Flagging in BYOND Discussion

ID:133266
 
Dec 27 2008, 9:35 pm (Edited on Dec 28 2008, 10:14 am)
Has anyone ever brought up the idea for some type of flagging system on the hub entries? Something like what youtube has for its videos.
Just a simple drop down with a few choices of possible reasons to flag that hub: misleading text, inappropriate content, ripping, spam, etc.
Then once a hub has a certain amount of flags/points the staff can investigate the issue to see if there's any merit to the flagging.
Limit the flags to 1 per Key and/or IP and have a system where you could raise/lower the points that a certain person's flags are worth if you see them continually making sensible/bogus calls.
#1 Dec 27 2008, 10:20 pm
Inasmuch as YouTube's system is already abused in this way, I don't think this would necessarily be an improvement. Games that merely pick up some haters will be readily flagged.

However, you do bring up a pertinent topic, as Tom and I were last discussing some sort of improvement to handling hub entry reviews, perhaps all posts, that would provide a kind of bozo filter. The problem we kept running into was, any system we could think up would either require too much admin maintenance or it would be prone to abuse. I'm wide open to hearing any good suggestions that would get around such problems, though.

Lummox JR
#2 Dec 28 2008, 7:15 am
In response to Lummox JR (#1)
Limit the number of flags an account/IP can do within 24 hours? Don't know how much that would help, but it would keep people from running around BYOND their whole day flagging hubs.
#3 Dec 28 2008, 10:16 am (Edited on Dec 28 2008, 10:25 am)
In response to Mizukouken Ketsu (#2)
Mizukouken Ketsu wrote:
Limit the number of flags an account/IP can do within 24 hours? Don't know how much that would help, but it would keep people from running around BYOND their whole day flagging hubs.

I meant limit the flags per hub to 1 per key/IP, so the same person can't flag a game 20 times to bring it up for administrative review
#4 Dec 28 2008, 11:02 am
In response to Lummox JR (#1)
Perhaps some sort of system where an individuals initial reviews are judged harshly, but as they get more and more yea's versus nay's, the system gets more lax? It could work in reverse for people that regularly write praising reviews of rips.
#5 Dec 28 2008, 12:27 pm
In response to Mizukouken Ketsu (#2)
Mizukouken Ketsu wrote:
Limit the number of flags an account/IP can do within 24 hours? Don't know how much that would help, but it would keep people from running around BYOND their whole day flagging hubs.

That would actually do little to prevent the kind of abuse we'd be most likely to see. In truth legitimate flagging would be more likely to come from one source in a short period of time, whereas bogus flags would tend to be more of an effort brought about by a forum post like "Hey, they bashed our favorite game, let's nay that review!"

Lummox JR
#6 Dec 28 2008, 12:30 pm
In response to Lummox JR (#5)
Lummox JR wrote:
"Hey, they bashed our favorite game, let's nay that review!"

I'm pretty familiar with that happening. The people that do that also like to spam your blog with profane comments, telling you you're an idiot for not realizing that you would lose your mudkipz if you left a building with it.
#7 Jan 4 2009, 11:33 am (Edited on Jan 4 2009, 1:09 pm)
In response to Lummox JR (#5)
just off the top of my head. You could use the flagging system, but give a weight on the backend to the users who flag something that does indeed get removed. Then after a few weeks you'll have a database full of users who are legitimately flagging inappropriate content. Then you sort by 1st, most user weight against a topic (ex. topics with 1000 flags but nobody with "weight" will show up towards the bottom of the list), 2nd, by number of flags (most weight with most flags at the top). Then you can just scan over the top posts.
#8 Jan 4 2009, 4:31 pm
In response to Jerico2day (#7)
For every one person who looks to bring bona fide trash to the attention of those who can get rid of it, there's ten wanting to use it vindictively, and ten more who want to simply be a pain in the side of anyone responsible for reviewing the flagged content. Ultimately, any flavour of "let everyone moderate the community" fails spectacularly, and frequently creates more work for the appointed staff instead of reducing it.
#9 Jan 4 2009, 4:47 pm
In response to Mobius Evalon (#8)
Mobius Evalon wrote:
For every one person who looks to bring bona fide trash to the attention of those who can get rid of it, there's ten wanting to use it vindictively, and ten more who want to simply be a pain in the side of anyone responsible for reviewing the flagged content. Ultimately, any flavour of "let everyone moderate the community" fails spectacularly, and frequently creates more work for the appointed staff instead of reducing it.

I think my system would overcome that problem after the first few weeks. You'll be able to rely on regulars who are honest and the system will automatically put their submissions right at the top.

You check only the top few listed, and ignore or do whatever with the rest.

You can even put negative weight on the worst offenders, and their submissions wouldn't count at all.

Of course publishing that you do just this would probably result in someone defeating it, so just keep it to yourself if you employ this idea :P

(I'm not saying one way or the other that BYOND needs this kind of system. I'm just saying, I bet it would work well).