Lack of interest Community Moderation: Report a post *AS SPAM* workflow

[Digital Doctor]

Here's a version of the current REPORT POST option.
The second version is tweaked to allow a SPAM REPORT (a more specific version of reports).



or ... hmm ...

You could do the reverse .... have a new posts area where you need someone to [Approve] a post to get it seen in the actual forums !

Use your members to do free moderation !

Update: March 2013 - sonnb has Spam Community Moderation in his spam addon !


http://xenforo.com/community/resources/sonnb-stop-spam-here.1086/

 

[tenants]

not full mod, but as DP said above

just make them low level moderators that can only soft delete stuff.

That already exists

 

[Digital Doctor]

Another idea for "Community-based moderation".
- one way to eliminate all spam that visitors can see is putting new member's posts into moderation.
- the spammer's first post will be a spam post, so you just don't approve the message. The result is no spam on your forum. The problem is ..... it's very time intensive, especially if the admins and mods do all the approving.

Suggestion: get the community to do the approving !
All new members are moderated to start. A new member's post goes to a "Waiting to be reviewed" virtual "forum". Anyone with permission can approve the post as "Not spam" ... and the post then appears in the forums as it should.

People could even volunteer for spam duty. They could receive an alert when a new post needs approving.

I guess this is like a special version of the moderation queue that that is public. People would click the [Not Spam] button as it applies.

Make sense ?

 

[tenants]

Moderating the first post is what I do, even with my Anti - Spam plug-ins
(although, I haven't had one bot get through and doubt I ever will again... but non bots can spam too)

On one of my forums, if spam gets into some areas they will be auto tweeted out to many thousand of users, so I need to be extra careful with spam

Surely your workflow already exists

1) Set the forum to "moderated first x posts"
2) Make all registered / active members into moderators with limited moderation permissions :

• View moderated threads / posts
• Approve / unapproved threads / posts

3) Have some sort of upgrade, where by you automatically turn users into moderators (X likes / Y Posts)

 

[sonnb]

Another idea for "Community-based moderation".
- one way to eliminate all spam that visitors can see is putting new member's posts into moderation.
- the spammer's first post will be a spam post, so you just don't approve the message. The result is no spam on your forum. The problem is ..... it's very time intensive, especially if the admins and mods do all the approving.

Suggestion: get the community to do the approving !
All new members are moderated to start. A new member's post goes to a "Waiting to be reviewed" virtual "forum". Anyone with permission can approve the post as "Not spam" ... and the post then appears in the forums as it should.

People could even volunteer for spam duty. They could receive an alert when a new post needs approving.

I guess this is like a special version of the moderation queue that that is public. People would click the [Not Spam] button as it applies.

Make sense ?

Moderating the first post is what I do, even with my Anti - Spam plug-ins
(although, I haven't has one bot get through and doubt I ever will again... but non bots can spam too)

On one of my forums, if spam gets into some areas they will be auto tweeted out to many thousand of users, so I need to be extra careful with spam

Surely your workflow already exists

1) Set the forum to "moderated first x posts"
2) Make all registered / active members into moderators with limited moderation permissions :

• View moderated threads / posts
• Approve / unapproved threads / posts

3) Have some sort of upgrade, where by you automatically turn users into moderators (X likes / Y Posts)

It is good idea. But not all the spam post is the first post. A lot of my spam posts are replied to existing threads (valid one). Anyway, this is good idea.

 

[Digital Doctor]

It is good idea. But not all the spam post is the first post. A lot of my spam posts are replied to existing threads (valid one). Anyway, this is good idea.

This idea is still going to catch those posts that are replies.
The "reply" post (but not the thread) will end up in the Community moderation .... and the post (outside of the context of the rest of the thread) can be judged if it is spam or not.

 

[sonnb]

This idea is still going to catch those posts that are replies.
The "reply" post (but not the thread) will end up in the Community moderation .... and the post (outside of the context of the rest of the thread) can be judged if it is spam or not.

Yes, it requires an active community to do this, not for small community I think.

 

[sonnb]

This idea is still going to catch those posts that are replies.
The "reply" post (but not the thread) will end up in the Community moderation .... and the post (outside of the context of the rest of the thread) can be judged if it is spam or not.

I have added a button to post/profile post control bar that named "Mark Spam". Any users with permission added could click on this and send that post/profile post to moderation queue.

 

[Digital Doctor]

I have added a button to post/profile post control bar that named "Mark Spam". Any users with permission added could click on this and send that post/profile post to moderation queue.

I'm going to ask xenscripts.com to buy your spam thing

 

[Jason]

I'll try to hash this idea over more.
Essentially ... having some Trusted Members (the frequent flyers) to do "Spam Duty" would be one method of balancing risk vs. reward of community-based moderation.

For most forums, community moderation would be overkill, but it's still an interesting problem.

Some sort of reputation system could be established which ideally would reward the more experienced members of the community, factoring in things like post count, likes, etc. -- whatever makes sense. Once a user's reputation reaches a certain threshold they become a trusted member, and help maintain the community in two ways: flag handling and post deletion.

When a post is flagged by at least N people it would be placed in a queue, perhaps even collapsed (in thread) if its score falls below a certain point. Trusted members could then view this queue (sorted by a post's score) and act on the flags in one of a few ways: (a) flag it themselves if they feel it requires moderator attention. By flagging it themselves, it bumps it up the moderator's queue; (b) mark it as 'invalid' if they feel it should be ignored by moderators. If enough trusted members do this the post's score is restored and it disappears from the queue altogether; (c) vote to delete the post.

Ideally, these people wouldn't be able to see who flagged a post, just some aggregate data about the flags against the post and its score. You could set a minimum vote count for (soft) deleting a post, and scale that count to the number of delete votes for a post and the thread's post count. The number of votes a trusted member can cast per day could be limited by their reputation.

Just some food for thought...

 

[Shelley]

I find myself thinking about this suggestion and think this is a great suggestion and something i think could be very beneficial. I haven't read all posts in the thread so it may have been suggested to combat the people abusing it if they get into arguments with other members and report legitimate posts/threads as spam.

- on the admin level an option to include member to the spam busting privileges (over time an admin will know who are the sensible members)
- As time passes the list of uses will grow so effectively you have a mini group of people able to get to spam posts quickly
- Once 2 spam privileged members report spam the thread is hidden from view
- Because the 2nd report will be created (currently a 2nd report) this should not happen so it makes report management easier.

Obviously there is always a chance this can be abused but the admin will know who are the sensible users who won't abuse it and I can see great benefits in this while keeping spam off forums longer than they have to. Hopefully the above made sense and I've probably not thought of all details or any adverse affects there may be but this is a suggestion well worth exploring imo. Excellent suggestion DD.

 

[Digital Doctor]

I have added a button to post/profile post control bar that named "Mark Spam". Any users with permission added could click on this and send that post/profile post to moderation queue.

hey sonnb: can you screengrab these options in your spam addon ? I'd like to see what they look like.