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.

 

[accuname]

I see all 5 ideas as too complex. Whatever the solution it needs to be pretty simple. The bolding of the report button and the hover note is a good idea.

My recommendation: Adding a link within the "Report Post" popup that leads to a detailed explanation of how to use the report button, how not to abuse it, and a possible FAQ. Maybe even add a few general points in the popup itself.

 

[DU]

Thanks for this idea! We've made it bold and added an explanation when someone hovers over the link.

Given that we apparently need to be explained what report is, shouldn't we also be told what "Like" and "Dislike" means

"This button lets you tell someone you dislike the content of their post or get back at them because they disliked you before"

I will say that recent improvements in the forum with respect to some users show that the report button does eventually work !

Thanks for trying to continuously improve the forum @Eric Lyon and @Paul Buonopane and everyone else (the mods).

 

[VRdommy]

Why not provide weight based on the reporters Messages/Likes ratio ? (Simple math equation).
Encouraging QUALITY posts at the same time.

 

[accuname]

Why not provide weight based on the reporters Messages/Likes ratio ? (Simple math equation).

I think a too formulaic approach brings unintended consequences. Gotta keep it really simple.

 

[usernamex]

Given that we apparently need to be explained what report is, shouldn't we also be told what "Like" and "Dislike" means

@Eric Lyon should double post this here
https://www.namepros.com/posts/5574421/

Although I would like added clarification of when to Dislike vs when to Report (as stated above) and maybe the whole post can be made a sticky somewhere, instead of buried down a 2015 thread : grin :

 

[james haw]

Ahh, NameProsOverflow :D

I love the idea to introduce community driven moderation. I use Stack Overflow/Exchange a fair bit which uses this model, so I throw the following out for debate:


1) Change the current buttons as part of the makeover:


Likes/Dislikes

"like" is simply "I like this post" and produces a "total likes" tally.
However people seem to shy away from using "dislike" as it seemingly carries harsh undertones, and I believe has some reporting weight - enough dislikes and a mod will review the post/user.

We should however change that as "dislike" is the logical opposite to "like" so the two should be strictly opposing in functionality, "I like this" and "I dislike this", nothing more.

The "report" button is for reporting and with this new proposed change/community moderating there will be no need for "dislike" to have any report mechanism.

The likes rack up like points, so perhaps the dislikes could remove "like" points? Before you consider this to be an evil thing, ie losing your likes, consider beyond the face value that gaining and losing is a much more natural way to generate an image of someone and see who has been liked as a net total.

Otherwise it's a bit like a website review page showing all the positive reviews and none of the complaints - a false image.

Perhaps a 1/0.25 like/dislike ratio. So for every 4 dislikes you lose one like, down to 0 (no negative numbers).

This could of course generate sour play, and should be considered/debated thoroughly, but net likes is better, and you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs


Thank
I think creating separation would be good. so a "thank" is just thank without a "like", so we can do either or both:

1. Thank
2. Like
3. Thank and like

There are plenty of scenarios where one can thank someone (for their advice, a link etc) but not actually like what they wrote.

But I see the attraction of one button being weightier, such as liking and thanking. Perhaps if remains to be both "thank" and "like", it could add 2 likes so it means something more than a "like"? Just a thought.


Report
I guess this is the button that is to change, in that reporting in some forums/areas would invoke a community voting poll.

Unlike Stack Exchange's complex system, which is required due to their user size, this site would benefit from something fairly simple.

Such as clicking "report" would:

1. Invoke a user driven moderation queue for others to vote on
2. Take you to the moderation queue if one already exists

In the queue area you could choose from a dropdown of what moderation queue you are wanting:

1. Close the thread
2. Re-open the thread
3. Hide the thread
4. Un-hide the thread

etc

Then:

• X net votes to complete the queue, eg "8 net votes to close the thread"

There is some complexity required, such as a vote can only be reversed once. So once a thread is closed, then re-opened, it cannot be closed again by community and a mod would have to step in and decide.
Without such things we'd just go around in circles opening and closing etc.

All of these things should be reversible by mods, who can take into account what the community has voted.

While a community can make bad judgement calls (even unintentionally) I think the majority of decisions would be fine and take the weight from mods.


If an entirely new system with buttons is introduced, I would suggest just removing the "report" button altogether. Or, perhaps make it generate a queue where people can vote on if moderator intervention is required.


This can all get complex very quickly of course, and maintenance and even using it can become a massive learning curve, but some complexity will be required. I imagine you'll thrash out the pros and cons

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Things to consider which are highly debatable and are just "IMO":

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

I think if you want such a system, it would require new buttons, instead of shoehorning more functionality into one which currently should be simple. A "dislike" should just be the opposite to a "like".

As per my idea above, the "report" link would invoke the user moderation queue, and create a new one if not exist where you can pick from a drop down "hide this thread, hide this post, close this thread" etc etc.

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.

I really don't think an account level has any bearing on site experience, nor making good judgement calls.

Account level carry no relevance to voting decisions, they can be bought immediately with a 1 day old account. You cannot buy experience

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.

Again, I see no correlation at all between when someone signed up and site knowledge, judgement call, or their care for the site and thus making a careful decision.

I think it's simpler to have 1 weight vote for every user, then using scripts can be made to determine poor decision makers and stop them for voting, or suspend their voting for a period, with longer suspensions for repeat issues etc.
Such as automatically stop people from being able to vote when, eg:

• They are in the minority vote by X threshold over Y times. So the total net votes required to "do something" is 10, and 12 people were in favour and 2 were not. The 2 who were not can be penalised if too many infractions.

I know people will se this as unfair, but in absolute reality you need something like this to keep decision making accurate. I'm talking about when a decision is right or wrong, NOT opinion



A MIN USER LEVEL TO VOTE

While someone having been here for X years and posted Y times does not in any way indicate any level of skill or understanding of the site, or good decision making for site moderation, we need to stop absolute newcomers from voting (don't know how things do or do not work in general, not experienced in site rules, etc). But this should be minimum just to weed out the lowest level of misunderstandings, as even seasoned users been here years can easily make bad decisions. Arguably worse than someone who's familiar with community moderating

NOTE: This is different to member standing giving more weight to votes, this is to stop being able to vote until criteria is met.

For example, being able to vote to hide posts/threads really must require some level of site participation to understand things to a min level.
EG (this is not proposed criteria, just an example):

1. Member for 4 months or more
2. 20 likes or more

These things are not really a measurement of good judgement etc, but there needs to be something to stop someone signing up and voting on things they have no idea about

And then you can get as complex as needs be. Such as the more you are in the majority vote, the more things you can vote on.


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I don't profess to be right about this, just ideas

 

[Domainstore]

Far too complex. I would keep the report button only

 

[james haw]

Far too complex. I would keep the report button only

I understand your concern, but functionality requires some level of complexity, and I don't think its really that complex to use.

If just the single function from a single report button, what single thing would it report? We need to report various things imo

 

[MSKD]

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.

Agree @Paul Buonopane , After high score of dislikes, the comment should be hidden...

 

[WatchDogue]

As a relative newcomer to NamePros, though not to domains nor to large online forums, my initial and continued impression of NamePros is that of a well run and well moderated large scale forum!

I liked the appearance as a reader and user of the forum as a reasonably member self-moderated and member self -controlled forum with limited visible " official moderation" necessary.

IMO and limited time here the " Report " button should initially alert the " powers that be " to an immediate issue and perhaps the responding moderator should be empowered ( if not already empowered) to take immediate action as deemed necessary.

Is it possible to occasionally run at the top of each section of the Forum a moving message banner reminding members to " read the rules " or read specific rules that are most violated and the like?

Anyhow, thanks for a great forum!

 

[Tia Wood]

I don't like the idea of a "Dislike" feature to control this because it opens to interpretation why a person would dislike a post.

For example: a post that doesn't break the rules but the context was unpopular. IMO, a post shouldn't be hidden in that case.

Report button is good. Maybe a report button that only appears for members who have been here a certain amount of time and maybe the report button is "locked" if the post has already been reported with a mod note about the decision or pending notification.

 

[Ategy]

I think it goes without saying (because I already said it in a few other threads .. lol) that I do not agree with the use of the likes/dislikes for moderation for the very simple reason that at NamePros there are many unconventional uses of the system being allowed and encouraged that make them inaccurate and inappropriate to use.

I find it rather amusing because in the other thread when I thought on of the support team mentioned this as a possibility, we were told that it was a miscommunication .. and then I'm pointed here to this thread .. lol


In all honestly, an amped up report system where certain measures are implemented to reduce abuse and more importantly, to improve accuracy, COULD be a useful tool.


That being said .. at the end of the day you have 1,000,000 and growing members .. contrasted with an ever shrinking moderation team .. that more than anything else is the problem here.

It's one thing to have good moderators, which you certainly do .. but if you don't have the time/space coverage (hours in a day/shared responsibilities to cover all areas of the forum without being overwhelmed), then that is the true root of your problem.


Imagine how a new member is going to feel when a typo takes his quote out of context in a bad way to many of the older members frustrated at a lot of newcomers .. what is proposed with so-called self moderation is a double edged sword .. it will certainly help .. but how you don't see how it will also hurt in other ways is concerning.


NamePros is a +/- 7 figure business .. while members pay for certain privileges, the understanding is that while some of that money is obviously fine to be taken as profit, it's also reasonable to request that part of those funds are used to make the forum more usable, more professional and more secure. Without a doubt in some aspects of that NamePros is doing a fantastic job (there is a reason it has a million members), but speaking as a former owner/admin of a large forum/community, BOTH moderation quality AND coverage are equally crucial aspects to quality control. Too important to be loading more and more responsibilities to an automated system incapable of the CRUCIAL human/personal touch needed to turn what could be a painful and frustrating situation into an opportunity to reach out and help a frustrated (often new) member .. with a bifurcation of potential outcomes that more often than not is the difference between losing a disappointed and frustrated new member, and gaining a increasingly productive member of the community.

I just don't get why a forum with the potential human resources available to them like NamePros has (you are extremely fortunate to be as profitable as you are compared to the vast majority of other forums on the internet) would choose to go the route of depersonalisation when you could effectively EASILY do the opposite.


That being said .. I really do see how some automated reporting system (not connected to likes/dislikes the way they currently are) could help moderators find thing quicker .. let me be clear I'm NOT against that .. but when it comes to implementing moderator actions like hiding posts/threads, I obviously feel strongly that you should have enough moderation coverage so that such actions can be done on a personalized level as much as possible and as quickly as possible.


Finally .. I want it to be VERY clear that my thoughts have nothing to do with the quality of the current moderation team .. I think given their current size they do a really great job and are a great resource to the community .. but it's also pretty clear that NamePros lacks overall moderation coverage .. what is being proposed above is a simplistic band-aid coverage .. which in some cases will be great .. but most certainly not in some other situations where it could actually makes things worse *IF* there is continued insufficient moderation coverage!

 

[JB Lions]

Almost every domain investor goes through the phase where they think they found something that others missed and then back up the truck. Early in my own domaining career, I had 5000 domains at Godaddy, and probably kept 5% of those in the end. So, yes, it is a thing and we do see it often.

Sometimes the stories are heartbreaking, e.g. people who spent their entire nest-egg on names that are almost unsellable. The reality is that the vast majority of the 390 million domains registered are of no value to anyone, even the registrant themselves.

If you see someone spending way too much on domains that are almost certainly not to sell, or where the new investor has a wildly uninformed expectation, I think you can gently engage them in a dialog about their domain investing history and see if they want any help selling their domains. Some will appreciate the help.

DomainGraduate.com is a free online course that we did produce in part for this exact reason. The course was acquired from veteran domainer, Sean Stafford, and then upgraded. We made it free from the outset, precisely to help more folks learn before they spend big. It exists in a few languages now.

Well, I am pretty busy but I help where I can, having confidence that these things come back, and that folks will pay it forward. It usually works out.

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