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Flagging

Lucille

Lucille

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First of all, I want to say that this idea is not necessarily one that could work here, I bring it here just as an interesting example of how other sites handle inappropriate behavior.

I go from time to time to a site called Craigslist. It is a classified system where people get to list and sell stuff for free and it quite popular. In addition, it has various discussion forums on all manner of subjects: women's issues, paranormal, psychology, automotive, all sorts of stuff.
The conversations in some of the forums definitely get opinionated and sometimes downright down and dirty, so we are not talking someplace that is sanitized and restricted; yet there are posted rules.

They have an interesting system called flagging. If a member sees a post which is against the TOS, which is spam, or prohibited, they can click an icon to flag the post.
It takes an unspecified number of flags by the community to a particular post and then the post simply goes away. It must be only soft deleted, because the management posted a statistic that 98% of flagged posts are against the TOS, and they could not know that unless they were able to review what was written.

Anyway, I think it is an interesting idea.
 
That does sound interesting. I think we have to self police ourselves, the mods can't be everywhere all of the time.
 
A thought came to my mind, as I use craigslist and understand the concept of flagging, there will most certainly be some here that will flag one person's every post simply because they do not like them. There may even be a flag group/clique formed that will gang up on certain individuals. What would be the set rules for flagging so it is not just a "I do not like you indiviually" flagged post?
 
Junkyard said:
A thought came to my mind, as I use craigslist and understand the concept of flagging, there will most certainly be some here that will flag one person's every post simply because they do not like them. There may even be a flag group/clique formed that will gang up on certain individuals. What would be the set rules for flagging so it is not just a "I do not like you indiviually" flagged post?
Click to expand...
Lucille quoted a 98% "accuracy" rate on another, perhaps more civilized, site. The rate might be lower here. Anytime a post is deleted the poster should be notified by private message and offered the opportunity to appeal. If such a pattern is found, then warnings and suspensions could be handed out.
 
If 50 - 100 unique flags are required before something is deleted, that would go a long way to avoid having posts deleted because of pissing matches between members. If you get 50 people telling you your post doesn't belong - then there is a strong chance it doesn't.

I really like this idea.
 
How are you going to get 50 people on here to respond to any one subject or issue. Look at the results of any post or thread. Your lucky if you can get more 10-15 people to actively participate on any given thread. I think the flag linit if instituted it should be 12 flags. I dont think there are any cliques that have 12 members in them here. And if there are then Rich i am sure will deal with them as the issues arise.
I thought that HELL was a very popular forum here and posted a poll in hopes of saving it, but in 5 days we have only had 35 people vote on the subject one way or the other. Can you imagine that!!!
 
LOL - I do think it would be very difficult to get 50 people to vote...maybe more like 20 - 25. The point being, there aren't any cliques that large, and I'm also thinking of the lurkers. So many people will lurk on a topic, and not post.
 
nicolai said:
How are you going to get 50 people on here to respond to any one subject or issue. Look at the results of any post or thread. Your lucky if you can get more 10-15 people to actively participate on any given thread.
Click to expand...

You mistake "posting" with "active participation"... if there were "flags" to hand out, I might hand them out even though I might not have anything constructive to add to a discussion. I tend to "listen" more than comment. I try to make sure that ALL my posts have some sort of positive repercussion for the site. I try to avoid "fluff" posts. But I have a lot of opinions on a lot of threads that I never ever post on.

I think the flag linit if instituted it should be 12 flags. I dont think there are any cliques that have 12 members in them here. And if there are then Rich i am sure will deal with them as the issues arise.
I thought that HELL was a very popular forum here and posted a poll in hopes of saving it, but in 5 days we have only had 35 people vote on the subject one way or the other. Can you imagine that!!!
Click to expand...

Well I have no desire to save hell, but my opinion on hell is such that I "don't care" so that looking for a poll to vote to get rid of the forum is not high on my priority list. As far as no "clique" having 12 members... I think that is too small.. IF there were the chance of "flagging" I think that 50 might be high, but 12 is too low a number.

But "flagging" sounds like another expensive change that might not be worth the investment to implement. And yes, like anything, there would end up being those who would abuse the system.

We have the ability to report a post. Once I saw a post (half way through a thread) that was so WRONG that I reported it without finishing the thread, turns out that Rich had already received another zillion reports for the same post... when it's something that needs Rich's attention, I'm sure he and the other mods get a bunch of reports on it.

Anyway, I think I'm just sort of typing to hear the key-clicks. :)
 
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