Hi,
I hesitate to put this in the bug section, both because i don't actually think it's a "bug" in the narrow sense and that i actually want to discuss this, before posting suggestions for possible solutions.
Right now, the report system is VERY narrow, which is both a good and bad thing.
First of all, why is it good ? The way it is set up, you have to provide concrete evidence for something that happened and can't just red thumb people willy nilly or worse yet, create multiple accounts and go on an insane campaign to red thumb a person. It also gives a foundation for moderators actions.
Imo this is not enough. Right now the timeline for my start page is being spammed by some guy providing some whatsapp link. I do not have the wish to confirm whether it is real or fake, a scam of some kind. Point is, it could be anything and i have no means to report him or filter the messages, even if only dismissing them for myself, which wouldn't solve the problem of other people falling for it.
Further, imo, it is a major vulnerability to the site. How do we combat aggressive marketing through game channels ? I don't want my timeline to become my email spam box, inviting me to try out all kinds of bs enhancements. How long before all the nigerian princes exploit this ?
As it stands, it's annoying and i think it is in need of some improvements. Problem is, any solution i come up with increases workload for moderators or is only a local solution.
1. The first and easiest thing to do is being able to dismiss items in the timeline. I imagine there being a little x in the top right of the post that you can click and it dismisses that post for you by "flagging" it for you.
2. Now here it gets iffy, i would want a "report spam" ability, but who decides what spam is and is not ? Say someone posts game invites, is that spam ? What if some player thinks it is ? There is a lot of potential for abuse here imo and introducing one to combat another doesn't strike me as a particularly good solution.
The idea behind it is, though, that you can mark it as a kind of "don't show this to anyone until reviewed by someone". That is the best i can come up with here, though it adds more moderation.
3. Add messages on game tabs to the "red thumb - "everybody" " selection. As i said, imo the selections are too restrictive (even though i think that has upsides).
4. Block these posts by players that i gave a red thumb (not "everybody") after they made the post, right now aforementioned player is red thumbed by me (can't do it for "everybody" since i have no further contact with that player), but the messages are still displayed, which imo should not be the case.
I might turn this into a bugreport at some point, when there are enough suggestions, that i feel are reasonable and not just a reactionary spur of the moment.
I am not yet sure, if i would want to seperate the issues or just bundle them in some form of "improve reporting system" ticket.
So, if you've read this far, first of all thank you, but also, if you have incidents where the report system was more of a hinderance than a helpful tool, please share your experience here and, if you can, add an expectation for a solution like "this is what happened, however i think it would be better if it worked that way", so it might bring issues to peoples attention, that they are not currently aware of, so that they may be included it into a bug ticket.
I hesitate to put this in the bug section, both because i don't actually think it's a "bug" in the narrow sense and that i actually want to discuss this, before posting suggestions for possible solutions.
Right now, the report system is VERY narrow, which is both a good and bad thing.
First of all, why is it good ? The way it is set up, you have to provide concrete evidence for something that happened and can't just red thumb people willy nilly or worse yet, create multiple accounts and go on an insane campaign to red thumb a person. It also gives a foundation for moderators actions.
Imo this is not enough. Right now the timeline for my start page is being spammed by some guy providing some whatsapp link. I do not have the wish to confirm whether it is real or fake, a scam of some kind. Point is, it could be anything and i have no means to report him or filter the messages, even if only dismissing them for myself, which wouldn't solve the problem of other people falling for it.
Further, imo, it is a major vulnerability to the site. How do we combat aggressive marketing through game channels ? I don't want my timeline to become my email spam box, inviting me to try out all kinds of bs enhancements. How long before all the nigerian princes exploit this ?
As it stands, it's annoying and i think it is in need of some improvements. Problem is, any solution i come up with increases workload for moderators or is only a local solution.
1. The first and easiest thing to do is being able to dismiss items in the timeline. I imagine there being a little x in the top right of the post that you can click and it dismisses that post for you by "flagging" it for you.
2. Now here it gets iffy, i would want a "report spam" ability, but who decides what spam is and is not ? Say someone posts game invites, is that spam ? What if some player thinks it is ? There is a lot of potential for abuse here imo and introducing one to combat another doesn't strike me as a particularly good solution.
The idea behind it is, though, that you can mark it as a kind of "don't show this to anyone until reviewed by someone". That is the best i can come up with here, though it adds more moderation.
3. Add messages on game tabs to the "red thumb - "everybody" " selection. As i said, imo the selections are too restrictive (even though i think that has upsides).
4. Block these posts by players that i gave a red thumb (not "everybody") after they made the post, right now aforementioned player is red thumbed by me (can't do it for "everybody" since i have no further contact with that player), but the messages are still displayed, which imo should not be the case.
I might turn this into a bugreport at some point, when there are enough suggestions, that i feel are reasonable and not just a reactionary spur of the moment.
I am not yet sure, if i would want to seperate the issues or just bundle them in some form of "improve reporting system" ticket.
So, if you've read this far, first of all thank you, but also, if you have incidents where the report system was more of a hinderance than a helpful tool, please share your experience here and, if you can, add an expectation for a solution like "this is what happened, however i think it would be better if it worked that way", so it might bring issues to peoples attention, that they are not currently aware of, so that they may be included it into a bug ticket.