Admin/mod feature suggestions

KyussBeeshop

There is a lot of work created for mods, which leads to avoidable mistakes and time spent which negatively affects posters, that could easily be automated on Boards - there are a couple of times I've had to deal with a siteban due to this.

A lot of this could be fixed by creating an 'admin bot' type account for Boards that is automatically run from an admins computer, with the advantage that it requires no changes to the actual website - which I believe is the main reason these features haven't been added yet.

For example, things like this could be automated:
Thread bans:

When a mod bans a user from a thread, include their userid in the ban post, have the bot account monitor that thread, and auto-delete posts from that userid that come after the mod message.

Advantages:
Save mods time, no manual deletes. Zero infractions/warnings against posters. Less mod mistakes due to accidental posting after thread-ban.

Using the same basic bot features, you can implement these:
Thread/forum minimum post limit:

Have the bot account monitor all new posts in a thread or forum, to check that posters have a minimum number of posts, and auto-delete posts where appropriate.

Advantages:
Again, save mods time. Zero mistaken posts and thus no overly harsh infractions from mods. Make rereg posting impossible for select threads or even whole forums.

Scan reregs for rule breaches

When a rereg is identified, have the bot look for bans/thread-bans on the previous account, and scan through all threads the rereg has posted in, for breaches.
Particularly, make the bot aware of when a thread has been moved from a different forum, to avoid false positives.

Advantages:
Save mods time. Easily detect all rereg breaches with no manual effort. Less mod mistakes.

Auto-apply rereg bans:

Similar to above, when a rereg is identified, auto-apply all past forum bans and thread bans to the rereg.

Advantages:
Avoids future mod mistakes. Allows reregs to request their bans be carried-over from their old account, so mod mistakes are avoided.

Delete banned posters from moved threads:

If a thread is moved to a different forum, have the bot auto-delete all posts in the thread, from posters who are banned on that forum (and lock the thread for mod review, if the OP is banned).

Advantages:
Avoids banned posts from slipping through, and avoids banned posters losing the right of reply to challenges on their posts.

It should be piss easy to code something like this, without touching any of the Boards code itself - all you need is either a bot that can parse enough of the website automatically, or make an admin-only API serverside which dumps out the necessary information for the bot to parse as simple text.

A couple days work for a coder, would save countless hours of volunteer work from mods over time, and frustration among posters from obvious reregs, and frustration from posters over avoidable mod/admin mistakes.

It would also remove a lot of ambiguity/pain (for posters/mods alike) from many mod decisions, because no longer would mods be able to accuse posters of being dishonest in certain situations, in order to back up an infraction/ban (completely inexcusable in my view, unless a poster has a history of deliberate lying or evasion of mod actions) - particularly with ignoring thread bans (when it's perfectly possible to innocently miss this) - because such a situation would be completely impossible with a bot like this.

Anything Boards can do to prevent easily avoidable mod mistakes like this (which add to the sites reputation as heavy-handed with modding, and leads to loss of posters), by implementing the proper mod tools, is worth the time - particularly far more worthy of time, than redesigning the site etc., because such mod tools are a once-off cost that save mods/posters a lot grief, and help avoid harm to the sites reputation.

Beasty

The issue here is the vast majority of mod actions are judgement calls. You simply cannot code that into some automated "admin"

I also suspect that putting in anything along the lines you suggest wilm take a lot more time and effort than you suggest and even then I'm sure there will be problems that would need ironing out

For the amount it potentially adds I suspect developer time could be better spent elsewhere

KyussBeeshop

The whole point of what I proposed, is that through automation like this, you eliminate the need for a lot of judgement calls, and with them a lot of unintentional mistakes - you precisely code this into an automated admin, by removing the need for these judgement calls in the first place.

I do programming myself, and have past experience of working with extending features in webadmin utilities - what I'm suggesting would require a fairly trivial amount of work, and once it's done, requires little-to-no maintenance.

Being able to effectively prevent rereg posts, by slapping a minimum post count requirement on threads without requiring manual mod intervention, would be worth the developer time on its own, and save mods/admins a ton of time by making rereg disruption a lot less common or worthwhile for the rereg.

It's a very small investment of time/effort on the part of a developer, which saves a ton of time for mods/admins - and saves many forum posters grief too - there are few places where developer time can be better spent, than giving mods/admins the ability to better use their freely provided volunteer time (something Boards should invest in doing, as one of its first priorities, since they are benefiting from free labour here, and thus should do everything to automate/reduce that workload), and improving poster experience through reducing rereg disruption and preventing accidental/avoidable run-ins with mods.

Beasty

One of the problems is each forum has its own charter and in many cases a "community" that interact in ways that may be subtly different. I see this across all the major Sports forums for example. That's where you need to apply judgement. There is no "one size fits all" solution.

Take a forum I am very familiar with as an example. Cycling has none of the tribalism you will encounter in forums like Soccer and Rugby. We do though get people coming into the forum just to give out about cyclists. The regulars got sick of this and we introduced a "no relentless negativity" rule. That's completely judgmental and cannot be codified into some "bot". Other forums have different nuances that would present the same sort of challenge with your suggestions.

dudara

I can see merits in what you propose, but my experience as Admin has taught me clearly that one rule, or set of rules, does not fit all.

We often get potential re-regs flagged to us, which turn out to be a flat mate or sibling. Sometimes a re-reg completely reforms and their new account deserves no action. It's the human intervention that makes those calls.

Mistakes do get made sometimes, but IMO they get resolved when brought to our attention. I'm sorry that your account has been impacted by these issues, but I feel that automation could result in a lot more, mechanical errors

KyussBeeshop

Why are you both taking what I suggested (features suggested for very specific situations), and then converting what I said into a generalization (one rules fits all - a general principle to be applied to all mod activity, in all situations) - and then making up examples of why the latter wont work?

You're both attacking things I did not suggest. That's making things up that I did not suggest, to try and make the useful things I suggested, look impractical.

Why on earth would anyone try to make a bot, which bans negativity on the cycling forum? That's obviously unworkable. It also has nothing to do with what I suggested, such that bringing it up as a counter example makes zero sense.

This bot would be a tool in mods hands, to be used at mods judgement/discretion (in some cases, removing an entire class of problems from mod hands, which leads to inaccurate judgement calls - e.g. completely removing the need to infract people for breaching thread bans accidentally, near-completely removing the need to manually police reregs after a minimum-post-count is slapped on a thread) - it's not a replacement of the mods, it's a tool to reduce mod workload, to do things mods already do, but to do it automatically in cases where judgement calls aren't required (after the original mod judgement call has been made - e.g. thread bans).

Please don't make up things I did not suggest. Please refute the things I did suggest, if you see a practical problem with them - and be specific about it, because when you generalize what I say into something else, you're attacking something I did not suggest.

Steve

Some good suggestions there op, however, DP law would apply to a certain extent and for that reason we have to keep it a bit fuzzy and therefore involve mod opinion in the process.

KyussBeeshop

Well, all of these suggestions involve mod opinion/judgement in the initial action - i.e. whether to apply a thread ban or not, whether to limit reregs/low-post users etc..

I assume by data protection, you mean either scanning for rereg rule breaches, or automatically passing-on bans (after initial mod judgement) - these are only really to be used after a mod/admin is sure, that an account is a rereg of a previous account - and are just tools for doing what mods/admins already do manually (looking through poster history and cross referencing against banned forums, or reapplying bans to a rereg from the old account).

Everything suggested (bar the last suggestion in OP) is something mods already do manually - which either require no judgement after the mod decides to perform the act, or which only gathers information for further mod review - i.e. are things which are perfectly suited to automation.

seamus

It's a nice idea. Wouldn't have to be run from an "admin's machine" it could just run as a server-side service, or even from a different server.

My understanding is that there is already an API in use, it's just not externally accessible, so automation in that regard should be pretty straightforward.

Some of the suggestions aren't as feasible as they appear, such as a cross-scanning for re-reg posts and threads. That would require some addition on the code side to provide a method of matching re-reg accounts. And other stuff such as minimum post counts are already covered by configuration settings.

But I think there is decent merit in having some bots floating around doing clean-ups. Even if all of the OP suggestions can't be done, having it available means that mods will think of new uses for it.
I wouldn't have a single bot covering the entire site. Performance wise it's tough to do without having very deep access, and some forums may not even want it. Instead I'd create one bot per forum which wants it, and go from there.

LoLth

as Seamus said, some nice suggestions and worth pursuing further to see what extent it could work to.

As for attacking the idea, I think Beasty and Dudara were just continuing the suggestion and bringing up potential issues that they could envision given their background on boards and , in one case, translating that to an example to help illustrate the issue in terms others might better understand.

from my POV:
thread ban enforcement: dont think a bot constantly monitoring a thread would be the way to go resource-wise but a list of user IDS that gets checked when the poster his reply or disabling the reply option for posters on the list could be an option.

min post bot: not sure what the benefit of this one would be overall. Apart from forum requests are there many postcount requirement areas on boards? also not sure how this would "Make rereg posting impossible for select threads or even whole forums." . it would make new user posting impossible (as well as re-regges) until teh new poster got to a post count or age at which time they could post, as could the re-reg.

Scan reregs for rule breaches: this could just be alerting based on the current system. If user X is re-reg then pop up if event happens (card given). Not sure about the need for a bot account to manage this. Also, this is not necessarily something that would be needed 100% of the time, sometime a re-reg is known and allowed for various reasons.

Auto-apply rereg bans: I do like this one. re-regging should not be a means to wipe the slate clean in terms of forum behaviour. Users own their words and if a history follows a user then that's the history the user generated. This should be combined with "fuzzy" history for all users, lesser offenses fade quicker from the record while major breaches hang around longer. We do this manually now (yellow for reacting to a troll on thread is not seen as important after a few months, its repeated behaviour that gets noticed so maybe a function to amalgamate behaviour, lots of minors = major over time, single minor gets dropped).

Delete banned posters from moved threads: again not sure of the need for this one. its a bit specific. If a banned poster's post gets moved to a forum they are banned from, does that invalidate their contribution to the thread up to that point? I get that starting a political thread in AH after being banned from Politics Cafe could be seen as a workaround and if that then gets moved to the Cafe forum it may be.... this is very much the judgement call type affair Beasty was referring to imho. there's arguments for and against in this instance I would think and it would be difficult to find a one-bot-fits-all rule.

hullaballoo

It would be useful if there was a bot that would check for mod edits/deletes and make sure all instances where the offending post is quoted are similarly edited/deleted as they can be missed in busy threads and manually doing it is a pita.

KyussBeeshop

Ya all of this could be implemented serverside, the only reason I suggest a bot account is if serverside changes are considered too disruptive to the codebase.


On the cross-scanning for rereg stuff, I guess that depends on how you implement it - my OP was written assuming a barebones API, where you could retrieve raw text lists of specific information about a poster, and do matching on that info - for example:
Old account: List of banned forum ids, list of banned thread ids
Rereg account: List of forum ids posted in, list of thread ids posted in

That'd be enough information to do the first step for cross-scanning rereg stuff - there'd be a ton of more in depth checks to avoid false-positives/mistakes though (this, false positive checks, would be one of the primary purposes of the feature, next to convenience), but all using a similar principle.


On the minimum post count requirement - I don't think this is already implemented on a thread-by-thread basis, which would be the primarily useful thing against reregs - but does already exist for forums as a whole.
The main useful thing from this, is that posters who constantly just rereg immediately after they are banned and/or posts deleted, to troll/soapbox a thread, will have a greater practical difficulty in carrying this out.

I would amend that suggestion though, to perhaps only implement the minimum post requirement on posters whose join date(*) comes after the restriction is placed on the thread.
* The time of 'joining' here could be adjusted, to only consider a new accounts first post, as the time of joining - to make creating a backlog of rereg accounts more of a pain.


On deleting banned posters from moved threads:
While I agree that a banned posters contribution may be valid before the thread is moved, they lose the right of reply afterwards, which can lead to the unchallenged dismissal of their posts - which in many cases is worse than just deleting the posts.

I guess this suggestion may not always be practical though, as if a large number of posts get deleted this way, it could disrupt the thread.

seamus

OK, I get where you are on the minimum post count thing now. The re-reg stuff would depend a lot on what's available in the API. Even then it could be quite labour intensive for a bot to have to compile and compute information in this way.

It's been a while since I've seen an admin/mod interface, so I don't know what level of metadata could be stored in a thread. But if there was some concept of thread "notes" that could store parameters for the bot, that would be useful and require no codebase changes.

So a set of "notes" might look like

---

#MinPostCountForNewUsers:20

#BannedUserIds:152658,55428

#ReOpenThreadAt:"2017-02-01 23:00"

---

And only mods can see these and edit them as necessary. The bot then uses these parameters to guide what it does.

One potential downside I can see is that the bot would only act after things have been posted. So if someone figured out that the minimum post count is 20 and the bot checks every 60 seconds, then they spam the forum for a minute to get past the restrictions.

Or spam the forum to see if they can fnck with the bot and cause it to fall over.

But definitely worth exploring if the devs would be willing to expose the functionality provided in the API. Maybe even give some trusted people access to a test environment to build and test a bot?