Suggestion for improving user experience when reporting posts

[hosseinimr93]

Since OP suggested few changes, there is one I would like to see and might make reporting easier for those that are just starting - to remove that requirement of 300 good reports in order to get access to report history. If it's not matter of some tehnical reason why it's not available for everyone, why make such restriction?

I agree with allowing all users to access their report history.
If the purpose of that page is to help users improve their report quality, those who have started reporting posts recently and have low good reports need it more than others.

[1714772284]

1714772284

[Rizzrack]

I thought about that too, but, somehow, I forgot to add it in the OP. I also don't understand the 300 good reports "barrier".

It's more of a milestone IMO. To incentivize users to reach a minimum of X good reports to receive a certain perk.
If every user here would have at least 300 good reports things would definitely look different 

Additionally, I remembered also another suggestion which I forgot to mention in the OP: maybe there should be more resolutions for the reports, not just "good" and "bad". For easier understanding of the bad reports, maybe these could be classified in more types: one of them could be "duplicate". Another status could be "will not handle" - this can be used for those reports which, for one reason will never be handled.

The "duplicate" sounds fine but not that common to implement. It doesn't happens more than 0.1% of the time (100% guesstimated stats, so don't quote me on this)

Besides, maybe the mod's username could be added for each solved report. Thus, in case of bad reports, the reporters could ask the mod why the respective report was considered as bad. This way, the reporters would also understand why some reports are considered as being bad.

Mod's username = more drama. Also last time you received a feedback you opened a thread about it so at the end it still boils down to that (discussing in a thread).
Also an additional field where mods can leave some feedback sounds nice but would be very time consuming and in some cases would be the spark that lights the flame to more drama.

For example, I reported several shilling of some members and all the reports were good. Then I reported the exact type of posts of other members and all were marked as bad. Thus, as a reporter, I'm wondering: why was post X considered good and post Y was considered bad, if both have the same pattern?

Different mod, different board, different post in the thread (some OP some just regular posts), on-topic shilling (jk) ... there are lots of variables.
Might also wanna give reporting spam, low value, repetitive sig spam bs, bumps, malware etc a try. They tend to grow on you!

I recommend (re)hacking it to add in a few particulars that are missing from the original:

1) priority text within reports (e.g. [P1], [P2], etc. prefixes)

• I order it from 1 (malware) being maximum priority to 5 (2+ bumps/day) being minimum priority

2) page-wide report for spam

A prefix method is highly prone to abuse and pretty subjective. Things some users might feel they should have max priority: "paid for X and did not get product", "doxxin", "insulting/swearing", "defaming me and my business", etc IMHO just writing "malware" in that comment box would give it enough priority.

[actmyname]

A prefix method is highly prone to abuse and pretty subjective. Things some users might feel they should have max priority: "paid for X and did not get product", "doxxin", "insulting/swearing", "defaming me and my business", etc IMHO just writing "malware" in that comment box would give it enough priority.

Given that outside of such a system, people who would want to spam could do so without a priority system, I don't see how it could screw things up unless people are going to spam harder than the global report count, which users could still do outside of such a system.

The idea of exploiting creating systems is important to evaluate but I'd argue that a prefix method adopted by multiple high-volume reporters would vastly outweigh the potential consequences of some rogue spammer flooding "priority queues". If you just think about it from a universal perspective, you increase report efficacy and make it such that moderators can funnel down issues by severity for each user, which is highly significant if they do a lot of low-priority spam reports.

One last thing - if there is no priority system by default, everything is maximum priority - rather than users maximizing priority and abusing the system through spam, this could in fact skew spam the other way. You also don't often see users banned for spamming reports, probably because that would be a terrible use of their time via the loss of either a non-Newbie account or via the creation of Brand New account spam frameworks, which still only nets you one report per account per six minutes. Pretty bad.

[Harlot]

Maybe the report system needs to change overall for you? I think a much more better approach is to have a compilation type report page where you can use it if you are reporting several posts from one member. Similar to how the trust page work where you can insert the url of each post per line. In this way I think your time and the mods time will be save equally.

[shield132]

1. It would be nice to add a "Report" button in the page where all the posts / topics of an user are displayed

If in overall user looks spammy, I guess reporting of the profile is better deal rather than torturing of moderators. And if user has just few spammy posts, then I guess it won't take much work to follow those posts and report from threads.

2. The reporting process is identified as posting and it follows the posting rules

That's done in order to get rid of excessive meaningless reports. In idea, they give this limit to make sure that you read those posts and report them after having some logical analyze and reasons.

3. More mods are needed for analyzing the reported posts

They handle their job pretty well, from my own experience, reported posts are getting deleted very often.


The only other improvements that can be done in this job can be the following:
To have some reporting ranks where the number of reports and accuracy matters, for example:
Reports under 1000 - Level 0
I reported 1000 post and have 92% accuracy - I'm on level 1 (my reports are more privileged than those under level 1).
I reported 2000 post and have 92% accuracy - I'm on level 2 (my reports are more privileged than those under level 2, so at first modern sees - Level 2 > Level 1 > Leve 0 reports.
At some point, this can help moders to relief their work. The idea of this is that higher the reporter's rank, the more sure moders will be to delete those posts and don't do excessive analyze of it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

To have some reporting ranks where the number of reports and accuracy matters, for example:

I don't think that is necessarily a good idea, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, if you tie reporting percentage to some kind of tangible outcome such as a level or rank, then people will largely look to report things that are completely objective and they know will result in a "good" report such as plagiarism or multiple posts in a row. People will be disincentivized to report more subjective things such as spam (which is what we really need more people to report), since there is a higher chance of those reports being marked "bad".

Secondly, just because I have made more reports than someone else, doesn't mean that all my reports going forward should be prioritized. A newbie member with zero previous reports is just as capable of reporting a serious offense such as linking to malware as I am, and bumping their reports to the bottom of the queue simply because they are newbie could result in them going missed for a longer period of time. If we do need some system to prioritize reports, it should be based on what the report is for, rather than who made it.

I'm also not sure we need ranks for mods to know whose reports they can generally not have to spend too much time analyzing, but I'd be happy to hear a mod's opinion on this. I would like to think that after several thousand good reports, the mods who frequently deal with my reports are able to trust that my reports are generally accurate just by seeing my username.

[suchmoon]

At some point, this can help moders to relief their work. The idea of this is that higher the reporter's rank, the more sure moders will be to delete those posts and don't do excessive analyze of it.

I would like to think that after several thousand good reports, the mods who frequently deal with my reports are able to trust that my reports are generally accurate just by seeing my username.

This sounds quite dangerous. I'd rather have mods not see the reporter's username at all LOL.

Despite having a shitload of reports at 100% accuracy (doesn't really mean much with the rounding but I digress), I've goofed up a large number of them. I certainly wouldn't want someone to get banned for plagiarism because I didn't check and mod didn't recheck the date on the original or something.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

Oh, for sure. I was thinking more along the lines of reports for things being low value or off topic, which make up the vast majority of my reports. I would have thought that after thousands of good reports at 100% accuracy for this reason, a mod who frequently handles my reports would be able to simply give one of my reports for this reason a quick skim before marking it good, as opposed to a report from a completely unknown newbie, in which they might spend a few minutes looking over the thread in question to decide whether the reported post does in fact not contribute anything meaningful to the thread.

Of course I would hope (and I fully expect) that more serious reports for things like plagiarism and malware are properly double checked in every case before bans are handed out.

[Lachrymose]

Instead of creating more than one report for a user, you can specify all the problems in a single report. Also, I think it is not right to report members at the slightest mistakes because I regard that the reporting system is just a warning system. Apart from that, the moderators cannot earn as much income as the moderators deserve because they work voluntarily and get a very low payment for their work and this minimal salary should not be further divided by adding unneeded mods. I used the script created by Cyrus during my 668 good reports and I bought copper membership both to report faster and support the forum. What matters is not the number of reports but the quality of the reports (phishing, plagiarism, warez etc).

[Rikafip]

It's more of a milestone IMO. To incentivize users to reach a minimum of X good reports to receive a certain perk.
If every user here would have at least 300 good reports things would definitely look different 

Yeah I guess so, that report history is meant to be an incentive in order for people to report more, but from my personal experience, it was more of an annoyance than incentive, not to be able to see status of my reports, especially when i reported in bulk. Maybe others would report more if they have some kind of feedback right from the start.

I noticed that people asked for badges as some kind of reward for those that reports posts on regular basis. That could be much better incentive than gating useful feature that could be especially helpful to those that are just starting reporting.

[GazetaBitcoin]

I think the discussion regarding badges was determined by an old idea of theymos - Seeking reporter badge images.

He was thinking to award badges for 300 / 1000 / 5000 good reports, but the idea never came alive. While this kind of incentive would be appreciated by a lot of members, I think many others just want to keep the forum clean.

[jamyr]

Its situational, and not always how active the moderator normally is. For example, there's currently a situation which is going on outside Bitcointalk, and I imagine a lot of the moderators are effected by that. Work has either been non existent for a lot of people during the pandemic, but personally I've seen a huge increase due to being considered a key worker. So, I think its fair to say that a few moderators will be a little less responsive, and some reports will remain unhandled for a little longer than usual.

Of course, there's then other things that can come up in ones life which can reduced their activity for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, this can't be avoided in the majority of the cases, and if its temporary then an extra moderator might not be justified. 

. . . . .

So when reports are made, does it only go to the specific moderator of that board?

If so, then the Beginners & Help moderator would have a backlog of possible post reports since MiningBuddy has not been active for a while.

Also, is there anyway to see my report history, not just the accuracy statistics?

[o_e_l_e_o]

So when reports are made, does it only go to the specific moderator of that board?

There are a number of different types of mods which may or may not be able to handle a report depending on which board the report was made in and the rank of the user being reported. Local moderators and board specific moderators can only handle reports in their given boards. Patrollers can handle reports on posts made by newbies across the entire forum. Global mods and admins can handle all reports in all boards, as well as having some additional powers such as being able to issue bans. If you make a report, it will be visible to all the moderates who are able to handle it.

If so, then the Beginners & Help moderator would have a backlog of possible post reports since MiningBuddy has not been active for a while.

You only need to make some reports on Beginners and Help to confirm that they do indeed get handled. They will be handled by either a global moderator, or in the case of a newbie post, a patroller. MiningBuddy isn't actually a moderator at all anymore, his name just hasn't been removed from the page.

Also, is there anyway to see my report history, not just the accuracy statistics?

Make 300 good reports, and then go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=reportlist;mine

[jamyr]

So when reports are made, does it only go to the specific moderator of that board?

There are a number of different types of mods which may or may not be able to handle a report depending on which board the report was made in and the rank of the user being reported. Local moderators and board specific moderators can only handle reports in their given boards. Patrollers can handle reports on posts made by newbies across the entire forum. Global mods and admins can handle all reports in all boards, as well as having some additional powers such as being able to issue bans. If you make a report, it will be visible to all the moderates who are able to handle it.

If so, then the Beginners & Help moderator would have a backlog of possible post reports since MiningBuddy has not been active for a while.

You only need to make some reports on Beginners and Help to confirm that they do indeed get handled. They will be handled by either a global moderator, or in the case of a newbie post, a patroller. MiningBuddy isn't actually a moderator at all anymore, his name just hasn't been removed from the page.

Also, is there anyway to see my report history, not just the accuracy statistics?

Make 300 good reports, and then go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=reportlist;mine

300 reports, would be a while but thank you for the information. Saving the link for future reference.


p.s.


i just can't help and try. . 

[shield132]

o_e_l_e_o
The main idea behind my proposal is that having some ranks and badges for reporters will reward people to report more spammy posts. We have ranks where you need for example 1000 activity + merit to get Legendary member. Merit requirement gives people a stimulus to write less spammy posts. If we implement something similar on reports, for example: 500 report - 95% accuracy <-- Level 1, 2000 report - 96% accuracy <-- Level 2 reporter and so on and this will be shown under profile, I guess it will probably stimulate people to report more posts. Won't be bad if we even implement it for rank up.

If we make reports/badges public like Trust, people may look up into profiles and check whether users really report spammy posts or not. If most of their reported posts are just personal revenge, such users should be banned.

And the reason why I stated some reporting ranks is that some users here really do deep investigation and report after that (logically their rank should be high).

Also I acknowledge that Moders are facing this problem but somehow there is no response from them. They know what they need, so it's up to their choice.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The main idea behind my proposal is that having some ranks and badges for reporters will reward people to report more spammy posts.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that at all. I think the "Reporter Badges" that theymos previously talked about are a good idea, because they will encourage more people to report.

I don't think it's a good idea to tie it to ranking up, however. If you did tie it to ranking up but without paying attention to the accuracy, then people who don't care about reporting could just report hundreds of posts without paying attention to whether the reports were right or wrong to reach the necessary target. If you did also set a "required accuracy", then as I said above it will discourage people from reporting anything but the most heinous of rule breaking because they don't want to make it more difficult for themselves to rank up. Both of these scenarios are a negative outcome for the system.

So while I agree with reporter badgers, I think it should be entirely separate from rank, and not bring any special benefits, except maybe removing the blasted 4 second cooldown between reports.