Moderation Tools ideas

[Nepiki]

Recent situations have made it more clear to us that we need to improve our moderation tools. The following weaknesses have been spotted in our current moderation tools:

• It is inconvenient for people to make a report due to no easy accessible report button.
• People have no faith in moderation due to our actions not being publicly shown.
• It is inconvenient to track previous actions taken.

These are the ideas I have in mind, as an upgrade to current features or new ones.

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1. When someone gets muted on the site, they should receive a ''Muted'' role on Discord automatically.

Currently, when a user gets muted, their roles are removed and they have access to few channels, including the landing channel for new users and the language channels. This is inconvenient, because often times people try to engage with moderation in these channels when that is not the place. Likewise, people are not aware that the user is muted.

A solution would be to create a Discord role called ''Muted'', which is white in colour and higher than any role except modmin. This role will automatically be applied to the user, and removed when the mute ends. With this role, they cannot chat in any channel, but can still view them. Alternatively, we could make it that the ''Muted'' role can still access very specific forums like manual-unlocks, but this could be abused so avoiding it may be better.

2. People should be able to report wall comments, forum posts, and profiles more easily.

Currently, people have to go out of their way to message RAdmin to make a report. Most people don't even know they can do this, and it's also a hassle because the user needs to go through multiple pages to get there. Instead, I propose we add a ''flag'' icon to wall comments, forum posts, and profiles. When pressing this, it will automatically redirect the user to https://retroachievements.org/messages/create?to=RAdmin, with the subject title already being filled in. For example, ''[Game Wall Report] Nepiki on Hamtaro: Ham Ham Heartbreak''.

On our Moderator end, I think it would be great if we make an additional discord forum where these reports land in, based on the very specific titles that are produced by pressing the flag button. This would make it easier for us to track reports vs. other moderation actions.

3. There should be a quicker way for us to action on posts and users, with a way to see previous offenses.

While it's not inconvenient to take action against a user at the moment, it could of course always be better. My proposal would be to add a ''shield'' icon to wall comments and forum posts (maybe user profiles too) that, once we click it, a small dialog pops up. This dialog lets us know if the user has previously been taken action against, so we know if the mute duration we had in mind is appropriate or needs to be altered. Within this dialog, we also have a ''mute until'' datetime field, and a ''mute reason'' field, that could also be a dropdown of specific rules. Then once we have set those, an automatic message is sent to the user letting them know that action is taken against them, and the forum post is automatically edited to show we have taken action. The message would be:

{user},

You have been muted until {datetime} for breaking our [url=https://docs.retroachievements.org/guidelines/users/code-of-conduct.html]Code of Conduct[/url], for the following reason:

{reasoning}

You are unable to socially interact on our platforms until the provided date. Earning achievements is unaffected, which you can continue participating in.

-RAdmin

4. Users may need to be better informed about when we take action.

This point admittedly needs more discussion, because we want to avoid moderation actions being used against the individual as harassment. Yet, we also need a way to show that we are taking action and protecting our community. I have a few loose suggestions for this point:

4.1 It's publicly shown on profiles if a user is muted/banned

Currently, when you click on a banned user, it redirects you to a 404. Not a lot of people know this means the user has been banned. It would be beneficial if we either showed the profile in a very restricted state, or make the 404 more pretty to inform the user that the profile they are trying to look at is banned. Likewise, nobody is aware of when we mute users, so we could possibly add a small sign on a user profile and/or under their profile picture in forum posts that they are muted. Similar to how it shows Junior Developer/Developer/Moderator under the profile picture, but then instead shows ''Muted'', like it's a role.

4.2 Posts that have been actioned should be more obvious.

I have no idea how to do this with wall comments, but probably something similar to what Steam and Discord do: they hide the message, and have a transparent message on top of it stating The user has been muted/banned for this comment. Proceed with caution. This has the following results:

• Posts are still up, so people can hold us accountable for moderation action taken.
• Posts are still up but hidden, so people can see we have taken action.

[wescopeland]

This is great, thank you.