Redressing a grievance

Lux - The Guardian · **Posted:** Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:36 am

Cobalt wrote:

Mastermind wrote:

Cobalt wrote:

The only way to do such a thing at the moment is via the main site > staff > contact a moderator or something like that, which really isn't in a place where people can easily find. But such a feature as you suggested certainly would help in the dealing of such things.

About the not taking seriously thing - you're right. Very rarely is a report or anything here, bar the common simple spam, one-off flame, SB issue or a one-time art theif ever taken seriously. We run into brick walls... again and again. Another reason, because we're left in the dark - the mods seem to discuss it upon themselves and have a strict secrecy about the considerations or actions being made. The staff do a wonderful job, I acknowledge that, sure, we all do, but this is my major tiff with the runnings of the site. Nobody outside the staff are ever told ANYTHING about what's being done and/or aren't taken that seriously and often people only get a slap on the wrist and then think they're invincible :roll:

.

I'm going to answer that in bold mainly in this response to you, Cobalt.

The moderators keep a strict secrecy on our decisions in order to maintain member privacy, and keep to a "law" that prohibits our release of this information, as it is a violation of both our privacy policy and the right of anonymity. If we began going into the shoutbox saying "[member] has just been banned for [violation].", we would be conflicting the privacy and human rights of the member that was banned.

I do hope you understand that by requesting this information, you are asking us to give away highly sensitive information that is not allowed to see the public light.

In other words, give it up. You will not make us break these policies.

Edit: "Law", meaning (as far as we know) moderator rules.

I'm not saying you have to say who got banned for what, I don't know where you got that from at all, it was my past stance but fine, privacy, whatever. What I meant was like if this thread, right, there's an issue going on with a group of people and the members suggest resolutions and all but we don't get a response from a mod saying they're looking into the issue, we only get responses say about what the rules are and all and as we all know that stuff, pretty boring response. Nothing about whether something is being dealt with. For the forum posts thing where you get notified about whether something is done about it, that's handy, you can select that and get notification and go "great, that's been dealt with". Same with fanart reporting, you often get a response saying "a decision of action has been made" and sayng what's been done, you don't have to say what's been done, but it would be nice if we knew whether action was being done, even if it was an automated message. Actually an automated message thing would be brilliant, nice and efficient. Because nothing else on this site royally annoys me than getting left in the dark about whether something is being taken care of.

Obviously. However, it would be annoying to see the Shoutbox spammed with "A decision has been made." or something anyway. And if there was a member making trouble on the shoutbox, getting banned for it, it would still be in violation of the privacy, because people aren't stupid. If a mod tries to reason with the member on the box, and then is forced to ban him/her, and a message "A decision has been made." pops up there, it's easy to put two and two together.

And we do try to say we are looking into your issues, however it is not always possible to do so - both time-wise and work-wise. And the members are left in the dark about our decisions mostly because much of what we do is security measures, to keep -you- safe from people who should never be on the website.

Cobaltié · **Posted:** Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:48 pm

Mastermind wrote:

Cobalt wrote:

Mastermind wrote:

I'm going to answer that in bold mainly in this response to you, Cobalt.

The moderators keep a strict secrecy on our decisions in order to maintain member privacy, and keep to a "law" that prohibits our release of this information, as it is a violation of both our privacy policy and the right of anonymity. If we began going into the shoutbox saying "[member] has just been banned for [violation].", we would be conflicting the privacy and human rights of the member that was banned.

I do hope you understand that by requesting this information, you are asking us to give away highly sensitive information that is not allowed to see the public light.

In other words, give it up. You will not make us break these policies.

Edit: "Law", meaning (as far as we know) moderator rules.

I'm not saying you have to say who got banned for what, I don't know where you got that from at all, it was my past stance but fine, privacy, whatever. What I meant was like if this thread, right, there's an issue going on with a group of people and the members suggest resolutions and all but we don't get a response from a mod saying they're looking into the issue, we only get responses say about what the rules are and all and as we all know that stuff, pretty boring response. Nothing about whether something is being dealt with. For the forum posts thing where you get notified about whether something is done about it, that's handy, you can select that and get notification and go "great, that's been dealt with". Same with fanart reporting, you often get a response saying "a decision of action has been made" and sayng what's been done, you don't have to say what's been done, but it would be nice if we knew whether action was being done, even if it was an automated message. Actually an automated message thing would be brilliant, nice and efficient. Because nothing else on this site royally annoys me than getting left in the dark about whether something is being taken care of.

Obviously. However, it would be annoying to see the Shoutbox spammed with "A decision has been made." or something anyway. And if there was a member making trouble on the shoutbox, getting banned for it, it would still be in violation of the privacy, because people aren't stupid. If a mod tries to reason with the member on the box, and then is forced to ban him/her, and a message "A decision has been made." pops up there, it's easy to put two and two together.

And we do try to say we are looking into your issues, however it is not always possible to do so - both time-wise and work-wise. And the members are left in the dark about our decisions mostly because much of what we do is security measures, to keep -you- safe from people who should never be on the website.

Nonono, I meant like a PM to the reporter.

Lux - The Guardian · **Posted:** Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:14 am

Dingo wrote:

Actually, when there's a problem with a member on the shoutbox that merits a ban (usually a spammer, flamer, troll...etc.), a lot of moderators will let the members who are on there know when they ban the troublemaker so everyone will know to drop the issue. Otherwise, half the members on the shoutbox would still be arguing with a member who's no longer there. Personally, I find that more annoying than a simple message saying that the member has been banned.

Quite true. Although I believe we shouldn't have to. If a moderator was on the shoutbox and tried to reason with the offender, and the offender suddenly disappeared from the shoutbox, would it not really mean that it had been taken care of either way?

And I also believe that - please pardon me for being frank - people should open their eyes and ignore the offenders, and instead of arguing with them just either correct them once, and if they refuse to listen without a mod's attention one'd just hit the report button and ignore him/her. How hard can it be?

Adding to that, putting an option on the shoutbox that allows members to "ignore" another member's chat messages (much like the ignore option on the forums. The messages from that member would be hidden from the member(s) who ignored him/her) would be of great help.

Cobalt wrote:

Nonono, I meant like a PM to the reporter.

That would be possible, if the info given was simply "Your report has been read and taken into investigation. Thank you for reporting this to us.", and it was automatic by just the push of a button (because quite frankly, we don't have the time - usually - to respond to these reports unless further details are needed for our investigation).

Cobaltié · **Posted:** Thu Jun 19, 2008 2:04 am

JerseyCaptain wrote:

Most moderators and staffers certainly haven't been taking the time to let members know that they've taken steps to either remove posts, alter them, lock a topic, or even ban. Now, I haven't been banned, and do not EXPECT to be (because there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for it), but I have seen some of my posts on Balto Source removed by certain moderators, fan news editors, or questions mods, and no notice was ever given to me. And it is my understanding that this is supposed to be done as a courtesy to that member, as well as a procedural matter. Why is it NOT happening?

AFAIK one is never notified when their post or thread is deleted on a forum. Not anywhere. Takes too much time.

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Redressing a grievance