Use Moderator Tools For Reports Or A Separate Forum?

[Manna Central]

Hi Everyone,

Just wondering what everyone uses for "reports"?

Do you use the moderator tools for reports of do you have reports sent to a separate forum?

What are the pro's and con's of each one and which do you prefer and why?

We will be setting our website and forum to go "live" this weekend and this is the one last thing I am undecided on and would like to make a final decision on the way forward for us.

Thanks in advance.

 

[JOGARA]

We use a sub forum for user reports and billing issues.
It is set up so users can see their own content but not others and that they can create topics and see replies.

Admins and moderators have full read and write permissions so they can aid users.

Works great and less addons the better.

 

[jeb35]

My 2 cents is that you should send the reports to a forum. That way you can reply like a normal thread, attach images( can't do that using normal reports), use thread prefixes to show what stage the report is in. You will also get notifications when someone actually replies in those report threads, with the way it is now, you have to access the reports and look to see if there were any new replies or whatever. You can also watch the forum that the threads are put into so you get a notification/email whenever there is a new report.

 

[Manna Central]

@JOGARA and @jeb35 many thanks for your replies and insight, it is very much appreciated

 

[Mr Lucky]

The only good thing I can find with the report manager vs threads, is that you can automatically notify the person who reported as you close the report with either a resolve or reject.

On my forum our report threads have permissions set so the person reporting can see the report and discuss with us. This works really well. In cases where it needs confidential mod only discussion we would start a thread for ourselves but most times that is not necessary.

 

[Manna Central]

@Mr Lucky many thanks for your reply, it is much appreciated.

 

[JRobert]

We started out using Moderator Tools, but we switched to a forum. This has the advantage (for us) that reports are "archived" and can be easily searched for previous offenses by a user and all the mods can see all replies at any time. We do not allow users to see the Reports forum.

 

[Manna Central]

Thanks @JRobert your reply is much appreciated

 

[Sim]

I use both across my two main sites - and find both frustrating in their own way.

On one of my sites we use a forum because we tend to discuss moderation issues a lot more - the issues are usually more complex but there's typically fewer reports.

On my other (larger) site we use the report manager because we get a lot more reports, but don't need to discuss as much and it is easier to track what still requires action and assign tasks.

Forum pros:

• easier to discuss issues in depth
• can attach media
• can @-tag mods in discussion
• can edit your report comments if you make a mistake
• can seach report content
• can move discussion to another thread if you want to preserve it. For example, we have a "policy discussion" area where we decide on changes to the rules and our forum policies - sometimes a report and its discussion turns into a policy discussion and so the report thread - or part of it - gets moved to the policy discussion forum.

Forum cons:

• more effort to find reports by or about a specific user
• no statistics
• more difficult to track status of reports
• can't notify original reporter of action taken

Report manager pros:

• can easily find reports by or about a specific user
• can generate statistics (by querying database) on frequency and types of reports; which users create the most reports; which users get reported the most; which moderators are most engaged with reports; etc
• can more easily track status of reports and assign them to specific staff for action
• can easily notify original reporter of action taken

Report manager cons:

• more difficult to discuss issues in depth (we need take discussions to a dedicated moderator discussion area)
• can't attach media - need to start a moderator discussion thread about the issue
• can't @-tag mods in discussions
• can't edit your report comments if you make a mistake
• can't search report content
• can't move discussion

I find both systems frustrating in their own way - I really wish we had the management facilities that come with the report centre combined with the ease of discussion and flexibility that comes with using a forum.

Why can't we have the best of both worlds!?

 

[Manna Central]

Thanks @Sim for that great reply, it is very much appreciated.

Because of the nature of our forum I think we will probably go for the forum option.

Many thanks once again to everyone who has shared their thoughts on this.

 

[Kirby]

I really wish we had the management facilities that come with the report centre combined with the ease of discussion and flexibility that comes with using a forum.

Why can't we have the best of both worlds!?

Yep, that would be ideal - who will code that?

We usually use report forums except for forums where we do not have dedicated moderators or where moderators were used to "report center" functionality from other system (WoltLab, etc.).