M9
In it's current form the moderation system is extremely primitive, yet another piece of YTMND left over from back in the day when 100,000 sites seemed like a lot.
Read more for the whole plan.
The moderation system as it is currently is just not adequate. It currently consists of roughly 40 moderators who have the ability to NSFW/SFW a site, flag it for me to look at or mark it for deletion (which currently never happens). This is a less than ideal setup as it means I have to deal with a lot of moderation when I could be doing something a lot more useful like coding.
Punishments
An all new punishments system will allow us to deal with problems in a much simpler way. Currently when a user is acting up we can either ignore them or delete them completely. Usually they are just ignored, and deleted when they become a real problem. With the new system super moderators will be able to dole out punishments on problematic users such as taking away the ability to vote, make sites, make comments or even turn commenting off on a specific site. These punishments will have an expiration and will be logged for referencing in the future if the user continues to be problematic.
Deletion System
A new system for deleting users and sites will be put in place. It will be a queued system, which will clear roughly every five days. This has already been implemented for users who have chosen to delete their own accounts. Previously when a user deleted their account they could no longer log in and the system never actually deleted their account. Currently, once a user deletes themselves, they get added to the deletion queue and then will automatically be deleted five days later, the user can log in and undelete themselves at any time before the five days are up.
This is similar to how the new
site deletion system will work as well. I'm still hashing out the
details to avoid removing any of the current functionality, but the
way I'm assuming it will work is that you can delete two sites per
day instantly, otherwise you will have to queue them for deletion,
which will take either three or five days for full deletion. The
system will be designed like this for a few reasons: 1) a malicious
user can not go into another user's account and delete all of their
sites. 2) a user can delete a site instantly in order to replace the
old site with something new . 3) it allows users to undelete a site
if they change their mind before the deadline.
Tiered
moderation system
Moderators
These will replace the current moderators as "worker bees".
My aspiration is to have roughly 250 currently active users become
moderators. Their abilities will be fairly limited, as we don't want
to give user information out to just anyone. Their abilities will be:
decide if a site is marked incorrectly (work safe or not work safe)
and report problematic users or sites to super-moderators.
Basically
when a moderator logs in to the control panel they will be given a
queue of sites that haven't been checked for innappropriate content
and their main job is really just to look at YTMNDs. It's a pretty
simple setup, but there is power in numbers. Moderators will be
watched fairly closely by super-moderators and myself, and I can only
assume there will be a lot of promotion (and possibly demotion) as
certain people shine through as being exceptionally helpful (or
unhelpful).
Super Moderators
Super moderators will have a new level of access which will enable
the majority of the day to day moderation which I do (or more
importantly don't do) to be done by YTMND users.
Super-mods will
have access to access logs and some sensitive user information, and
such will be required to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement to give
YTMND the something to stand on in the case that a super mod decides
to go AWOL.
Super moderators have the same abilities as regular moderators but their main responsibility is overseeing the moderators and making sure they are doing their jobs properly. Super moderators will have access to full moderation logs, meaning they can see the action of any other moderator or super mod. They will also be able to go through the dupe account list and the automagic "gimmick account finder" list.
They will be able to view the full login log of any user if needed
to solve many of the problems that arise. An integral part of the new
system is the deletion system. Allowing moderators to delete sites at
their discretion is extremely problematic and causes a lot of
push-back from the users. The deleting of sites and users requires a
more attentive stance. It is because of this that the deletion of any
site or user requires an administrators direct approval. I will
explain more on the deletion system later in this post.
Administrators
Currently this group will only
consist of me. Until I let go a little and learn to trust some of the
super moderators with the administration of the site, I will be
maintaining my current level of moderation. My responsibilities will
include: approving deletion requests of users and sites, watching
over super-moderators, working with the entire moderation team to
improve the system and streamline the process.
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At this point there is still a good amount of work to be done. Mainly I need to integrate all the tools I've written and been using via the command line or just straight in SQL and put them into an easy to use interface. I've finished most of the design and back end setup so it's really just a matter of me sitting down and hammering out some grunt work.
I've also been working on some nifty stuff for a new “developer interface” which will allow users who are fluent in programming to hit up the YTMND system and mine some useful data. I'm hoping this could spawn some new and creative apps or possibly even some new features. If you are a developer and have an idea for a feature or application that could make use of the data we collect here on YTMND and want to beta test the interface, drop me some mail at max@ytmnd.com. I would like to bring some more developers on as the TODO list grows a lot faster than I can hammer it out and the more people I have to discuss new features with, the better.