Help NamePros Decide on Community-Driven Moderation

[Eric Lyon]

You may have noticed that NamePros is becoming largely dependent on you, the community, to Report posts that require our attention.

The reason for this is because we've outgrown the "manual moderation" method: it is no longer practical or scalable for us to have staff members read every post on NamePros to decide if a rule violation has occurred, content is posted in the correct section, etc. While we still do this when we can, there is much that we miss and that trend will continue to increase as NamePros grows.

Our plan to handle this in the most efficient and scalable way possible is to turn over the keys to you! But don't worry, we aren't taking this idea lightly, and we are going to make sure that we do it in the best way possible.

That's why we need your help!

Please share with us how you think we should do it.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. After a post receives __ dislikes, it is automatically hidden and requires that a member click an "unhide" button to view it.
   • Once hidden, it would not appear in New Posts or other places on the site.
   • If the post is the first post of a thread, the entire thread is hidden in this manner.
2. Same as #1, but using the Report feature.
3. Similar to #1, except dislikes will be weighted based on your NamePros account level. For instance, a dislike from a VIP member would be worth as many as 5 dislikes from a new member.
4. Similar to #1, except dislikes will be weighted based on your NamePros account age. For instance, a dislike from a member who signed up in 2003 would be worth as many as 12 dislikes from someone who signed up today.
5. There are many other ways this can be done, and we want to hear the way you think is best.

The ability to "vote" could also be restricted to members who have been on the site for at least 1 year, received X number of Likes on at least Y number of posts.

In the meantime, please Report any posts that need our attention. We greatly appreciate it!


Note: We're still quite a ways away from creating this, but we'd love to get as much feedback on it as we can before that time comes.

 

[Paul]

I'm a fan of #1, but I think likes/thanks should counter dislikes. Posts would essentially be upvoted/downvoted, and when a post receives a negative score, it would be hidden.

We'll definitely still need staff to help catch sneakier troublemakers. I think the idea here is for them to focus on cracking down on fraud and such, rather than spending most of their time dealing with casual spam.

 

[DU]

Shouldn't be based on likes/dislikes - we've all seen dislikes on a post as retaliatory because we are children. Using reports doesn't change much except it's a category that makes sense for mods to review anyway (as they do now) rather than dislikes that are given all the time (well not often) and are opinion. It's hard to warn members for spurious/targeted dislikes (as it's an opinion) whereas spurious reports are less easy to defend and warnings can be given for over use of reporting.

Maybe a report option with a "severity" - that leaves it flexible for your staff to intervene etc. and automate rules.
1 high sev - hides
2 medium sev - hides
5 low sev -hides

You could still manually review all High sev reports but relax on the rest accordingly.

 

[JB Lions]

A rule violation is a rule violation, it shouldn't be likes, dislikes, hidden, click to unhide etc.

The Report button works just fine, I think a lot of people still just don't know about it. Somebody reports something, you decide on it. It works already. You can just get more mods.

 

[DU]

I'm a fan of #1, but I think likes/thanks should counter dislikes. Posts would essentially be upvoted/downvoted, and when a post receives a negative score, it would be hidden.

We'll definitely still need staff to help catch sneakier troublemakers. I think the idea here is for them to focus on cracking down on fraud and such, rather than spending most of their time dealing with casual spam.

If it's just spam... why not have it markable as spam?

 

[NameOmnia]

Not sure about this decision honestly as it would take for granted that all members are professional, reliable, honest, mature, trustworthy...which I seriously doubt.

If I had to choose I would go with 2

 

[Paul]

Not sure about this decision honestly as it would take for granted that all members are professional, reliable, honest, mature, trustworthy...which I seriously doubt.

If I had to choose I would go with 2

Not necessarily. Only the majority would have to be.

If it's just spam... why not have it markable as spam?

That's what the Report button does, more or less.

A rule violation is a rule violation, it shouldn't be likes, dislikes, hidden, click to unhide etc.

The Report button works just fine, I think a lot of people still just don't know about it. Somebody reports something, you decide on it. It works already. You can just get more mods.

There's conflict often enough about whether certain content is within the rules. No matter what we do, it's never going to be completely black-and-white.

 

[JB Lions]

There's conflict often enough about whether certain content is within the rules. No matter what we do, it's never going to be completely black-and-white.

That's normal. You decide, and that's that. Most of what I report you guys agree with and handle, the other times is not a big deal.

You guys can always take my suggestion of making the rules easier.

You have 1 page of general rules.

And then for each section, rules that apply to it. When I click the rules in those sections, I don't see rules, I usually see at least 2 or so links to other places.

 

[Nazz]

It's fine the way it is. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. (Like/dislike)

Although, NamePros can encourage people to get familiar with the report function and specify why it's there and what it does... I'm all for the community pitching in and doing their share.

Possibly empowering more reputable members ?

 

[DU]

It's fine the way it is. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

I think it's clear the problem is not the user experience but the admin experience

 

[Perceptron]

Q) StatusQuo.Sucks?

A)

The Report button works just fine, I think a lot of people still just don't know about it. Somebody reports something, you decide on it. It works already. You can just get more mods.

I concur, the Report button has been effective, with a response time of less than 24 hours (Actually its less than 6 hours) its good enough.

Option #2

#IfItAintBrokeDontFixIt
~

 

[Nazz]

I think it's clear the problem is not the user experience but the admin experience

Possibly empowering more reputable members ?

 

[JB Lions]

issue:
"there is much that we miss and that trend will continue to increase as NamePros grows."

solution already being used, just more people need to be aware of it and use it:
"the community, to Report posts that require our attention."

Use the Report button, Admin/mods handle it. Simple. That's how most forums operate.

If you have people that don't want to handle it, make those decisions, then get rid of them and get people who do.

 

[NameOmnia]

I think it is also a user experience issue.
The marketplace and wtb section are a jungle.

 

[Nazz]

I think it is also a user experience issue.
The marketplace and wtb section are a jungle.

I agree. I am not a fan of new users coming in and spamming the marketplace with their crappy domains. We should push for quality not quantity.

 

[NameOmnia]

I am not a fan of new users coming in and spamming the marketplace with their crappy domains

Also not a fan of new members being allowed to place bids ( and crush threads ) as soon as they register...but that's another story.

 

[iowadawg]

Report button period!
My gripe has always been that so much is posted and never taken care of by mods.
Then a day or two later, it is reported and fixed.

And remember, crappy domains are only crappy to those that think they are crappy.

 

[theSun]

I love all ideas mentioned in the first post.

 

[NameOmnia]

If I had to choose I would go with 2

To better clarify :

#1 is too susceptible to personal likes and dislikes
#3 acceptable only if membership levels exclude NP Supporters & Business accounts which are not representative of the "quality" of the member as one simply needs to pay to have them.
#4 age is not indicative enough; there are 10 YO members with 100 posts, no likes, no interactions and 1 YO members with 1000 posts and a ton of likes and interactions. TR is a much better parameter.

Maybe employing more staff or increase the number of moderators are the best option

 

[ramkumaritrvs]

i liked #1 idea.

After a post receives 5 dislikes, it is automatically hidden and requires that a member click an "unhide" button to view it.

I don't see anyother options are good. As a community member, we should treat as a equal. don't give power just because someone have vip / old age / premium account etc., you can award more space / badge / privilege etc.,

Also merge likes & thanks together. so we can count likes & dislikes easily.

some people may dislike just because they hate the domain & at the same time few people may love it & liked it. so calculate the total by [likes - dislikes].

JMO.

 

[DU]

After a post receives 5 dislikes, it is automatically hidden and requires that a member click an "unhide" button to view it.

If we can put a Beta mode into place using dislikes... me and 4 of my friends will hide the posts we don't agree with

Maybe employing more staff or increase the number of moderators are the best option

That's a decent question. Has there been an issue with un-salaried mods? Or a change in policy on moderation in general?

Use the Report button, Admin/mods handle it. Simple. That's how most forums operate.
If you have people that don't want to handle it, make those decisions, then get rid of them and get people who do.

Corporate America misses JBL But again, it's a decent question. If you have a report function why does your staff feel the need to read all posts?
How many reports are there in a day? I've probably reported about 10-20 posts (guessing) in the last 5 years if you don't include the period where I reported every post of Jeff in the .TV subforum because he was troll and no-one wanted to do anything about it

 

[ramkumaritrvs]

If we can put a Beta mode into place using dislikes... me and 4 of my friends will hide the posts we don't agree with

Not exactly, My 3 friends may liked it, so the count will go up to (5 dislikes - 3 likes = 2 dislikes), and we need 5 dislikes to hide it !!!

people can see the dislike number 4 and if they think it's worth then they can support by click likes to keep the thread live

 

[-EM-]

The dislike option mention in the #1 post may work to reduce the arrogance here, expecially from bored members who post too much (more or less those with 10-15k posts). The problem with dislike is about its meaning. I may dislike a post which may not be against the rules, in other words is a personal preference. My personal preference doesn't have to apply to other members (maybe if a post receives 20-30 dislikes is more likely it will not be liked by other members too, but that is a very rare case)
The report button works just fine. Just add more moderators if needed, there are members that would do it for free I guess.

 

[Paul]

Part of the idea here is that the community would have more of a say in shaping its own standards. My understanding is that there would still be a report button to deal with content that is particularly sensitive--post that shouldn't be visible even if users wish to see it, typically for legal reasons (blatant copyright infringement, etc.). Rather than us telling you how you should treat each other, you'll be able to decide that for yourselves, within reason.

Keep in mind that your content wouldn't be hidden simply because someone is out to get you. A significant majority would have to agree that your content is unsuitable for it to be removed (with the exception of #2, which offers no counter for a report). We'd have to decide later exactly how to calculate that, but it'd probably look something like this:

If post has at least 2x more dislikes than likes
    and there are at least 5 dislikes,
    then hide the post

 

[S-B]

I don't think the like/dislike system would work unless there are repercussions for indiscriminately disliking posts.