Post Checking System - a hugely important piece of functionality

Stuart Wright

Stuart Wright

Well-known member
Folks, the moderator checkpoint system (as it is called on AVForums) is a plugin I commissioned a number of years ago. It's an absolutely vital tool for moderators to quickly and efficiently ensure that the maximum number of posts are checked for rule breaches etc. with the maximum efficiency.
In order to present this functionality suggestion to you as completely as possible, I have made a video.
I hope this video explains why I think this feature is so important, how it works, how simple it is when you get to grips with it, and how I think it's absolutely vital that we have it in xenForo. Ideally as a standard feature, otherwise as a plugin. The video is best viewed in HD and full screen.
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If you think this suggestion would be useful to you in xenForo, please Like this post.
Thanks :)
 
Upvote 31
Brandon_R said:
I think you are going about this all wrong as it's not possible to check Every thread as some will get by.

We need something that fits well into the social theme of things ie The User's does the moderating and the Moderators Performs the final action. Im pretty sure facebook has complaints/lawsuits all the time and thats why the "Report" button is still there "It can stand up in court". If it couldn't im pretty sure they would of replaced it for something like your system.http://xenforo.com/suggestion-moderation-users-can-select-a-recommended-action.2588/
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Are facebook comments viewable by everyone like a forum post would be?
 
@Grover I understand that some admin will not put checking all posts as a high priority. In a lot of ways, we are still reliant on members reporting posts because moderators will not get round to checking threads before a member reports problems. The Moderator Checkpoint system is still useful, however, if you ask your moderators to surf with active checking switched on, because at least then the moderators can see what threads their fellow moderators have already opened, if not thoroughly read.
And there are some features of the software that some people will never use. We, for example at AVForums, never use the calendar.
Not everyone will want to commit to using the checkpoint system, but for those admin who do want to be thorough about what they want covered by their moderators, there is no other solution available.
 
Libel is just one of the issues that a board can be sued for. Several countries put full responsibility for forum content on the forum owner. Germany for example.
Most countries do not do this at present. But we can be sure that the last court case has not begun about this and there will surely be legal developments in this regard.

However, when it comes to content spreading hate, radical Islam, terrorism and a few other topics then there are new laws in the EU, that have far reaching implications.

In the Netherlands, police officers are allowed to intervene if a website has illegal content. Without the need for a court or judge. This is currently under discussion in Parliament.

Another thing is getting blacklisted by governments. Quite a few countries are developing blacklists and internet filtering or internet blockades. Australia, UK, China and various middle Eastern Countries for example. if your site contains unwanted content, then that means your site can be blacklisted.

Asides from protecting your site against dangers, its also worth thinking about post quality. If the posts on your site are of high quality, the your site will attract more quality discussion. On my site I delete anything that doesn't contribute anything of value, leaving only the entertaining and informative content. I can imagine that not every site owner could be bothered to take such effort, but its something to consider if quality is what you are after.

Another thing to consider is that (at least in my 8 year experience as a big board admin) users do not report every problematic post, and that if you rely on post reports, then quite a lot of problematic content can stay under the radar.

Then there is the issue of moderators who like the title, but do little more than parading with it. How do you know that your moderators are actually taking care of their forums? Sure you can see if post reports are handled or not. But are they reading new posts? How many? All or just a few? Without a system like suggested, you are mostly blind to what your moderators are reviewing.

And if your moderators want to fully review a forum, then how are they going to keep track of their actions over time or how are they going to work together?

As you might imagine I fully support this suggestion.
 
Alfa1 said:
Libel is just one of the issues that a board can be sued for. Several countries put full responsibility for forum content on the forum owner. Germany for example.
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This just isn´t true
Only one court in germany judged this way and they all were taken back by the next higher court or never became finalised (when both sides come to an conclusion that suits both well).


This PCS looks like a nice feature, but i think it´s something for an addon.
 
Brandon_R said:
Go to facebook.com/xenforo and click on discussions and you tell me.
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Ok, if you were to post an extremely offensive message on Facebook:
1) How long would it take before it was deleted and
2) Would you expect many people to *want* to visit that page?

Here is a point I have not yet made in regard to this suggestion.
We pride ourselves at AVForums for being a friendly community appropriate for people of all sensitivities. We have a swear filter in place but there are always round that. In order to maintain a forum which people feel safe to visit, and feel safe allowing their younger family members to visit, we like to keep a close eye on our content. This helps with out popularity and our success.

I find Facebook pages with unmoderated swearing on them unpleasant and I don't visit them. It's not because I'm a prude, it's because I have limited time and I want to read intelligent, useful content, not 'noise'.
Alfa1 has a good point about removing rubbish content, and we have our General Chat forum for that. Elsewhere on AVForums, we regularly prune posts out of threads if they take away from their value.

Once an advertiser told me he had to cease advertising because Sony had told him to. Sony did not like the way we allowed some discussions relating to piracy on AVForums. We already had rules in place stating that promotion of piracy was not allowed, but the rules were not tight enough and not being enforced. So the moderator checkpoint system allows us to reassure advertisers that we are adequately monitoring for piracy discussions.
 
Stuart, could you share the average number of posts per day on your board? It's interesting to see how many posts is there to check per moderator daily.

When a reviewed post is found to be in a violation of the rules, what does the moderator do?

An impressive plugin you have developed. Unfortunately I can't see much use for it for our main board where we don't have any moderators proactively checking the posts. Looks like our rules about the possible discussions are not so strict though.
 
We have about 7,000 a day at the moment.
The action taken by the moderator depends on the type of rule breach. We'll use the spam decimator to get rid of spammers. People being unpleasant to other members might have a single point infraction. People hurling the worst abuse to other members will get an instant, permanent ban. The most infractions get handed out for breaking our trading rules. People then might get suspended from trading for a month.
 
Well, 7000 posts / 50 moderators = 140 posts for every moderator to read on every day in an ideal case (assuming they split the load evenly). Not an unreasonable number. I assume the posting activity only increases with time. Will you keep adding the moderators according to the rise in the posting activity? I'm interested because you chose a completely different approach to the enforcement of site rules, and it's interesting to know how scalable your approach is.

I'm afraid I wasn't clear in my question about the moderator action on a rule violation. It was about the post content, not about the poster. Let's say someone insults some company in a post, which is forbidden per your rules. What does a moderator do with this post when he reads it? Deletes it? Sweeps it off to some hidden bit-bucket-like forum? Edits out the abusive remark?
 
Stuart Wright said:
You wouldn't have to. Get your moderators to. And you can bet that they only skim through.
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I know. It's more like... if I were moderator somewhere and they'd force me to read everything.. It's not something I would enjoy, personally. Nothing against your mod though, it's just personal preferences.
 
Sador said:
I know. It's more like... if I were moderator somewhere and they'd force me to read everything.. It's not something I would enjoy, personally. Nothing against your mod though, it's just personal preferences.
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Then you wouldn't be a moderator in that forum. 50 moderators are fine with it in our forum.
 
Still not clear what the moderators are supposed to do with the post content after finding a post that breaks the rules.
 
kmike said:
Still not clear what the moderators are supposed to do with the post content after finding a post that breaks the rules.
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that would be purely up to you, if it's routine things i say just delete it, if the rule they break is also a law or precipitates them committing a crime your best bet is to ask a legal advisor that is familiar with your local laws.

so are we looking at this system as a mod or part of the actual XF system? I'm for it either way , im just a bit curious.
 

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