As designed Incorrect content link in warning, when warning issued from reported post

[Wildcat Media]

When my moderators are looking at a reported post, they usually visit the offending post, and then return to the reported post to discuss the action to be taken. When they decide to issue a warning, it is most often done from the report. When that happens, the offending content is not linked.

It is counterintuitive to not link to the offending content when posting a warning from a reported post. As a result, we have subsequently lost a lot of history where we could have looked back at past offending content to see how severe their transgressions were. As busy as we are (1200+ online in peak hours, tens of thousands of posts per day), we now have dozens of reported posts per day to deal with.

The "Warn" link from a report might be working "as designed" but IMHO, the design is counterintuitive. My moderators expected that the warnings were being tied to the offending content. Since the reported item is a single post, and the report only deals with the single post, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to change the warning link's behavior, and tie the content to the warning, rather than link to the user's profile as it does currently.

This is a serious enough bug, IMHO, that we are going to have to rethink using the warning system, and go back to manually recording all offending content in a separate forum area (which is time consuming, and also prone to error as in our busiest hours, we often overlook recording something that we should have).

I tried this with a test user and sure enough, issuing a warning from a post report links only to the user's profile, with no content link.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Paul B]

I don't understand.

Warnings issued on content link to the content.

Warnings issued on profiles link to the profile.

Which of those are not working?

 

[Jeremy]

I tried this with a test user and sure enough, issuing a warning from a post report links only to the user's profile, with no content link.

If this is the bug report, you are doing something incorrectly or having an add-on interfere with the general warning process. Either disable all add-ons and test again or follow Paul's advice. Each content contains a "Warn" link that will associate a warning with that content.

As I stated in your suggestion, the content link will always link to the appropriate content when made through the XenForo warning system.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I don't understand.

Warnings issued on content link to the content.

Warnings issued on profiles link to the profile.

Which of those are not working?

Those both work. Those, however, are not the problem.

Without retyping my first message again...

1) If I'm on the content (the reported post itself), I can issue a warning, and the warning has the proper content linked to it. That's fine.

2) If I'm on a profile page, I get a link to the profile page in the warning. This is fine also.

3) If I am reading the report page from a reported post, doing a warning from that report page does not link to the offending content that was reported; instead, it links to the member's profile.

4) Add-ons disabled, no difference--same behavior. Also using a stock theme, no difference.

Need screenshots? Or a couple of logins to our forum to test it? Let me know.

 

[Paul B]

That's because the Warn link there is associated with the user, just as the Ban and Edit links are.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Yes, that's true, and that is counterintuitive and very incorrect behavior. When my moderators are on a reported post page, that page exists only for reporting that post and dealing with it. Why should it not link to the post rather than the member's profile? They are reading the report and discussing it on that page, so that Warn link by any stretch of the imagination should be linking to the offending content, not the member's profile (which serves no purpose, if you think about it).

It's a bug. A very serious one IMHO. We've lost months of history due to this, and it is completely unacceptable.

 

[CTXMedia]

Are you using XFs built-in reporting system or do you have your reports posted as threads in a separate moderators forum?

If they're posted as threads/posts in a moderators forum then clicking the 'Warn' link on the reported post will fire-up a warning based on the report - not the content being reported.

Your moderators need to click the link to go to the content and issue the warning from there.

I would have expected that to be obvious, but perhaps it isn't - in which case it should be a simple case of educating your moderators to click the link for the reported content in the first post (to go and visit the reported content) and then issue the warning from there.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Paul B]

A bug is something which is unexpected in the code.

This isn't a bug as those have deliberately been coded as user profile links, not content related.

It may not what you expected or desired, but it's still not a bug.

 

[Paul B]

@Clickfinity, the poster is referring to this Warn link:


Which is at the top right corner of the user profile block in the warning.

 

[CTXMedia]

@Clickfinity, the poster is referring to this Warn link:
<snip>

Ah, okay.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I would have expected that to be obvious, but perhaps it isn't - in which case it should be a simple case of educating your moderators to click the link in the first post (to visit the reported content) and issue the warning from there.

We are a very busy forum and my moderators do not have time to keep hopping between posts and reports to get their work done. There are enough things this forum can't do that are holding back my staff. I don't need yet another.

A bug is something which is unexpected in the code.

Exactly. And my clicking on Warn from a post report, and unexpectedly not having the content linked to it as it should, is one very serious bug in my book.

I'll wait for one of the developers to chime in and at least give this serious consideration, rather than be treated like this publicly for pointing out what is something so very obviously counterintuitive and hampering my staff's productivity.

Sorry I asked. I am not following this thread any further.

 

[Paul B]

Treated like what publicly?

I have simply stated why that link does what it does.

 

[Jeremy]

@Rudy,

Coming as strictly a moderator on this forum, I can see where the confusion can arise, since only the "Warn" link is present, as opposed to those with ability to ban and edit users.

There is an argument both ways on which method is "correct". From the technical (structural) stand point, the Warn link is associated with the user, identical to how it is on profiles:



This is different to how it is associated with posts, where it exists beneath the content, next to links related to the content:





However, form a moderator's stand point, this associative difference may not be as obvious, especially without the ability to edit users. However, the link is working as designed. There are several "solutions" to this, one of which would be changing the behavior of the warn link, as you suggest. Another would be removing the warning link altogether, forcing it to be associated with the profile. Another would be changing the wording to "Warn Rudy" or something similar.

Although, if you need something "right now" on your forums, the link should disappear if you do not allow your moderators to warn users directly.

 

[Liam W]

As said, this is the correct behaviour.

Frankly, the warn link is on the user bar, so I assumed it warns the user, which I'm sure most other people do.

Liam

P.S

@Jeremy why is there an asterisk next to Rudy's user title in your screenshots?

 

[Jeremy]

No, the asterisk is stating he is licensed. Has nothing to do with privacy.

 

[Mike]

In general, this is as designed. As it stands, there is nothing on the report viewing page that takes action against the content in question. That is all done by going to the content. Any theoretical action button against the content would be put below the content as well.

The user links were placed there mostly for ease of use. Without the ban/edit/spam links, I could see how there could be some confusion. As such, I have simply removed these links in 1.3. They are still all easily accessible via the member card. It's one extra click, but they haven't been used that frequently in my experience.