Being Tested
Community moderation for reported comments and links
Testing requested: This was recently implemented. Please test it and let us know your feedback in the comments section.
We are considering creating a new page to make moderation more community-driven and give users a way to earn trusted/top contributor status faster. The idea is to replace our admin-only report review with a community voting queue on a new page.
This is an alternative to the comments blocking proposal.
- Reported comments and links will be listed on this new "Contribute" page.
- The reporter automatically casts the first Remove vote.
- All users can vote. Everyone has the same voting power.
- Voting "Remove" counts positive (+2), voting "Keep" counts negative (-2). Voting neutral counts as slightly negative (-1). It indicates the user doesn’t fully agree with the removal proposal.
- Outcomes:
-- Score >= +10: content removed
-- Score <= -10: content kept and closed
This is an alternative to the comments blocking proposal.
- Reported comments and links will be listed on this new "Contribute" page.
- The reporter automatically casts the first Remove vote.
- All users can vote. Everyone has the same voting power.
- Voting "Remove" counts positive (+2), voting "Keep" counts negative (-2). Voting neutral counts as slightly negative (-1). It indicates the user doesn’t fully agree with the removal proposal.
- Outcomes:
-- Score >= +10: content removed
-- Score <= -10: content kept and closed
Comments (53)
Minimum age requirement is probably a good idea, but I may be biased, being in my sixties. 🙂
I dont think anyones vote should weigh in more.
I dont want to insult anyone but there are some Top and Trusted contributors who only have the title beacuse they just simply edit a lot, sometimes with solid info sometimes with easily disprovable false info.
I just had to report 5 pics on a babes profile where 4 was AI created and the 5th was not even her. And The fact that the image number could exceed the normal 20 means it was done by a Top Contributor.
Also so many babes were put and being put as carrer ended/inacitve beacuse they transitioned from mainstream porn to OF mostly by the same Top contributor where most times a simple click to their OF or quick search with their name and the word "retired" would bring up a tweet from them where the performer said "no i am not retiring i just don't want to work for a big company anymore".
All in all Top and Trusted contributors aren't infallible and if it get easier to get it it would be more so.
A simple majority should be enough to determine wheter or not something is over the line.
3.
Maybe some minimum account age and also some activity should be needed to vote. Like for example say you need a month old active account to vote and if you have been inactive for a month your voting is disabled until you have been active for a month.
I also think when a comment is geting removed the person who wrote it should get a notification and maybe a chance for appeal. Its not hard to imagine a user saying: "oh x person is so over rated" or "those new fake tits look awful" under a top babes profie and quicly getting 10 votes for removal whilst what they said is not crossing any line. Some comments might be unpopular and deserve a lot of thumbs down but that doesn't mean they should be removed. Free speech means everyone has the right to say any controversial/negative thing they want until they start calling people slurs or spreading misinformation.
The idea here is to make a system that lets the community decide which comments should be removed. Requiring 4 to 10 more "I agree" votes than "I disagree" should ensure this system only takes down those comments that are not ok, such as personal attacks, derogatory comments, or outright spam.
The link evaluation version of this is more straightforward: broken links and links posted in the wrong section should be removed.
Believing some people will not try remove any criticism of their favorites is wishful thinking.
Most people are way more emotional than logical.
I thnik if its not something we try to prevent beforehand its only gonna be a problem later on.
When voting on removing someones comment is just as easy as giving it a dislike most people who would have previously just given it a dislike will vote for its removal.
Which i think then would lead to either a lot of users complaining to mods or just straight up leaving the site without a word.
We'd monitor things and intervene if needed. Or bin it completely if it fails to deliver.
Derogatory, racist and personal attacks should be blocked without having to go through a voting session pr comment.
To me it seems easier to let each user hide comments from users. For me it's mostly to not have to see the "wanker crowd" comments all over the site. That way the wankers can keep posting to their hearts content. And users who want to read about their wanking can.
Let us know what you think. We'll be monitoring usage closely. If we feel that the decisions coming out of this are different from what we think, we'll make the necessary changes.
So, humm yeah! I have serious concerns about this approach to community moderation.
I understand the reasoning behind it. If the purpose is to reduce the amount of time administrators spend dealing with reports, allowing experienced members of the community to help identify problematic comments and links could be useful. I just don't think there's enough explanation about how this is actually supposed to work in practice, and I think it creates several problems that could ultimately make moderation more complicated rather than less.
My first concern is who is actually going to be making these decisions. Is this system intended for all members, or only those who have been given the titles “Trusted Contributor” and “Top Contributor”? Because if “Trusted Contributor” and “Top Contributor” are going to have greater voting weight, then there needs to be a very clear explanation of who can actually be trusted, how those privileges are awarded, how they are monitored, and what happens when someone with those privileges abuses them. This is especially important because there are already concerns about Trusted and Top Contributors abusing the privileges they have been given, as well as concerns about favouritism and complaints either not being addressed or being ignored altogether. Those are existing problems, whether the administrators want to acknowledge them or not. I am not saying this to make the feedback personal, and I am deliberately not naming individuals, but I also don't think it would be helpful to pretend these problems don't exist. If anything, they make it even more important to have clear safeguards in place before giving certain members additional influence over moderation decisions.
Being a prolific contributor does not automatically mean someone is qualified to make moderation decisions, and giving someone more voting power does not make their judgment inherently more reliable.
A moderation system cannot be designed around the assumption that the people doing the moderating will always behave responsibly. That's precisely why safeguards and accountable moderators exist.
There’s also a potential conflict of interest here. Babepedia is a relatively small community, and members regularly interact with the same people, or at least that is what I have observed. If two members already have disagreements with each other, a reported comment could easily become a dispute between individuals rather than an objective assessment of whether the comment actually violates the rules. Once voting is involved, it becomes possible for people to vote based on WHO made the comment rather than WHAT the comment actually says. That raises another concern: this could become a popularity contest or a system of factions. If several members routinely agree with one another, they could have a significant influence over the outcome of reports. Someone who is unpopular could then find themselves repeatedly outvoted, regardless of whether their interpretation of the rules is actually correct.
I am also concerned about the proposed "mismatch" system. If someone's vote disagrees with the eventual outcome, they receive a negative score impact. I understand the intention, but this could discourage legitimate disagreement. People should be able to vote according to their honest interpretation of the rules without being effectively punished because the majority ultimately disagreed with them. Otherwise, there is an incentive to vote according to what someone thinks the community will decide RATHER than what they actually believe is correct.
The proposed +/-10 threshold also needs considerably more explanation. What happens when only a few people vote? What happens when a report concerns something serious but doesn't receive enough votes to reach either threshold? Does the report simply remain unresolved? And what happens when a large number of people vote on something controversial? A high number of votes does not necessarily mean that the decision is correct.
There is also a very important difference between something that is objectively identifiable and something that requires judgment. A broken link is relatively straightforward. Harassment, personal attacks, derogatory comments, threats, racism, and similar conduct are much more complicated. Those situations require someone to look at the context and apply the site's rules consistently.
For example, if someone responds to another member with something as serious as "go kill yourself," I don't think that should become a community popularity contest where members vote on whether it is serious enough to remove. That is precisely the kind of situation where responsible moderation is necessary. There are people on the internet who will say things from behind a screen that they would never have the courage to say directly to another person. The fact that something happens online doesn't make it less serious, and the community should not have to hold an election before clearly abusive conduct is addressed.
I also think the proposal needs to explain what safeguards exist against people coordinating their votes, retaliation, personal disputes, or people deliberately reporting comments simply because they dislike the person who made them.
Another issue is transparency. The explanation currently leaves me with more questions than answers. How exactly are votes weighted? How are Trusted and Top Contributor statuses determined? Can contributors see who voted? Can users vote on reports involving themselves or people with whom they have an ongoing dispute? Can votes be changed? How long does a case remain open? What happens when there is insufficient
participation? Is there an appeal process? Can an administrator override a community decision? And if so, under what circumstances?
Most importantly, who remains accountable when the community gets it wrong?
I don't think the solution to an overworked moderation system is to simply transfer the responsibility to the community and hope the community makes the right decision. Community input can be useful, but it should assist moderation rather than replace it.
There are some things that could potentially be handled through community voting, particularly more objective issues such as broken links or obvious spam. But serious harassment, threats, personal attacks, discriminatory comments, and other potentially harmful conduct should remain subject to actual moderator review.
Otherwise, there is a real risk of creating a system where the people with the most status, the most influence, or the largest group of supporters effectively become the moderators.
That isn't necessarily moderation. It's voting.
And voting does not automatically produce a fair or correct result.
I would strongly recommend that Babepedia clarify the safeguards, eligibility requirements, conflict-of-interest rules, appeal process, administrator oversight, and protections against coordinated or retaliatory voting before implementing or expanding this system.
I don't think community involvement is necessarily a bad idea. I think giving the community unchecked responsibility for moderation is the part that needs much more consideration.
At the moment, this feels less like adding another layer of moderation and more like moving the responsibility for moderation onto the users without adequately explaining what happens when the users themselves become the problem.
Cases remain open until a majority is reached (which is a score of -10 or 10). An admin can always step in and make the final call, or even reverse the decision.
There are also no more links to or consequences to contributor status. We scratched that part.
We are aware this system could generate undesirable results or end up being abused, so we are monitoring things closely. Especially in the beginning, we evaluate every case and leave the door open to review and change course if we think it’s necessary. People can complain if they disagree.
So far, it’s looking pretty good.
I get that moderation is needed, but that is a different issue, and in that regard I agree with most of what @Teagan wrote.
This comment reporting feature is aimed at those comments that cross the line, not the ones someone disagrees with. That’s why we have the voting process.
For example, there is a pro-COVID vaccine comment that has been approved to stay up, and there's one that's mildly against the vaccine that has been shut down. All this is doing is opening up opportunities to create narratives and letting the inmates run the prison.
The topic of user is leaving the site has come up a lot, and it's stuff like this that's going to really get people to leave. In short, left-leaning people's tend to be more into the moderation and censorship, teacher's pet lifestyle so they're going to end up downvoting every, that doesn't fit there narrative.
There's actually a good article that covers a scientific study on the topic at hand, should anyone want to read it:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2210666120
And yes, I totally get that you're looking to free up time. My rejection of this idea has basically nothing to do with administration at all, but rather what things like this always lead to.
Also, I know several of us have suggested adding some more moderators or people to help you out... Is that even a possibility? If so, maybe it should be a new topic to discuss?
The comment praising Dolly Parton can stay. Saying that she helped fund COVID vaccine research is a factual statement about something she did. We don't consider that political. The other comment says that because of this, "she should be in prison". We consider that disrespectful and would have removed it ourselves.
So from our perspective, this particular example is actually another encouraging sign that the system is working as intended. The community independently arrived at the same moderation decisions we would have made ourselves.
I also read the study you linked, and I don't think it supports the conclusion you're drawing from it. It does find a partisan difference: Republicans in the US were consistently less willing than Democrats or independents to remove misinformation. But it also clearly says the political affiliation of the person making the post had little or no effect on moderation decisions. So the claim that "left-leaning people are going to downvote everything that doesn't fit their narrative" isn't backed up by this study.
I have three more thoughts on this that I hope will give you more trust in this comment-voting system:
1) Our site has an international userbase. While the US is #1 in terms of visitors, it accounts for less than 30%, so a US Democrat-vs-Republican divide isn't a very good model of our community.
2) We continuously monitor things and will keep doing so. If we see a small group coordinating or otherwise trying to influence voting outcomes, we will step in and take action. This is not a "set and forget" system. Every report and every vote is logged.
3) It's easy to tweak the system. If experience shows that too few people can decide a case, or that the voting pattern creates other problems, we can increase the thresholds or add other safeguards.
To address your 2nd message: We are considering moderator roles, yes, but that's for later. They'll probably be used for biography editing in the first place. And maybe comment moderation in a later phase, if we think it's necessary.
Someone wrote a negative opinion and they can't handle it.
For reference (for the others), comment cases 111 and 112 were both on Nata Lee's profile page:
"Fake and overrated - Fake blonde, fake tits, ugly tattoo and big pussy lips"
"Shitty tattoo, fake breast, bad face, coloured hair - 1/10"
It's ok to respectfully voice your opinion, but using terms like shitty, ugly, horrible, ... crosses the line. If a comment is only negative and has nothing positive to add, we also believe it's better to remove it.
"Someone wrote a negative opinion and they can't handle it."
What if the "they" is the actual model?
As the site has grown, more and more models are checking their own profile pages on our site. If they see several comments that are as negative as the above examples, they're much more likely to demand the complete removal of their profile page. We have seen multiple cases in recent months where a model requested to be removed (which we obviously do), after seeing just a few negative comments.
What's more important?
Keeping every negative shitpost up and risking removal? Or keeping the models happy and their pages up?
But neither of these comments called the model anything directly. They pointed out from their perspective the models negative physical attributes. Whether you agree with them or not i think they should be able to freely express themselves which means if the majority disagrees they can dislike the comment or even express their disagreement in a reply. There are countless examples of this on this and other sites.
Complete removal when all they did was express their subjective opinion is just overly controlling not mention it just creates a bubble where everyone in it thinks that everyone agrees with them.
Anybody who can't take a negative comment about themselves or someone they like should leave the internet now and only come back when they mature enough to take it.
Btw Pryda could you give a few examples of these modles who "after seeing just a few negative comments" demanded the complete removal of their profile page?
1 ) You need to allow the person(s) reporting a comment to have the ability to write their reasoning or why they're reporting it. Otherwise, every vote is one-sided.
2 ) The person(s) who are reporting a comment and who have voted should not be hidden.
3 ) This post, "Community moderation for reported comments and links," should be left at the top of Feedback & Ideas.
The happy birthday comments are completely harmless.
I don't make them myself but I really don't see the problem with them.
@Teagan: The reason is shown. It's right there after the label: "Reason for reporting". There are some prefilled options, but the user can also specify something else.
We may show the person doing the reporting, as well as the votes, if more people want this. Just wondering, why is it important for you?
I don't see a good reason to have this idea at the top of the ideas page. People who want to leave feedback will find it or email us.
@Oppaidaisuki: I suppose people are annoyed by them. They are harmless but also useless and they waste space. People have been reporting these regularly, so it's no surprise.
I don't want to know who did the reporting as it will most likely cause retaliation. Especially considering in some cases it's obvious of who sent it in
Also I did notice a problem there is nothing to stop someone from seeing their comments in the contribute tag and delete.
I do like the idea were the reporter would have to state the reasoning behind the report and have that be given during the report.
Also I think before someone votes they have to read the context because I have a feeling ppl are just voting without the context for the comment
I'm actually responsible for reporting many birthday comments, since I see them as parasocial and something that will never be read by the addressed person.
On the other side I think some "disrespectful" reports are removed too lightly and shouldn't be removed just because an opinion is (sometimes obviously) shit or controversial.
If someone wants to make a fool of themselves, the downvotes will make an example of them.
Maybe a system of sorting comments by rating or at least putting the negative rated ones down at the bottom or into a spoiler would allow for different opinions without tainting the atmosphere on the site.
@skyrt99: Disrespectful is quite subjective. I see many people vote "keep" on comments that say the model is dumb, disgusting, repulsive, ... The list goes on and on. As much as we are for free speech, I find it really hard to defend such comments. Why should we keep such negative comments if they add nothing but negativity, the majority doesn't want to see them, and if keeping them risks pissing off the model, resulting in the complete removal of the profile page?
Perhaps we should add an account option for those who want the uncensored, unfiltered version, where all removed comments remain visible?
Sorting comments by rating is not a bad idea. Please submit it as a new idea here.
The voting on pictures is working great. I would just suggest that important things like reporting underage pictures is still manually moderated.