Improving The OzBargain Environment, Acting Respectfully & Goals for 2017

neil on 30/01/2017 - 12:35

In 2015, we made a post called Acting Respectfully. We want to continue the points in that post but further expand:

Issues

  • We encourage transparent and open debate especially when determining whether a post is a good deal or not. Most of the comments are fine but there are a small % of comments which are not. Users should feel comfortable with participating on OzBargain without feeling attacked.
  • Got a site question? Don't guess an answer. Ask us! —- Wonder why x store is not banned? Don't make up a conspiracy theory. Ask us! Most of the answers you are looking for are in the help, located at the bottom of each page. Contact us via -> 1
  • Members not using OzBargain features in the intended way (e.g. not searching/searching/missed warning & posting duplicates, negative voting incorrectly, not reporting but commenting in deal, RRP policing, etc..)

Actions by Moderators

  • If we spot an unnecessarily angry or aggressive comment, we will call it out in a comment. If the comments continue, we will continue to call it out and encourage a Talk with a Moderator coversation. I'll make it simple. If you continually contribute negatively to this community, you won't be welcome.
  • If we spot a comment that should be a report (e.g. fix the title), we will call it out in a comment reminding users to use report.
  • More reminders about how things work in the forums and newsletters.
  • Soliciting feedback from users who have questions but didn't know where to ask.
  • Soliciting feedback from users who have posted a duplicate deal to determine why.
  • Remind users that is up to the community to decide if a deal is good or not; good by voting +, not good by not voting, and major issues/cheaper elsewhere by voting -.

Actions by Users

  • Be respectful in conversations. Discussion is fine but attacking others is not.
  • Spot an aggressive or unnecessarily angry comment? Report it by hitting the report link.
  • Got a question? Ask us!

How the Moderation Crew deals with issues/reports

  • If it's a simple issue, a moderator can resolve the issue based on the deal posting guidelines or the commenting guidelines.
  • For more complicated issues, the moderators discuss the issue in our Slack chat room which usually consists of at least 3 or 4 people but during business hours up to 7.
  • Our system records notes and history for stores and users. We also have an internal points system so that we apply penalties consistently and in the case of repeat offenders (e.g. multiple sockpuppeting), the system will know how long to ban the user or store. We take all of this into account when coming up with a decision. Where we don't have a guideline or need to improve a guidelines, we solicit feedback from the community and add/remove/change the guidelines.
  • That's the whole process. Just thinking of some of the odd narratives people have come up with… No special treatment for any users/stores. No payments, no sponsors, no kickbacks, no keeping deals up for "hits", no revoking votes to please stores, no randomly throwing bad deals into the forums or any other alternative facts.

Site Feedback Have site issue, question, feedback, bug, suggestions etc? Ask it here.
Talk with a Moderator Got an issue that you would like to discuss privately with moderators? Ask it here.
Help Got a simple question that you think we may have answered already? Check the help or the FAQ
Report Link Spot a comment or deal that has an issue? Hit the report link located underneath each post or comment

Note: No need to name users in this thread, just hit report link on comment.

  1. Talk with a Moderator, PMing us (Non-Moderation Issues), Facebook, Email, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ etc. ↩

Site Discussion

Comments

  • spackbace on 30/01/2017 - 12:48
    +12

    That's the whole process. Just thinking of some of the odd narratives people have come up with… No special treatment for any users/stores. No payments, no sponsors, no kickbacks, no keeping deals up for "hits", no revoking votes to please stores, no randomly throwing bad deals into the forums or any other alternative facts.

    This point needs highlighting, again and again ;)

  • blitz on 30/01/2017 - 12:52
    +2

    or any other alternative facts

    Bravo Scotty, Neil and the mods. Every bit helps.

  • AlienC on 30/01/2017 - 12:54
    +2

    I will try to tone down the stupid comments and troll posts.. Although they are very hard to resist and easy to make haha lol :)

    • [Deactivated] on 30/01/2017 - 16:24

      Just PM me next time ;)

  • [Deactivated] on 30/01/2017 - 16:17

    Moist

  • Moderatorneil on 30/01/2017 - 16:28

    I've removed the comments above. This isn't a discuss X user's behaviour thread.

    Spot an aggressive or unnecessarily angry comment? Report it by hitting the report link.

    These are the comments we are focusing on. Feel free to make stupid comments, ill informed comments, jokes, banter whatever, that's fine. Whats not fine is aggressive and angry comments.

    • cypher67 on 30/01/2017 - 20:29

      That's what she said?

  • Adz81 on 30/01/2017 - 20:16

    I've been pulled up twice by mods, once was an error, acknowledged by mods, the second time was for suggesting that someone "eat shit," completely agree with the second time, not saying I was out of line (the intended target did badly need to chew turd) , but the mods here do a brilliant job (as do some of the stalwarts of this community), kudos to you guys, you've made this community what it is and I hope it continues…

  • [Deactivated] on 30/01/2017 - 22:26
    -2

    Are there any plans or ideas on how to potentially tackle online bullying on this site? Like members ganging up on one person, or one person on another, etc?

    If Mods notice or are alerted to concerns of 'neg-stalking', will Mods investigate and act?

    • Moderatorneil on 30/01/2017 - 22:37

      It depends what your definition of bullying is. Bullying as in personally attacking a user is not permitted per our commenting guidelines. Bullying as in say telling the rep the deal is not good is fine. So we'd need to see an example with context which you can hit the report button or Talk with a Moderator Forum. Further, we have a mental health page for anyone needing more professional assitance.

      If Mods notice or are alerted to concerns of 'neg-stalking', will Mods investigate and act?

      Neg stalking would be what? Someone going around and negative voting many of your comments?

    • [Deactivated] on 31/01/2017 - 19:25

      Like members ganging up on one person, or one person on another,

      Ganging up?! O.O

      Care to provide an example of this?

  • cwongtech on 31/01/2017 - 01:16

    Nice write-up. There's been way too many accusations recently flying around and misinformation.

  • [Deactivated] on 31/01/2017 - 10:08

    Spot a comment or deal that has an issue? Hit the report link located underneath each post or comment

    Does the reporter still get feedback on whether an action has been taken (for e.g the reported comment has been unpublished) or if no action has been taken? I haven't used ozbargain in a while but that's how it used to be.

    • Moderatorneil on 31/01/2017 - 10:14

      We mostly do give feedback on reports.

  • Member 0230 on 25/05/2017 - 15:00

    good by voting +, not good by not voting, and major issues/cheaper elsewhere by voting -.

    Is it perhaps worthwhile to popup the above as a tooltip-on-mouseover for the voting buttons?

    Bonus points: Even better, that shows the above site-wide for, say, just a day (or a week, or first use (requires cookies?), whatever is appropriate) and then it appears only for newbies for the same time period / number of uses?

    Mods, thanks for the significant efforts you put in to make OzB a worthwhile place to visit.

  • gimli on 25/05/2017 - 20:49
    +4

    Ok
    Only just saw this. I'll cut down on trolling and be a good dwarf.

    I think you guys to a good job in building a healthy community.

  • Make it so on 26/05/2017 - 16:36
    +1

    I wonder whether some of the common "usage mistakes" (comments about title instead of reporting, invalid negs, etc.) could be mitigated by some clever automation. For instance:

    • If a user is new, or never cast a negative vote before, show an "are you sure" dialog box (with link to voting guidelines) before accepting their negative vote.
    • If a comment is detected with the word "Title", show a dialog box before acceptting submittal with "Do you have a problem with the title? Please report it instead" and a link to do so. Similarly for detecting "cheaper here", "expired", "out of stock", etc.

    The Ozbargain guidelines are rich, and sometimes I think people expect too much (I get it wrong too at times). A bit of automated assistance could be helpful.

    As for "soliciting feedback", maybe a new forum category ("Help a Noob")?

    Overall I think the moderators do a great job keeping this community positive. There will always be issues though with a diverse community.

    • Moderatorneil on 26/05/2017 - 16:48

      If a user is new, or never cast a negative vote before, show an "are you sure" dialog box (with link to voting guidelines) before accepting their negative vote.

      We do have this in place. neg.

      If a comment is detected with the word "Title", show a dialog box before acceptting submittal with "Do you have a problem with the title? Please report it instead" and a link to do so. Similarly for detecting "cheaper here", "expired", "out of stock", etc.

      We have that for expired & I think out of stock.

      expired

      Title might be good. Or price in title etc. Will see what we currently have and can add without interfering with normal conversations.

      As for "soliciting feedback", maybe a new forum category ("Help a Noob")?

      What would be an example post?

      • [Deactivated] on 31/05/2017 - 15:47

        This is good. We need the same thing for negative votes on comments.

  • Make it so on 26/05/2017 - 17:03
    +1

    What would be an example post?

    Perhaps things like "Is this a valid bargain?", "Can I repost this or is it a dupe?". Frankly, I just made the title up. But a place where people can ask questions without being judged.

    We could also encourage new REP's to ask questions, or to gauge popularity before risking a post. Some REP's have potentially damaged their brand by posting things which didn't resonate. Not exactly all new REPs get a warm welcome. Maybe we need a "Would you vote for this" forum for REPs? And if REPs sign up, we could encourage them to gauge popularity there first to avoid risking a backlash.

    [sorry, this is in reply to Neil's post - Noob error, somehow I didn't reply to thread :) ]

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