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Megadeth
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2005 5:26 pm
Posts: 264
Location: Norway
PostPosted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:10 pm 
 

There seems to be someone asking about rejected or blacklisted bands pretty much every day. The users are always fresh and it's usually their first post.

What about adding some script that will search for "reject*" and "blacklist*" in topic and body when users with less than 10 posts are trying to create a new topic? If the script finds matches it can give them some prominent onscreen warning, with a short text and a link to the appropriate topic for asking about rejected and blacklisted bands, that they have to bypass in order to submit.

The current situation is obviously causing a lot of extra moderation, and the feedback to the users is often very negative, if they even get some feedback; it seems like topics sometimes just gets locked without explanation. I don't know how motivating this routine is for new users, while all the unnecessary topics creates a lot of mess and pushes down more relevant topics, to what I expect is the annoyance of everyone else. I know users are "supposed" to read the rules, and that they probably say yes to it at some point during the registration, but all sites have this and very few ever does read the rules when they register somewhere; it is counter-productive and evidently not realistic to expect that they do.

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Azmodes
Ultranaut

Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:44 am
Posts: 11196
Location: Ob der Enns, Austria
PostPosted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:28 pm 
 

Megadeth wrote:
What about adding some script that will search for "reject*" and "blacklist*" in topic and body when users with less than 10 posts are trying to create a new topic? If the script finds matches it can give them some prominent onscreen warning, with a short text and a link to the appropriate topic for asking about rejected and blacklisted bands, that they have to bypass in order to submit.

I'm no programmer but that sounds like a lot of work for something that is most definitely overkill.

Megadeth wrote:
The current situation is obviously causing a lot of extra moderation, and the feedback to the users is often very negative, if they even get some feedback; it seems like topics sometimes just gets locked without explanation. I don't know how motivating this routine is for new users, while all the unnecessary topics creates a lot of mess and pushes down more relevant topics, to what I expect is the annoyance of everyone else. I know users are "supposed" to read the rules, and that they probably say yes to it at some point during the registration, but all sites have this and very few ever does read the rules when they register somewhere; it is counter-productive and evidently not realistic to expect that they do.

Well, let me tell you how rejections work from a user perspective.

The user's band is rejected, he receives the following email:
Quote:
Sorry *user*, Encyclopaedia Metallum was forced to reject your submission for the band *band*, for the following reason:

*reason*

If you want to object to this rejection, please do so in the appropriate thread in the Suggestions and Complaints sub-forum. Do not e-mail moderators directly about this.

Sincerely,
- Azmodes, Encyclopaedia Metallum

Note that the thread they should post in is very clearly linked here. Not much room for interpretation. Still, as you observed, some people can't seem to grasp even this simple exercise in reading comprehension, but I doubt the owners are going to create some fancy, spoonfeeding script to accommodate said group.

Those unwanted threads you speak of are (mostly) locked without further ado because we make it a point to not oblige people's inability (or unwillingness?) to follow extremely simple instructions. We link to the correct thread and close it. Seems perfectly alright. Seriously, the system isn't exactly rocket science, you don't even need to read the rules to figure out where to post your objections. It's all in the email.

Also, I don't think the current situation is really that bad. Moderation is manageable in that regard, a few stray threads here and there are easily dealt with.
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Megadeth
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2005 5:26 pm
Posts: 264
Location: Norway
PostPosted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:52 pm 
 

It could be considered unnecessary or have an overly specific purpose, but the sheer amount of those threads would tip me in favor of "for", even though I agree to the principle of not "spoon feeding" people or "rewarding" their incompetence.

It is not much work. It could be more work if the programmers thinks of a better way to achieve the same (as I'm just a hobby programmer without any large projects), but a simple way of testing for this is neither difficult or resource or time consuming.

1. When a user tries to submit a thread, check the number of posts he has made. I assume this is already stored in a logged in user object, so it doesn't require any extra db queries.
2. If the user has less than 10 posts (and the user has not accepted step 3), do a strpos() for "reject" and "blacklist" in the submitted strings (topic and body) to see if the words are used somewhere.
3. If the words are found go back to the form instead of posting, and add a prominent warning where the user has to tick "I accept". If the user don't accept this loop will continue; if the user accepts then the topic will be posted.

There's after all a reason why they create topics, and one solution to this problem could be scooping them up with a script like this. Considering people are creating these threads all the time there must be something that could be done, even though this might not be the best solution. It should ideally probably be a more radical solution that deals with the problem when it occurs (the feedback to users trying to add blacklisted bands, etc.). Maybe they don't read their e-mail that often and don't realize you have sent one if a band is rejected. I don't know, but there is some sort of missing communication.

EDIT: Even if the moderators find the extra moderation acceptable it does create a lot of locked, unnecessary topics that takes up a lot of space. Every second topic in this suggestion and complaints section is concerning rejected and blacklisted bands, so it would cut the number of topics in half if they were not here, and would have kept the focus on real issues for everyone that enters.

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Azmodes
Ultranaut

Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:44 am
Posts: 11196
Location: Ob der Enns, Austria
PostPosted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 4:21 am 
 

*shrugs* As I said, I'm no programmer. Maybe it's a simple thing to conjure up, sure. Sounds relatively convoluted, though. I still don't think it should be done, there's neither the pressing practical need nor the incentive to make it easier for people not bothering with the rules/basic reading comprehension to use the site. Maybe I'm stubborn that way, dunno. Yes, sometimes the reason for unwanted threads is people simply not checking their emails or some technical issue, but I'd say these cases are very much in the minority and in any case the thread gets locked, user directed to the correct one. It's for the owners to decide anyway, but I'm pretty sure what their answer is going to be.
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Alhadis
Madder Max

Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:35 am
Posts: 4014
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 4:35 am 
 

Coding wise it wouldn't be that hard to implement, no. It's only a few regular expressions' worth of code, but it gets complicated when you realise the forum's software is independent from the site's core code. And I doubt the owners are gonna be too eager to rush in and start tinkering with third-party code just to implement a pretty basic feature.

My assumption is that people are more prone to starting new threads asking about rejected/blacklisted bands if they see existing threads whose subject lines refer to denied submissions. Which is why I reckon it's good practice to lock the thread AND edit the subject line with " (LOCKED: PLEASE USE PROPER THREAD)" or something. :rolleyes: I don't know if the current forum software allows board mods to merge threads into existing topics...

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