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.

 

[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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