didn't realise it actually generated even more work for you.

[oolon]

The problem with disclosing reportedness of posts, while it is fine for spam, it might serve to enrage people more if they egos are flaming in a thread. People might even deliberately report things to upset another user.

On an investment website I post on they used to have vote up and vote down. People got upset if they were voted down, as the moderation was public they then went and voted down every post by anyone who voted them down. (that function has disappeared not, up only).

This way people can report posts and the mods decide if to let it slide or not. With a flag you know right away someone does not like it.

[Rob_B]

I think the comment was in regards to obvious spam accounts? For me I think some way of knowing it has already been reported would be useful assuming that it would be less work than 10people reporting the same post/thread?

[Steve]

Deleting superfluous emails from our inbox is less work than sorting out tags, posts, threads and so on

[Rob_B]

I never thought it'd be that much work to clear up a spam post/spammer !

[Steve]

It's not, it's really easy, but there's no button that lets us delete responses to spam in existing threads, or undo tags that say a thread has been reported. Both serve no purpose, which is why I'm asking people not to do it.

[Rob_B]

I pay your wages godammit, I want you to work for your money