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How do you intend to protect against slander? Or just outright inappropriateness? Will you be taking down these sorts of posts? I like the idea--we definitely

How do you intend to protect against slander? Or just outright inappropriateness? Will you be taking down these sorts of posts? I like the idea--we definitely filter ourselves in most forums. I'm just wondering if it is practical.

spottiness 15y ago
Great question! Spots have to comply with a set of rules. For example, they can't contain foul language, they can't target children, they have to be anonymous, etc. We have 3 mechanisms to verify that these conditions are met, that will kick in depending on volume: First, moderation by a few of us. Second, moderation by a community of trusted users. Third (and most important) self moderation, where spot creators have to moderate other spots for their spots to be approved. In this type of moderation, revisions by anonymous users are compared with other revisions to determine the intention of the reviewer. We also have thumbs up/down and spam flagging in place to help us catch spots that go through the cracks. The target of a spot can respond in the comments section, and the comment will be identified as such: "Target's Comment". This gives targets of blackspots a chance to set the record straight. In a nutshell, we are relying on human intuition and common sense to evaluate our content. Some slander will occur, but our goal is to keep it at a bare minimum. We believe that humans are candid by nature, so we expect the vast majority of spots to be true. Moderating anonymous postings in a way that scales is a very difficult and important problem. We are working on it.
terio 15y ago
We aim to not publish, or take down, inappropriate content. Unfortunately, real anonymity makes it impossible to filter out all slander but there are tools in the site to respond to it. Additionally, some "slanderfests" predictions were proven wrong previously. Thanks for your review!

spottiness 15y ago

Great question! Spots have to comply with a set of rules. For example, they can't contain foul language, they can't target children, they have to be anonymous, etc. We have 3 mechanisms to verify that these conditions are met, that will kick in depending on volume: First, moderation by a few of us. Second, moderation by a community of trusted users. Third (and most important) self moderation, where spot creators have to moderate other spots for their spots to be approved. In this type of moderation, revisions by anonymous users are compared with other revisions to determine the intention of the reviewer. We also have thumbs up/down and spam flagging in place to help us catch spots that go through the cracks. The target of a spot can respond in the comments section, and the comment will be identified as such: "Target's Comment". This gives targets of blackspots a chance to set the record straight. In a nutshell, we are relying on human intuition and common sense to evaluate our content. Some slander will occur, but our goal is to keep it at a bare minimum. We believe that humans are candid by nature, so we expect the vast majority of spots to be true. Moderating anonymous postings in a way that scales is a very difficult and important problem. We are working on it.

terio 15y ago

We aim to not publish, or take down, inappropriate content. Unfortunately, real anonymity makes it impossible to filter out all slander but there are tools in the site to respond to it. Additionally, some "slanderfests" predictions were proven wrong previously. Thanks for your review!