Hey Sam, Peter, and moderators,
That you can't report a post sounds like a bug which will need to be fixed.
The post in question is 'okay', though. After five days you can be pretty much guaranteed that it's been looked at by a host of gurus and moderators. Yes, it's promotional, but ice's purpose for being on the forum is not to promote his website, and the website in question is not commercial. He's enough of a regular that he's being given some leeway in matters like this, with the post being treated more like "Hey look what I made!" than "Everyone go visit this!". (Of course, the moment he'd start a second thread about the same website, that'd be flagged.)
On my screen the 'Report' link on a post takes me to a 'Report spam' page with a drop-down list which says 'Why this is spam'. But if I want to write something about the post and need to see a comment box, I have to go to the posters profile page and click 'Report' there.
Two 'Report' links, two different results. Maybe just change the link to 'Spam'?
[ 03-Sep-2010, at 02:34 by fabyomama ]
Two 'Report' links, two different results.
They indeed do completely different things, and are intended for completely different situations. The report on a single post temporarily hides that post from view, and is visible to all Moderators for that forum, so that action can be taken swiftly.
With the report on a profile (or a blog) you're saying that the entire account (or blog) violates the travellerspoint rules, which is something only Sam and Peter take action on; nothing is hidden from view with that either.
It would be nice if a forum post report had a textarea where you could give some additional information to the responsible moderator, but in 95%+ of the cases, I think the three selectbox options are good enough, and you can trust the moderator to figure it out from there.
Not having the link would indeed be a bug, but judging by fabyomama's reply the link is still available somewhere?! I can't actually log in as a Respected Member, so I'm just going by the code on the back-end here, but it should be visible at the top right side of each post. This is probably a different location than in the past; maybe that's what threw you? Please let me know if you still don't see it though...
Fabyomama, yes, there is a difference between the two reports. If we were going back through this now and starting from scratch we would probably try and make it all link into one system, but for now basically the profile report is used for reporting members and can only be seen by Admin. The forum reports obviously are visible immediately to everyone (in terms of blocking off the post etc.). Typically, if a forum post is flagged, it's not necessary to also flag the profile. We usually won't ban a user for one dodgy post in the forum (unless they look really dodgy right off the bat, ie. shoe salesmen etc.) but if they have posted a few times and don't get a hint it will show when we pull up their details on the back end. In case you are ever in doubt, you can also just PM me. I am usually the one going through all the spam reports on the back end. Which reminds me; thanks for all the reporting these last few months!!
...Which reminds me; thanks for all the reporting these last few months!!
Makes me sound like a real hardass but thanks to both of you for the clarification.
[ 03-Sep-2010, at 03:49 by fabyomama ]
Hey Sam and everyone,
So now I can see a link in the upper right corner that says, 'report,' but I couldn't find it beside this guy's post- at least I'm almost certain about it. I'm pretty sure I looked in the top right corner. So maybe I'm blind or maybe it wasn't there then and it got fixed, or maybe it was there all along . . . I feel pretty dumb for bringing it up then.
Thanx for clarifying about the forum rules, Sander.
Steph
Hi Steph,
I'm willing to vouch for ice and his post. Though I can not speak for Hien, I'm sure he has reviewed it too. He and his family are missionaries so (like most travelers) he's only able to post regularly when they have decent internet. He's a good contributor in the CA/SA forum, has a 264 post count and has never stepped over the line when it comes to the rules. Given the way the post is written, he's asking for help rather than outwardly promoting their family site, as Sander also stated. He made sure to post in Off Topic which allows for a bit more flexibility when the poster has a "clean" history.
Like Sam, I do want to thank you and everyone else for the great job of keeping the forums as spam free as possible. Such diligence is one of the reasons TP is the coolest travel site out there. Well, I think so. Thanks again!
Hi Steph,
I'm willing to vouch for ice and his post. Though I can not speak for Hien, I'm sure he has reviewed it too. He and his family are missionaries so (like most travelers) he's only able to post regularly when they have decent internet. He's a good contributor in the CA/SA forum, has a 264 post count and has never stepped over the line when it comes to the rules. Given the way the post is written, he's asking for help rather than outwardly promoting their family site, as Sander also stated. He made sure to post in Off Topic which allows for a bit more flexibility when the poster has a "clean" history.
Like Sam, I do want to thank you and everyone else for the great job of keeping the forums as spam free as possible. Such diligence is one of the reasons TP is the coolest travel site out there. Well, I think so. Thanks again!
Thanks Isadora. I was unclear about the forum rules. Now I think I understand how it works I see that he isn't "outwardly promoting" his site and that he has a "'clean' history" and all that. I see that the post is not considered spam and the reasons why. I have nothing against ice.
Thanks Isadora. I was unclear about the forum rules. Now I think I understand how it works I see that he isn't "outwardly promoting" his site and that he has a "'clean' history" and all that. I see that the post is not considered spam and the reasons why. I have nothing against ice.
Steph - it's kind of a "feel it out" thing when moderating. Some posts are obvious - other's, not quite so much. Again, Off Topic has it's own "personality", per se. Had I been you, I would have questioned the post too. And, If I didn't moderate CA/SA, I probably wouldn't have known ice's posting history as well as I do.
There's a bit of a fine line between flagging someone and not. I edited a post in CA/SA because it was flagged as possible spam - a link was included and the member was a 1st time forum poster. Turns out (thanks to Sander commenting), this person has been blogging on TP since 2004. I was able to replace the URL. It's not always a "cut and dried" situation and I'd rather have someone error on the side of caution when questioning a post than letting real spam slide through.
So, again - thank you!
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