What is exactly the functionality of "Report to moderator"?

[GazetaBitcoin]

Two days ago I reported to moderators 100 posts of two connected users which were shilling constantly their website here, through their posts. The reports were made by clicking on each of their post where they were mentioning the site (goanadupabitcoin.ro) and then selecting "Report to moderator". Besides, as the above link shows, I also mentioned them in o_e_l_e_o's topic, which seems to address (with success) such spamming behaviors. These were also my first reports on the forum.

As I wrote also in that topic, I reported 77 out of a total of 202 posts of an user and 24 out of a total of 462 from the second one. That was happening two days ago (April 16th, 2020), somwhere after the noon.

During the evening of that day, I was having a report accuracy of 25%, understanding from here that 25 posts reported by me (out a total of 100-103) were analyzed, were correct and, as a consequence, deleted. But the users had only 1-2 posts deleted.

I said to wait, maybe it takes time until the posts are actually deleted. Yesterday morning I checked again. My accuracy was showing as 50%. But still, the users had only 1-2 posts deleted.

I waited more. Since yesterday evening and until this moment, my accuracy dropped from 50% to 34%, don't know why, as all the posts I deleted were shilling that site. Thus, if 1 of my reports was correct, then all 100 should be correct. The opposite is also true: if even 1 of my reports was incorrect, then all should be declared incorrect.

After that, I checked again the posts number of both users. First user (goanadupabitcoin) has 194 posts out of 202, thus only 8 were deleted out of a total of 77 reported posts. Second user (Nea Sandu) has the same number of posts as two days ago - 462 - thus 0 posts were deleted in his case, out of a total of 24 reported posts).

So there seems to be an error. If I reported 100 (or 103; don't remember exactly) and I have an accuracy of 34%, this should mean that 34 posts were deleted. However, only 8 were deleted, which means 8%. Why?

Besides, as I mentioned above, if only 1 such report was correct, then all should have been declared accurate, as in all posts reported by me these users shilled their side. How could be only 34% (and 34 in numbers as well, as I reported ~100 posts) declared accurate and the rest inaccurate? Or how could have been my accuracy at 50% yesterday morning and 34% since yesterday evening, considering I did not make other reports?

Any idea?

[tranthidung]

You have to call down and be patient. Reports will be sent to moderators according to algorithm if the forum that we don't know. Moderators after receiving reports need time to investigate and handle them. Sometimes reports sent to moderators by the forum machine but moderators are responsible for those reports are inactively on the forum for a few days. They can not handle reports when they don't log in accounts and don't have time.

Two days are not too long, and reports are handle in queue.

I guess accuracy rate is for handled reports, not for total reports that include unhandled ones.

[Lauda]

The current forum staff seems to be ICO/ANN bumping friendly, also off-topic and derailment friendly. I would exercise caution reporting really unless this changes sooner rather than later.  

You have to call down and be patient. Reports will be sent to moderators according to algorithm if the forum that we don't know. Moderators after receiving reports need time to investigate and handle them. Sometimes reports sent to moderators by the forum machine but moderators are responsible for those reports are inactively on the forum for a few days. They can not handle reports when they don't log in accounts and don't have time.

Two days are not too long, and reports are handle in queue.

I guess accuracy rate is for handled reports, not for total reports that include unhandled ones.

What exactly is there to investigate? Look at the case he linked, it takes about 2 - 5 minutes to conclude you have to permaban both accounts.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Looool indeed.

Even if you don't know Romanian, the case is crystal clear. Just look over the posts And shilling a site in 77 out of 202 posts means that user actually shilled in 38% of the posts (talking about goanadupabitcoin). Almost a half lol. The links are also in plain sight.

In Nea Sandu's case it's a bit more tricky, as he used the BBCode url /url to hide many links. But even so, I still checkd all his links. He has fewer (just 5%).

Besides, in many cases incorrect information was stated (such as Bitcoin not having a 21 million cap and so on). But to see that you have to know Romanian.

However, this might be a delicate situation, as I already described here, with these two users being aquaintances of Cyrus. And, as most likely he will check the reports, it is possible to "forgive" them, as Lauda already pointed out. Let's hope for the best though.

[Rikafip]

So there seems to be an error. If I reported 100 (or 103; don't remember exactly) and I have an accuracy of 34%, this should mean that 34 posts were deleted. However, only 8 were deleted, which means 8%. Why?

Similar thing happened to me few days ago. I reported bunch of posts, and according to post history reports were marked as good, but they were not deleted at all. So after 24 hours or so i reported them again, an this time they were deleted. I guess mods simply forgot to delete them in the first place. I made post about it in Spambusters thread.

Besides, as I mentioned above, if only 1 such report was correct, then all should have been declared accurate, as in all posts reported by me these users shilled their side. How could be only 34% (and 34 in numbers as well, as I reported ~100 posts) declared accurate and the rest inaccurate?

Weird stuff like that  probably happened to all of us that regularly report spammy posts, like few posts out of bunch marked as bad while all other similar were deleted, but in your case it's pretty extreme number. All you can do now is wait, as sometimes i waited for days before someone  deleted the reported posts.

It would be much easier to track all those reported posts if we had access to report history right from the beginning, and not after 300 successfully reported posts like it is now.

The current forum staff seems to be ICO/ANN bumping friendly, also off-topic and derailment friendly. I would exercise caution reporting really unless this changes sooner rather than later.  

Dunno about off-topic reports, but in the last few months i had approximately 2k reports (mostly ANN bumping and fake ANNs with malware) and maybe 4-5 of them were marked as bad, so it wasn't that bad I think. But yeah, you have to be careful when reporting, probably best idea to focus on the most obvious ones.

Besides, in many cases incorrect information was stated (such as Bitcoin not having a 21 million cap and so on). But to see that you have to know Romanian.

So this happened in the Romanian local board? I thought posts reported in local boards are sorted by local mods.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Yes, it happened in the Romanian board. Please see my update to my previous post. I added a new paragraph.

[TheBeardedBaby]

When you reach 300 good reports you will have overview of all the reports.
It takes time to process all the posts.
Sometimes in the local boards i experienced the same, reported a few posts, obviously spam but got them sa bad. Never got a feedback but I never asked.

[o_e_l_e_o]

There have been a couple of similar cases I have been involved in where after reporting the same user dozens of times for spamming, off topic, advertising, etc., and rather than delete every single post the mod has deleted only a handful or sometimes none at all, but the user has ended up with a temporary or permanent ban. As non-global mods have to escalate to global mods if they think a user should be banned, I have wondered if in these situations they mark all the reports as good, but don't delete the posts and instead them all as "evidence" for the global mod to see.

[GazetaBitcoin]

I understand what you're saying, but having Cyrus there, which is also a Global Administrator (not just a mod), I'd expect things to be different, meaning to enforce the forum rules in the appropriate manner.

Of course, things are different if he is friend with those two users, but I hope though his judgement won't be biased by such classic Romanian nepotism.

I could try to do what Rikafip suggested - to report again all those posts - but that will take a lot of time, as I'd have to pass again through 600+ posts.

But yeah, you have to be careful when reporting, probably best idea to focus on the most obvious ones.

I think it is obvious that in this case we are talking about a very clear shilling / spamming, since it can be realized even by someone not speaking Romanian. Lauda saw it, for example. Just look over goanadupabitcoin's post history (eventually from the oldest to the newest) and you'll understand.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I understand what you're saying, but having Cyrus there, which is also a Global Administrator (not just a mod)

There is no way of knowing if Cyrus was the one who viewed or dealt with those reports.

I could try to do what Rikafip suggested - to report again all those posts - but that will take a lot of time, as I'd have to pass again through 600+ posts.

That would be a waste of your time and a waste of moderator time to act upon all the reports again, and likely wouldn't change the outcome. I think you would be better either waiting for a reply in this thread or PMing Cyrus directly if you would like him to examine the situation.

Having said all that, neither of those two users has posted in weeks. It could be that have both been temp banned, which doesn't show up in the modlog.

[Rikafip]

I could try to do what Rikafip suggested - to report again all those posts - but that will take a lot of time, as I'd have to pass again through 600+ posts.

My situation was a bit different though - my reports were marked as good, but posts weren't deleted, that's why i reported them again. On top of that, it was only 7 posts and I knew exactly which ones to report again, so it was much easier for me, than what you would have to do. As o_e_l_e_o said, it would be waste of time to go through all that process again. Imho, best is simply to wait, sometimes reports stay unhandled for days until some mod comes and deletes them.

What you could do in the future with similar posts is to report just 1-2 to see whether reports are good or bad, and act upon that. At least that's what i was doing in the beginning. Once you reach 300 good reports it becomes much  easier, as before that you don't really know which ones are  good/bad when you report in bulk.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Thank you all for the advice. I'll wait a few more days and see what happens.

[suchmoon]

Thank you all for the advice. I'll wait a few more days and see what happens.

If your reporting accuracy has dropped then it means your reports have been marked as "bad". I doubt you'll see any more posts deleted from the ones that you reported. I would suggest to keep reporting but perhaps don't report 77 posts of the same user - instead report a few and add a comment asking moderator to look into the user's post history.

[hilariousandco]

Most of your reports are still in the queue. The ones that were seemingly marked as bad were the conovairus ones. There's two reported as shilling on posts from 2015 that have been marked as bad in the Romanian section. No idea who handled them but contacting Cyrus would be your best bet first.

[mprep]

Most of your reports are still in the queue. The ones that were seemingly marked as bad were the conovairus ones. There's two reported as shilling on posts from 2015 that have been marked as bad in the Romanian section. No idea who handled them but contacting Cyrus would be your best bet first.

I've marked several GazetaBitcoin's reports as bad since they were duplicates (as in he reported the same post several) times. IIRC I didn't handle any other reports of his.

[Lauda]

Most of your reports are still in the queue. The ones that were seemingly marked as bad were the conovairus ones. There's two reported as shilling on posts from 2015 that have been marked as bad in the Romanian section. No idea who handled them but contacting Cyrus would be your best bet first.

I've marked several GazetaBitcoin's reports as bad since they were duplicates (as in he reported the same post several) times. IIRC I didn't handle any other reports of his.

Since when are duplicate reports being marked bad? Sounds like this could hurt the accuracy of those that mistakenly sometimes do it. No?

[mprep]

Most of your reports are still in the queue. The ones that were seemingly marked as bad were the conovairus ones. There's two reported as shilling on posts from 2015 that have been marked as bad in the Romanian section. No idea who handled them but contacting Cyrus would be your best bet first.

I've marked several GazetaBitcoin's reports as bad since they were duplicates (as in he reported the same post several) times. IIRC I didn't handle any other reports of his.

Since when are duplicate reports being marked bad? Sounds like this could hurt the accuracy of those that mistakenly sometimes do it. No?

Since as far as I can remember. Not all mods mark them as bad, since not all mods notice they're duplicates. And yes, if you mistakenly do it sometimes, it will hurt your accuracy. If you want a perfect (100%) or close to perfect reporting acccuracy (which has very little meaning beyond vanity; according to theymos, total good reports + a decent accuracy is where it's at), you must have a perfect or near perfect track record. Seems fair for for such a high (and ultimately pointless) bar to reach. If maintaining a near perfect accuracy isn't your goal, the few duplicate reports mixed in with dozens or hundreds of good reports does very little to affect your accuracy.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If you want a perfect (100%) reporting acccuracy (which has very little meaning beyond vanity; according to theymos, total good reports is where it's at), you must have a perfect track record.

You don't have to be perfect to reach 100%. I have 37 bad reports (the majority of which were unintentional duplicate reports), but still have a 100% accuracy. The accuracy calculation seems to use the ceil function to return the nearest higher integer, meaning any accuracy >99% displays a "perfect" score of 100%. In reality, this means you can still make 1.010101... bad reports for every 100 good ones and maintain an accuracy of 100%.

[so98nn]

If you want a perfect (100%) reporting acccuracy (which has very little meaning beyond vanity; according to theymos, total good reports is where it's at), you must have a perfect track record.

You don't have to be perfect to reach 100%. I have 37 bad reports (the majority of which were unintentional duplicate reports), but still have a 100% accuracy. The accuracy calculation seems to use the ceil function to return the nearest higher integer, meaning any accuracy >99% displays a "perfect" score of 100%. In reality, this means you can still make 1.010101... bad reports for every 100 good ones and maintain an accuracy of 100%.

Yeah it works that way i guess. I did report many posts regarding their bumping and most of them mods have already locked up. Since recently i am constantly working on locking of threads which are sensibly too old or way too bumped for further use on this forum.

However, I have gotten some threads reported badly since they are still not locked up and also my accuracy of reporting dropped a little. May be this has got to do with mod's and their way of thinking regarding the reports we make.

[Welsh]

Yeah it works that way i guess. I did report many posts regarding their bumping and most of them mods have already locked up. Since recently i am constantly working on locking of threads which are sensibly too old or way too bumped for further use on this forum.

However, I have gotten some threads reported badly since they are still not locked up and also my accuracy of reporting dropped a little. May be this has got to do with mod's and their way of thinking regarding the reports we make.

Interpretation of the moderator is always going to be a factor. I'm not the moderator who handled your reports, but I'll give you an example to where I differ from a few moderators, and globals; I think that most threads shouldn't be locked, and rather be removed completely if they are causing spam. If a thread has particular importance I believe simply cleaning up the thread even if it creates higher workload to  be the better choice.

You don't have to be perfect to reach 100%. I have 37 bad reports

I have 265 bad reports, and they don't bother me at all, and for those of you that care my percentage is at 100% for the reasons mentioned above. Most users will care more about the percentage than actually reporting which is a small issue. It would be interesting whether removing that percentage would be of benefit. Then, there's the opposite end of the scales where users won't know which reports were marked  bad or won't learn from their mistakes.