Can we have a "Report Post" feature for these forums?

Twilight4Ever
Twilight4Ever's picture

Joined: 2006-08-07
Posts: 130
Posted: Wed, 2008-09-17 20:54

This is more of a Gallery2 forums question, sorry. I couldn't quite find an appropriate forum to post this in, but:

Is it possible to add a "Report Post" by forum messages here? fform2637 has been spamming the Services forum for the last 11 hours!

 
nivekiam
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Joined: 2002-12-10
Posts: 16504
Posted: Thu, 2008-09-18 03:12

In the future you can use the General Discussion & Feedback forum.

He's been blocked and posts are deleted.
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Twilight4Ever
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Joined: 2006-08-07
Posts: 130
Posted: Thu, 2008-09-18 03:29

Ah, that makes sense. And thank you. :)

 
alecmyers

Joined: 2006-08-01
Posts: 4342
Posted: Thu, 2008-09-18 09:27

But can we please still have a 'report post' feature? It's much more convenient than having to write a new post (let's face it, how often does anyone bother to do that?)

 
nivekiam
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Joined: 2002-12-10
Posts: 16504
Posted: Thu, 2008-09-18 14:38

alecmyers and Twilight4Ever, can you take a screenshot of this thread and post it? Being a moderator for so long (before any of the anti-spam features were added) I don't even remember what you see. Do you have a "mark as spam" button at the bottom of each post? If so, I think that puts that post in a queue for review by one of the site admins.

I know, or at least I think I know, that most spam is caught pretty quickly by a dev or moderator. But the services forum probably doesn't get the attention it should as frequently.

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alecmyers

Joined: 2006-08-01
Posts: 4342
Posted: Thu, 2008-09-18 14:52
Quote:
Do you have a "mark as spam" button at the bottom of each post?

No we don't - that's what we're asking for. All there is at present is just "reply | Write to Author | Quote"

 
Twilight4Ever
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Joined: 2006-08-07
Posts: 130
Posted: Thu, 2008-09-18 22:23

Or it would be nice if instead of "Mark as Spam" if we had a "Report" button, in case there's not just spam, but let's say, an extremely offensive non-Gallery-related post.

 
valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509
Posted: Fri, 2008-09-19 00:10

i agree that a report option would probably be a good idea.
why probably? because it could be abused. e.g. people reporting posts that are actually fine. so that generates work for our moderators.

how badly is it needed? is there a lot of spam?
my perception is that the spam level is pretty low in these forums.
the admins/moderators are glad if spam is reported (e.g. by posting to the site feedback forum). i think that works pretty well for now.

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alecmyers

Joined: 2006-08-01
Posts: 4342
Posted: Fri, 2008-09-19 00:19
Quote:
because it could be abused. e.g. people reporting posts that are actually fine. so that generates work for our moderators.

What nonsense. God forbid that moderators should actually have to do some work. If we're worried about avenues for abuse, why not just stop people posting at all? After all, postings can be abused, and that just generates work for moderators.

Quote:
admins/moderators are glad if spam is reported

Actually it sounds like you're not at all glad, otherwise you wouldn't be arguing about giving us an easier way to report spam.

 
valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509
Posted: Fri, 2008-09-19 01:01

any reason to react in this harsh manner?

if there's any way to avoid any additional work for moderators, then that's something to be discussed.
moderators of these forums have other duties, like a job etc. any time not spent moderating / triaging reported posts is time well spent.

now if we actually had a huge spam problem in these forums, I see why we'd have to prioritize this issue and why we shouldn't discuss long before implementing this measure.
that's why ask: do we have a spam problem? if not, what problem are we trying to address here?

is there a drupal module to enable this functionality or would we have to code this feature on our own?
if it's easy to enable, we can give it a try for a few months to see how it works.

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alecmyers

Joined: 2006-08-01
Posts: 4342
Posted: Sun, 2008-09-21 17:03

It's already a feature, as moderators (as I now know) have it: "mark as spam" alongside "write to Author". I can't see why you wouldn't want to try making this available to all registered users.

 
valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509
Posted: Sun, 2008-09-21 18:09

That's not what has been asked for in this thread.
Moderators already have these tools, correct.
This thread was asking for a "report ..." link. Reporting a post without marking it as spam. A moderator would go through all reported posts and mark them as spam if appropriate.

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alecmyers

Joined: 2006-08-01
Posts: 4342
Posted: Sun, 2008-09-21 18:34

Aha... so what does 'mark as spam' actually do? It changes the background colour of the comment, but what else?

I marked my previous post as spam, then remarked it as ham - but it's no longer visible in an guest user's view of the thread - is that correct, or should it come back when marked as ham?

 
valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509
Posted: Mon, 2008-09-22 01:15

@alecmyers:
Has your perspective changed completely now that you have access to the spam related tools that moderators have access to?
Wasn't this thread about spam reporting tools / processes for normal forum users?

Quote:
what does 'mark as spam' actually do? It changes the background colour of the comment, but what else?

the post is marked as unpublished. unpublished posts / topics aren't displayed to normal users. and they're marked with a red background color for moderators.

we've disconnected GMC from aksimet since we found akismet not to perform (spam detection performance) very well for our site.
if we didn't disconnect GMC form akismet, "mark as spam" / "mark as ham" would also send a notification to akismet to improve its spam detection heuristics.

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alecmyers

Joined: 2006-08-01
Posts: 4342
Posted: Mon, 2008-09-22 09:10
Quote:
@alecmyers:
Has your perspective changed completely now that you have access to the spam related tools that moderators have access to?

Not really. Although I'm happy I can now help out removing spam, I still think it would be a really excellent idea to enable all registered users to nominate posts to be checked by a moderator. It would mean 200 eyes looking out for problems, instead of what, four or five? Also it gives people an opportunity to help keep the place tidy. I think encouraging any kind of community participation is a good thing, even on such a tiny level. I'd rather wait for evidence of abuse before citing it as a reason not to do something.

Quote:
Wasn't this thread about spam reporting tools / processes for normal forum users?

Yes it was, I hijacked it by asking about the 'mark as spam' link. Sorry - I think it's back on track now.

 
Twilight4Ever
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Joined: 2006-08-07
Posts: 130
Posted: Tue, 2008-09-23 09:03

You guys are making me sorry I ever brought it up. I don't visit the forums well enough to ever notice if there is spam, all I know is that there were at least 10 posts by that one user in the Services forum, and I wanted a way to let people know, and thus made a post here.

About the Spam/Report feature, if a Report feature would be too much work, how about just a Mark As Spam button? Because then when a moderator goes to check it, it's very easy at a notice's glance to see whether or not it's mindless spam or a real post. I don't expect any moderator to be on the forums 24/7, because I highly doubt any are paid to do so, so that's why I think it would help if the wandering member sees something like spam and can report it to alert moderators, and make it easier for them.

I don't want to start any issues or make any problems however, so no fighting please. ^_^; If a Mark As Spam button would be too much of a hassle or be bound to cause problems for moderators, please forget I brought this up.

 
alecmyers

Joined: 2006-08-01
Posts: 4342
Posted: Tue, 2008-09-23 09:12
Quote:
You guys are making me sorry I ever brought it up. I don't visit the forums well enough to ever notice if there is spam, all I know is that there were at least 10 posts by that one user in the Services forum, and I wanted a way to let people know, and thus made a post here.

Don't be sorry! you did exactly the right thing.

The problem with the existing 'mark as spam button' (of which I was unaware) is that it doesn't just flag a post - it immediately takes the post off-line. So a simple 'report post' button would need some extra feature in Drupal, I don't know if it's an easy bolt-on or not.

 
Twilight4Ever
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Joined: 2006-08-07
Posts: 130
Posted: Tue, 2008-09-23 10:05

Ah, I see why such a thing would be too powerful for a regular user.

 
valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509
Posted: Thu, 2008-09-25 19:05

If you can point me to a drupal module which adds this "report post" feature, I'd be happy to give it a try on GMC.

alecmyers wrote:
It would mean 200 eyes looking out for problems, instead of what, four or five?

Didn't know we have a pirate on the team. :)

 
alecmyers

Joined: 2006-08-01
Posts: 4342
Posted: Thu, 2008-09-25 22:19

I'll do some research.

Ar ar, doubloons, ar ar.

 
Twilight4Ever
Twilight4Ever's picture

Joined: 2006-08-07
Posts: 130
Posted: Sat, 2008-11-15 03:53
valiant wrote:
If you can point me to a drupal module which adds this "report post" feature, I'd be happy to give it a try on GMC.

Drupal Modules:
Abuse
Flag Content

 
bharat
bharat's picture

Joined: 2002-05-21
Posts: 7994
Posted: Thu, 2010-06-24 01:12

I just enabled the Mollom module, for what it's worth -- our spam levels should go way down. Let me know if you're still seeing a lot of it and I'll add one of those Drupal modules.
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