7 ms·

Does Transparency in Moderation Matter? [pdf]

42 points by wcerfgba 6y ago

benjaminjosephw 6y ago
I wonder whether there's a membership size threshold where, after crossing that tipping point, the community implicitly looses some degree of transparency whatever the moderation rules are. At some point the increasing impact each decisions have will skew the potential motivations of members and moderators. Intent become very difficult to judge meaning the degree of transparency decreases. I've seen so many comments from people about the changing nature of some online communities as they grow. Perhaps capping memberships could curb the increasing politicisation of user behaviour and the weight of any individual action would be limited as a result.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  I wonder whether it’s even limited to online communities. I’ve had similar experiences with a small office and in a small student organization that grew rather large.
HPsquared 6y ago
Too much transparency can result in people "gaming the system" if the full workings are known.
- naasking 6y ago
  If the rules are solid, 'gaming the system' means they're rule-abiding members. If there's a problem with that, then improve the rules and don't blame the users. Reducing transparency because you're relying on tricks is a great way for users to begin hating your mods.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    Hating mods is not necessarily a problem. If you boot a user, you don't care about their opinion of you. Mods select the community, and their goal is a comfortable place for that community. Booting easy cases should be easy. There will also be edge cases, and almost by definition there's no easy way to make the rules crystal clear for edge cases. You can't be consistent because consistency doesn't exist. The best you can hope for is to encourage users to avoid getting close to edge cases. For those who are uncomfortable with that, there are many unmoderated forums elsewhere. It's all a question of the the site owner's goals. Maximum traffic and maximum content are not everyone's goals. Often they are seeking a community to deal with that community's concerns, and to shut out the overall problems of the world that attract the most attention.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Unfortunately, rules for humans don't work that way. It may be helpful to read up on "work to rule" strikes - they provide good context on what kinds of problems happen when people start trying to act up while staying within the letter of the rules.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  This is the same argument I hear against open-source software but in practice it seems transparency helps identify and solve problems more quickly.
  - CogentHedgehog 6y ago
    Transparency helps with normal "people problems." The opposite is true with bots, spammers, paid trolls, and other attempts to subvert the platform itself. It's the same reason why open source projects try to fix security vulnerabilities privately before they disclose them publicly: they don't want bad actors to be able to take advantage of the information. Except with social platforms, they can't ever truly "fix" the problem, just mitigate it by trying to detect and remove offenders. If you provide transparency into how bad actors are removed, they'll just adapt to hide better.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  An example of this is bot-detection. All the major social media sites face the problem of malicious bots, and to my knowledge, all are secretive about how they combat them.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    > All the major social media sites face the problem of malicious bots, and to my knowledge, all are secretive about how they combat them. Leading, inevitably, to all the major social media sites regularly banning humans and refusing to say why.
- at_a_remove 6y ago
  It's odd, I usually see that consequence ("rules lawyering") given as a reason why they avoid being specific about the rules to begin with. It is often followed up with almost everything moderators called on saying that the comment was "on the bubble" or that the commentator failed to "read the room" or some other such nebulousness.
  - heisenbit 6y ago
    Keep in mind that while the focus is often on individual posts the moderator may well look also at other posts and other moderation decisions related to that in the past. A post by a new member is treated differently from a post by a member with a good record and that is treated differently from a post of a member who has been warned repeatedly.
- Lammy 6y ago
  So let’s remove the game. Why should it be a challenge for two people to work around censorship automation before they can communicate?. It feels like we have normalized caring for the well-being of ads over the well-being of actual humans.
eganist 6y ago
Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. I've posted this elsewhere on hackernews (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23259595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23259595), but I'll repost it here since it's relevant: --- We're (r/relationship_advice) rarely transparent with removal reasons. Our templatized removal reasons generally look something like this: > u/[user], please message the mods: > 1. to find out why this post was removed, and > 2. prior to posting any updates. > Thanks. or > User was banned for this [submission/comment]. The reason is because we have a high population of people who: 1. post too much information and expose themselves to doxxing risks, and 2. post fantasies that never happened. So in order to protect the people who inadvertently post too much information, we tend to remove these posts using the same generic removal template. However, if people know that the post was pulled for one of these two reasons, the submitter may still end up on the receiving end of harassment as a result, meaning we have to fuzz the possibility of the removal being for one of these two reasons by much more broadly withholding removal reasons. This is specific to r/relationship_advice. Other subreddits have other procedures.
- heisenbit 6y ago
  It is worth keeping in mind that mods on any non trivial sized boards have to be transparent to their peers. Appeals do come in and latest at that point others look what one has done. What one does not want is drama on the board and discussions of disciplinary actions in the open will lead to exactly that. Moderation decision may lead to the loss of a board member but drama will drive away many more.
- stronglikedan 6y ago
  Well, as long as you don't replace removal reasons with unwarranted insults when withholding removal reasons, then you're already a step ahead of 90% of reddit mods.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    Indeed, I’ve been muted for daring to ask why a comment of mine was removed, then subsequently banned for replying “yes, and here’s why,” including a link to this very article when asked “Do you think you’re entitled to a reason?” I’ve also been banned from a sub simply for posting in a completely different sub.
CM30 6y ago
As I'd have expected, it seems providing an explanation does indeed reduce the likelihood the user will break the rules in future, and make them more likely to contribute in future. Surprised there wasn't much difference between a human provided reason and a bot provided one though (and in fact, the latter performed slightly better). Wonder what the reason behind this could be? > s.Our results show that controlling for other factors,explanations provided by automated tools or bots are associated with higher odds of moderatedusers posting in the future Either way, I always make sure to provide an explanation why a piece of content was removed on any site I manage, with the sole exception of obvious bot submissions (since the latter are literally incapable of understanding feedback).
- js8 6y ago
  I wish HN would require an explanation (or a counter-argument) for downvote. Often I get downvoted and have no idea why. If the content is obviously a spam, it should be flagged and removed, not just downvoted.
  - GuB-42 6y ago
    Slashdot has that, somehow. Up/downvotes has categories. For upvotes there are interesting, insightful, informative and funny. For downvotes there are troll, flamebait, redundant, offtopic. There are also the general categories overrated and underrated. You can also flag posts for things like spam. It is not a full review but it is better than nothing. Also, users can give out weights per category. For example if you don't want to see jokes, you can lower the value of "funny".
    - CM30 6y ago
      Agreed. I think these types of systems work better than the standard upvote/downvote one, and I wish more sites would use them. I know Facebook reactions are a bit like this, as is a popular XenForo plugin with similar features.
    - js8 6y ago
      Yes, but I think implementing a requirement to post a reply (or at least upvote some other person's direct reply) before a downvote would be much simpler. The categories do not take away certain subjectivity of the up/down votes. It is easy to understand silent upvote as "I am in agreement and I think more people should read this". With silent downvote, the intent is clearly "less people should read this" but the reason as to why is not given. It also nicely solves the meta-moderation problem. If the reason for downvote is given, it can be validated whether the explanation is meaningful or not.
tumetab1 6y ago
Few years back Jeff Atwood on coding horror (which I can't find now) had a "guide" that partially match this data. The poster, and everyone else, must know see the original post and the reason it was moderated so the rule is clearer for everyone. I think in Reddit, like other communities, the problem still is that most users still don't see moderated content because only upvoted/popular content is seen. Maybe that could be future analysis comparing communities where moderated content is regularly visible by the overall community vs small set of the community vs only the poster.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  I had this debate with other mods on r/cscareerquestions a few years back. My preference was for SomethingAwful-style modding transparency, where your bad post (usually) stays up with a note that says "USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST", and in fact there's a global listing of all the recent bans, including the user and posts in question. The other mods largely preferred invisible modding, that "stays out of the way", that doesn't draw attention away from productive discussion. I'm not sure either is obviously a better methodology, honestly.
  - tumetab1 6y ago
    My guess, is that both methodologies should be combined. Let the focus be on productive discussions while also ask for the users attention to the moderation done. For example, every X time show to the user the forum space where all the moderated content is.
CogentHedgehog 6y ago
I'm a reddit moderator for one of the 50 most active subreddits. My experience as a reddit moderator has been that users break down into 4 groups: 1. Normal people that mostly follow the rules. This is BY FAR the largest group, and they're usually great. Transparency benefits them most: once they know what they did wrong, usually they won't do it again. Some even admit they deserved penalties or short bans -- although a few will defend their actions. 2. Jerks: people who contribute constructively sometimes but also cause a lot of drama. If moderators don't show clearly where they broke a rule, usually they're going to protest that they did nothing wrong. Providing transparency saves moderator effort because it avoids some of this back-and-forth. Sometimes. These are almost inevitably the people that claim mods were "abusing their powers" when they get banned for obvious things (swearing at people, posting self-promotional content, etc). 3. Dedicated trolls who go out of their way to break rules and cause trouble. They are relatively rare but as a moderator really the only thing you can do is ban them. Transparency won't make a difference one way or another, but it can be hard to tell a jerk from a dedicated troll at times so you're better off citing specific violations. 4. Spammers & obvious bots. With the right defenses (automoderator rules, spam filter, etc) most of these can be handled with minimum human effort. Without these defenses, spammers/bots can flood you pretty quickly. Transparency is irrelevant here. FWIW I always provide a reason when issuing a ban (citing the rule broken and where they did it).

42 points by wcerfgba 6y ago

I wonder whether there's a membership size threshold where, after crossing that tipping point, the community implicitly looses some degree of transparency whatever the moderation rules are. At some point the increasing impact each decisions have will skew the potential motivations of members and moderators. Intent become very difficult to judge meaning the degree of transparency decreases. I've seen so many comments from people about the changing nature of some online communities as they grow. Perhaps capping memberships could curb the increasing politicisation of user behaviour and the weight of any individual action would be limited as a result.

elliekelly 6y ago
I wonder whether it’s even limited to online communities. I’ve had similar experiences with a small office and in a small student organization that grew rather large.

HPsquared 6y ago

Too much transparency can result in people "gaming the system" if the full workings are known.

naasking 6y ago
If the rules are solid, 'gaming the system' means they're rule-abiding members. If there's a problem with that, then improve the rules and don't blame the users. Reducing transparency because you're relying on tricks is a great way for users to begin hating your mods.
- jfengel 6y ago
  Hating mods is not necessarily a problem. If you boot a user, you don't care about their opinion of you. Mods select the community, and their goal is a comfortable place for that community. Booting easy cases should be easy. There will also be edge cases, and almost by definition there's no easy way to make the rules crystal clear for edge cases. You can't be consistent because consistency doesn't exist. The best you can hope for is to encourage users to avoid getting close to edge cases. For those who are uncomfortable with that, there are many unmoderated forums elsewhere. It's all a question of the the site owner's goals. Maximum traffic and maximum content are not everyone's goals. Often they are seeking a community to deal with that community's concerns, and to shut out the overall problems of the world that attract the most attention.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Unfortunately, rules for humans don't work that way. It may be helpful to read up on "work to rule" strikes - they provide good context on what kinds of problems happen when people start trying to act up while staying within the letter of the rules.
elliekelly 6y ago
This is the same argument I hear against open-source software but in practice it seems transparency helps identify and solve problems more quickly.
- CogentHedgehog 6y ago
  Transparency helps with normal "people problems." The opposite is true with bots, spammers, paid trolls, and other attempts to subvert the platform itself. It's the same reason why open source projects try to fix security vulnerabilities privately before they disclose them publicly: they don't want bad actors to be able to take advantage of the information. Except with social platforms, they can't ever truly "fix" the problem, just mitigate it by trying to detect and remove offenders. If you provide transparency into how bad actors are removed, they'll just adapt to hide better.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
An example of this is bot-detection. All the major social media sites face the problem of malicious bots, and to my knowledge, all are secretive about how they combat them.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > All the major social media sites face the problem of malicious bots, and to my knowledge, all are secretive about how they combat them. Leading, inevitably, to all the major social media sites regularly banning humans and refusing to say why.
at_a_remove 6y ago
It's odd, I usually see that consequence ("rules lawyering") given as a reason why they avoid being specific about the rules to begin with. It is often followed up with almost everything moderators called on saying that the comment was "on the bubble" or that the commentator failed to "read the room" or some other such nebulousness.
- heisenbit 6y ago
  Keep in mind that while the focus is often on individual posts the moderator may well look also at other posts and other moderation decisions related to that in the past. A post by a new member is treated differently from a post by a member with a good record and that is treated differently from a post of a member who has been warned repeatedly.
Lammy 6y ago
So let’s remove the game. Why should it be a challenge for two people to work around censorship automation before they can communicate?. It feels like we have normalized caring for the well-being of ads over the well-being of actual humans.

eganist 6y ago

Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. I've posted this elsewhere on hackernews (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23259595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23259595), but I'll repost it here since it's relevant: --- We're (r/relationship_advice) rarely transparent with removal reasons. Our templatized removal reasons generally look something like this: > u/[user], please message the mods: > 1. to find out why this post was removed, and > 2. prior to posting any updates. > Thanks. or > User was banned for this [submission/comment]. The reason is because we have a high population of people who: 1. post too much information and expose themselves to doxxing risks, and 2. post fantasies that never happened. So in order to protect the people who inadvertently post too much information, we tend to remove these posts using the same generic removal template. However, if people know that the post was pulled for one of these two reasons, the submitter may still end up on the receiving end of harassment as a result, meaning we have to fuzz the possibility of the removal being for one of these two reasons by much more broadly withholding removal reasons. This is specific to r/relationship_advice. Other subreddits have other procedures.

heisenbit 6y ago
It is worth keeping in mind that mods on any non trivial sized boards have to be transparent to their peers. Appeals do come in and latest at that point others look what one has done. What one does not want is drama on the board and discussions of disciplinary actions in the open will lead to exactly that. Moderation decision may lead to the loss of a board member but drama will drive away many more.
stronglikedan 6y ago
Well, as long as you don't replace removal reasons with unwarranted insults when withholding removal reasons, then you're already a step ahead of 90% of reddit mods.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Indeed, I’ve been muted for daring to ask why a comment of mine was removed, then subsequently banned for replying “yes, and here’s why,” including a link to this very article when asked “Do you think you’re entitled to a reason?” I’ve also been banned from a sub simply for posting in a completely different sub.

CM30 6y ago

As I'd have expected, it seems providing an explanation does indeed reduce the likelihood the user will break the rules in future, and make them more likely to contribute in future. Surprised there wasn't much difference between a human provided reason and a bot provided one though (and in fact, the latter performed slightly better). Wonder what the reason behind this could be? > s.Our results show that controlling for other factors,explanations provided by automated tools or bots are associated with higher odds of moderatedusers posting in the future Either way, I always make sure to provide an explanation why a piece of content was removed on any site I manage, with the sole exception of obvious bot submissions (since the latter are literally incapable of understanding feedback).

js8 6y ago
I wish HN would require an explanation (or a counter-argument) for downvote. Often I get downvoted and have no idea why. If the content is obviously a spam, it should be flagged and removed, not just downvoted.
- GuB-42 6y ago
  Slashdot has that, somehow. Up/downvotes has categories. For upvotes there are interesting, insightful, informative and funny. For downvotes there are troll, flamebait, redundant, offtopic. There are also the general categories overrated and underrated. You can also flag posts for things like spam. It is not a full review but it is better than nothing. Also, users can give out weights per category. For example if you don't want to see jokes, you can lower the value of "funny".
  - CM30 6y ago
    Agreed. I think these types of systems work better than the standard upvote/downvote one, and I wish more sites would use them. I know Facebook reactions are a bit like this, as is a popular XenForo plugin with similar features.
  - js8 6y ago
    Yes, but I think implementing a requirement to post a reply (or at least upvote some other person's direct reply) before a downvote would be much simpler. The categories do not take away certain subjectivity of the up/down votes. It is easy to understand silent upvote as "I am in agreement and I think more people should read this". With silent downvote, the intent is clearly "less people should read this" but the reason as to why is not given. It also nicely solves the meta-moderation problem. If the reason for downvote is given, it can be validated whether the explanation is meaningful or not.

tumetab1 6y ago

Few years back Jeff Atwood on coding horror (which I can't find now) had a "guide" that partially match this data. The poster, and everyone else, must know see the original post and the reason it was moderated so the rule is clearer for everyone. I think in Reddit, like other communities, the problem still is that most users still don't see moderated content because only upvoted/popular content is seen. Maybe that could be future analysis comparing communities where moderated content is regularly visible by the overall community vs small set of the community vs only the poster.

TulliusCicero 6y ago
I had this debate with other mods on r/cscareerquestions a few years back. My preference was for SomethingAwful-style modding transparency, where your bad post (usually) stays up with a note that says "USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST", and in fact there's a global listing of all the recent bans, including the user and posts in question. The other mods largely preferred invisible modding, that "stays out of the way", that doesn't draw attention away from productive discussion. I'm not sure either is obviously a better methodology, honestly.
- tumetab1 6y ago
  My guess, is that both methodologies should be combined. Let the focus be on productive discussions while also ask for the users attention to the moderation done. For example, every X time show to the user the forum space where all the moderated content is.

CogentHedgehog 6y ago

I'm a reddit moderator for one of the 50 most active subreddits. My experience as a reddit moderator has been that users break down into 4 groups: 1. Normal people that mostly follow the rules. This is BY FAR the largest group, and they're usually great. Transparency benefits them most: once they know what they did wrong, usually they won't do it again. Some even admit they deserved penalties or short bans -- although a few will defend their actions. 2. Jerks: people who contribute constructively sometimes but also cause a lot of drama. If moderators don't show clearly where they broke a rule, usually they're going to protest that they did nothing wrong. Providing transparency saves moderator effort because it avoids some of this back-and-forth. Sometimes. These are almost inevitably the people that claim mods were "abusing their powers" when they get banned for obvious things (swearing at people, posting self-promotional content, etc). 3. Dedicated trolls who go out of their way to break rules and cause trouble. They are relatively rare but as a moderator really the only thing you can do is ban them. Transparency won't make a difference one way or another, but it can be hard to tell a jerk from a dedicated troll at times so you're better off citing specific violations. 4. Spammers & obvious bots. With the right defenses (automoderator rules, spam filter, etc) most of these can be handled with minimum human effort. Without these defenses, spammers/bots can flood you pretty quickly. Transparency is irrelevant here. FWIW I always provide a reason when issuing a ban (citing the rule broken and where they did it).