We are discussing the possible implementation of vBulletin’s Infraction system as a replacement for the way we currently record and hand out warnings. Below is a short description of how each system works:
Current System
[ol][li]Moderator publicly warns Joseph Blowsmith in the thread where the rule is broken.[]Mod writes up that warning in a behind-the-scenes forum.[]No notification is sent to Joseph Blowsmith; he is expected to be aware of any warning he receives.[/li][li]Joseph Blowsmith cannot see a list of his accumulated warnings and has to ask a mod to provide one for him.[/li][/ol]
New System
[ol][li]Moderator publicly warns Joseph Blowsmith in the thread where the rule is broken.[/li][li]Mod writes up that warning in the Infraction tab of Joseph Blowsmith’s profile.[/li][li]A PM is automatically sent to Joseph Blowsmith with the recorded reason for the warning and any other information provided by the mod (such as a link to the thread/specific post).[/li][li]The Infraction tab only lists the warning and the reason for the warning, but not a link to the specific thread or warning, so Joe has to retain the PM if he wants to refer to the details later on.[/li][li]Only Joe can see his Infractions. Other users, excluding mods, cannot.[/li][li]Here’s an example of the Infraction tab: Click me! Click me![/li][/ol]
What questions or comments do you have? Suggestions for improvement? If you have experience with the Infraction system on other vB boards (or the similar warning system on Invision boards), how has it worked out for you?
It seems to me Moderators should be able to see the infractions; that’s a textbook tool they would need at their disposal to track how a person has been misbehaving.
Couldn’t the write-up have the URL, or at least the thread ID#, in the “Reason” field?
Warnings should expire after some period of time. It’s not fair for a poster to accumulate, for example, a warning in 2004, another in 2006, and get banned for a third strike in 2009. I suggest any warnings older than 1 year be purged from the records.
I like the idea of the members getting a PM about any warnings. I’ve been guilty myself of wandering away from a thread where I posted and forgetting to check for any replies (although as far as I know I haven’t missed any warnings). And from the member’s point of view being able to see in one place what warnings you’ve been given seems like a good thing.
From the description, it doesn’t seem like this would be significantly any more or less work for the moderators, and as long as they have the management tools they need I don’t see a reason not to go to the new system.
How about the existing list of infractions? Is somebody going to have to slog through the old list in the hidden forum and one by one and cut & paste the info into each member’s profile? Or will the old infractions stay where they are? If that’s the case, then there will be more work for the mods on an ongoing basis, because for each new warning they’ll have to check two places to look for previous warnings.
It seems to me that a system where a person is officially warned via a non-thread message (in addition to the warning in the thread) is inherently better than one where he or she isn’t, for two reasons: 1) there’s less possibility that the person receiving the warning would be unaware of it, and 2) there’s less possibility – or plausibility, anyway – that he or she can turn around later and whine about being unaware of it.
Mods will be able to see infractions. That’s what I meant by:
Although, that’s probably confusing the way I wrote it.
It can, but some of the URLs, especially when linking to a specific post, will probably extend beyond the reason character limit and be truncated, so it might not be reliable.
As I said in the other thread, I definitely like the idea of notifying users via PM or email if they have received an official warning. It also seems that the “infractions tab” would likely be easier on the mods, vs. having to go search through a private forum. So I like the second system.
We already have a policy of attaching less and less importance to a warning as time passes by, but we don’t delete that documentation even if we no longer refer to that warning.
And there are cases where a poster only shows up, say, twice a year and manages to get smacked for personal insults each time. True, the time between warnings is a lot, but if his posting tenure here is filled with warnings, then its apparent he really doesn’t want to follow the rules and probably needs to spend his time at another message board.
Yeah, it would have to be a two-process system. I don’t think any one of us really wants to spend time copying over old warnings. Plus, over time we really won’t be looking at the older records and will rely solely on the new system. But it will be a hybrid set-up for a while.
We haven’t really discussed it, but right now I don’t see us using that.
That’s what we’re thinking, too. But, from my own experience, the number of posters who’ve complained that they didn’t know about a warning has been really small. So, that’s not a major reason we’re looking at the new system, but it won’t hurt to remove that complaint.
The new system clearly looks better than the current system in every respect but it seems like there is one possible loss of functionality for the mods. In the current system the warning details are written up in a “behind-the-scenes forum”, ostensibly creating a sort of data warehouse with all the warnings, reasons, notes, etc. system-wide. The new system sounds like it would move all that data out into individual user profiles. I don’t know if that is a loss or not; it seems like a potential one. For example right now the ‘behind-the-scenes’ forum might provide the ability to find all warnings for a specific violation, among all users, within a certain date range. Or only those warnings that resulted in a suspension or ban, with a cross reference to what forums they occurred in, etc. Having all the details out in the individual profiles might prevent such data mining later. (if there would ever be any advantage to being able to do so in the first place) Then again, the vB software might have even more detailed reporting abilities for mods once the data is spit out to the individual user profiles.
It would be nice if that infraction tab had a link to the relevant thread where the offense took place. Other than that, this looks like a huge improvement. Good to see the gears are spinning.
At the least, the mod could write something like “Inappropriate language - CS thread about soup may 2009”, which would allow enough info to go back to a Search and find the thread, warning and context.
You’d have to explain the Points/Expires “reversed” term, and any other options that could show up there, even if it’s just to make it known to posters to ignore whatever is there if you aren’t using that feature.
The user receives a PM, anyway. I, personally, prefer use of the PM over e-mail because we can pretty much guarantee a PM, but once e-mail leaves our system it’s anyone’s guess as to whether it’ll be delivered. I still need to test what happens when a poster is at his/her limit in PMs.
Before we introduce this part of the system, we’ll need to thoroughly test it. Repeatedly. We don’t want to disappoint by having it fail to work, so I’ll get back with you. And no, I won’t wipe that stupid grin off my face.
Crazyhorse: we really didn’t do any special reporting with the old system, anyway. Rather, the most we did was a vBulletin search for a particular user name and worked with whatever results popped up. The Infraction system lets us create canned reasons, though, so we’d be able to do a search by reason across multiple users. (Probably would never happen, really, but it’d be interesting from a statistical point-of-view.)
Also, you’re right in that we’ll have to add to the F.A.Q. thread to tell people to ignore the points and other unused fields.
mnemosyne, a new Infraction automatically creates a corresponding thread in a hidden forum, so we’ll always have the details available. I’d prefer to have the explicit link available in the Infraction screen so the user can refer to it, too, but since the details will be available in the PM (for the user) and the forum (for the mods) we won’t lose the record.
I advocated for the use of this system in the “was I banned” (rather prescient name, that!) thread, and I’m glad to see this was already in the works. Can’t think of a downside, and the upside is a more straightforward method for users to keep track of their own [del]perfidy[/del] infractions. So hells yeah, I think it’s a great idea.
OH thought of a question. Would this also be the case for mod notes, or just official warnings?
I post at another board that uses a similar system. I approve of it. I considered suggesting that it be adopted here, but I expected you to reject the idea.
I think that you should use a points system. I find the current system where you suspend after an arbitrary number of warnings to be unsatisfactory. People should face action when they reach a fixed number of points, the same number for everybody, and people should be able to see how close to suspension/ banning they are.
On that other board I have received one warning for telling a spammer to fuck off. The moderator explained to me that the no flaming rules applies even to spammers, and that I must not reply to spam at all. I was given 0 points for this (People get banned at 200 points) and a warning that will expire in 2 years. It appears on my control panel whenever I log in. As far as I know this is invisible to everyone except me.
