Reporting hate speech

[Peikko 1,575]

Moderators have said they can not do anything about hate speech unless it is reported. What do they actually do when it is reported?

[Ban Hammer 13,346]

looks rather interesting on the front page

[Peikko 1,575]

You lost me Charles, what's interesting in that screen shot?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Moderators have said they can not do anything about hate speech unless it is reported. What do they actually do when it is reported?

I'm curious to know the answer to this as well.

[Peikko 1,575]

Specific questions are:

Once reported, what is a reasonable expectation of the time from the report to a moderator reading the complaint?

Does the person who made the report get an acknowledgment that the report was received?

Does the person who made the report get to know which moderator reviews it?

If the person who makes the complaint is unhappy that their complaint appears to be being ignored, what is the appropriate action to take?

[The_Dude 1,142]

In my experience with reporting racist posts/threads, It usually takes several hours to get any sort of response. Kathryn seems to be the only moderator who will respond via PM to notify me that she is looking into it and then will generally send another PM when she has come to a conclusion regarding the report. The usual response is that the racist post was vague enough that the poster in question has given some disingenuous explanation that satisfies the moderator enough to deem it not racist. Overall, I would say it's a 50/50 shot that anything will be done. What I find very disconcerting is the fact that recently, a personal attack was deemed a greater offense than a racist post.

I have found that if the post gets either deleted, if you post something to the effect of "Ahhh, finally (insert racist here) gets a post deleted for racism". I'll get a stern scolding, or just my post deleted.

[Peikko 1,575]

Thank you for your perspective Rob.

I am hoping that one of the moderators will weigh in soon but if that is how reporting is moderated, it is highly unsatisfactory. Anyone who makes a report should receive an acknowledgment that their report was received, and acknowledgment that the report is being investigated. Once an investigation is over, the person who made the report should be given a brief outline of how the moderator came to the decision and the opportunity to have the issue investigated by another moderator or Ewok if the explanation for their decision is unsatisfactory. This is particularly important when it comes to posts or threads that are designed to discredit or demean a specific ethnicity or culture.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Some of us are actually interested in this topic. Is it really necessary to turn it into a personal argument?

BY, If you've been subjected to hate speech, then this should be of interest to you as well.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I am actually, as the most important question of all is what is hate speech. Evidently the mere mention of a stat is hate to you, so should all such threads be removed because you and Cleo deem this offensive? In fact, you even want to silence others opinion regarding the building of a mosque.

Shame on both of your really, for wasting a forum and mods time with OT ####### - twice now actually. This is an immigration forum, with a focus on that. OT is simply a side-feature. Evidently you have been out of the loop for so long, you have forgotten about the sole purpose of VisaJourney.com.

As I said earlier, remove you guys for a month and OT will be like a well oiled machine.

The question is what the mods do when they receive a complaint about hate speech - not "what is hate speech". Individuals can and do decide that for themselves.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Not the topic, BY. Stop hijacking it.

[Ban Hammer 13,346]

You lost me Charles, what's interesting in that screen shot?

the arrow is pointing to it

"reporting hate speech by madame cleo"

[Kathryn41 3,205]

I have removed the posts that are obviously trying to hijack this thread from its original question to turn it into a discussion/argument about what hate comments are. I will split these off into a separate thread and move them to OT after I have answered the questions posted in this thread.

[Peikko 1,575]

the arrow is pointing to it

"reporting hate speech by madame cleo"

I'm sorry, I still don't get it, what's funny about that?

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Specific questions are:

Once reported, what is a reasonable expectation of the time from the report to a moderator reading the complaint?

Does the person who made the report get an acknowledgment that the report was received?

Does the person who made the report get to know which moderator reviews it?

If the person who makes the complaint is unhappy that their complaint appears to be being ignored, what is the appropriate action to take?

I am responding only for myself and will let the other members of the moderation team respond on how they handle things because we each do have a different style.

What happens when someone hits the report button is that it sends a report to what is called the Report Center. This is a listing that shows the Title of the reported thread, the forum in which it is located, the number of reports that particular post has had, the number of comments made in the report center about that report and the name of the last person to update a report. If the report has not yet been actioned, then that name is the name of who is making the report. At the front of each report is an icon that shows whether it is a new report, an under review report or a completed report.

When a moderator clicks on the first category in the Report column it opens up a forum similar to what you see here. It will have the reported post plus any comments added by the reporter. There is a blank window below in which moderators will make comments. The moderator who is responding will change the status of the report from new to under review, then click the link in the report to go to the actual post in the thread. The moderator will then review the post in relationship to why it was reported. In the upper forums it is usually pretty straight forward to figure out what is happening and to address the issue. In OT or some of the other discussion type forums (Regional, Site Discussion, etc.) it is sometimes not clear from the post what is going on. It may be that someone is reporting something that isn't really accurate - which happens with a number of 'personalities' fairly regularly, but each report is examined carefully. I find it is often necessary to go back to the beginning of the exchange or sometimes the beginning of the thread to try and see in what direction the discussion is headed and why the report comment was made. Some of the 'baiting' comments or 'insults' are really only apparent when viewed in context. For those who are participating in the thread they are able to see these develop because their focus is on that thread. The moderator has not been following the discussion up until then so we often need to 'come up to speed' to try and understand the report. If the thread is long, I will often close the thread for review so I have a chance to get up to speed without chaos ensuing from a run-away thread. I will always go back and post my final decision after closing a thread for review.

The moderator will then go back, itemize their actions in the comments section, often including copies of any PMs sent to individuals in that thread, and then change the status to complete.

Administration had hoped that the Report Center would send out an automatic acknowledgment to the reporter when the report was complete. We found out fairly soon that this was not the case and Captain Ewok has submitted a request to the software provider that this option be added in their next update. In the meantime, because I remember how it felt not knowing if anything I had reported had been received or attended to, I will send a PM to the reporter letting them know I had addressed their report and how. If it looks like it might take along time to go through and review a thread, I may send an earlier 'acknowledgment' to let someone know I am working on it.

How long can it take? That is a big variable. All of us are volunteers and have private lives as well. Most of us are in the Eastern or Central time zone so items that are reported overnight may often end up waiting until next morning - or even afternoon - before a moderator sees them. I generally am on line from late afternoon/early evening to around midnight so that is about 6 to 8 hours a day. Sometimes it is more, and sometimes less. Two mods are currently off on personal business and the other two have full time jobs with work responsibilities in addition to their families. They sign on when they have time to address issues but also let the rest of us know if there will be a few days they are not going to be available. The same thing happens with the Regional mods, all of whom have work, family and in some cases, additional responsibilities.

So, if a moderator is on line when your report comes in, we receive a notification that shows up overtop of what we are doing and know to go to the report center to check in. I also have my settings set up that I receive an email about any reports so that when I sign on line I can get a quick review of any critical issues. If there are critical issues, then I go and attend to them right away. If they are not critical, then I take care of personal business first and head over to VJ where I can devote the rest of my evening.

All actions are supposed to be reported in the actual thread so if mod action happens so you would know by that response who responded to the report. We will generally not tell you specifics about who was cautioned, warned, suspended or whatever but we may say that Administrative Action has been taken which may mean suspensions, warnings, points or comments added to the individual's warning file, or a thread ban.

I can appreciate if you don't hear anything back that you may feel that your report hasn't been attended to. That is why I always acknowledge the reports I attend to. Even if you do not hear back, though, all reports are addressed and we try to make sure every report that comes in during that day is dealt with that day. There are some reports that we keep under review for a few days so we can go back to that thread and monitor it to ensure that the reported behaviour is not continuing.

We receive many reports every day - I think the highest I attended to personally was about 10 days ago when there were 61 reports during my 'shift'. Each report takes a number of minutes to review and handle even for the most simple. The more involved ones that require reading threads may take many minutes depending on how much of the thread I need to read to review. Some threads actually involve hours of work reading them over. It has been quite some time since I have been able to 'enjoy' and participate on VJ as just a member because mod responsibilities take over so much time.

So, that is how it works for me. As always, if you feel you have not been dealt with fairly or your concerns are ignored you can either contact the mod who responded in the thread or contact Captain Ewok. He too does receive and read every comment although he may not always respond right away due to time zone differences, work responsibilities, and the available technology.

[^_^ 5,021]

Thank you for taking the time to type that, Kathryn.