New Forum Fun, Questions and Glitch Reports

[endlessclimb]

Wow, theres a fun new feature I just found.

If someone flags your post, it automatically gets hidden while you get an automated message from Mod1 says what a bad, bad community member you are.

It doesnt matter if you’re just presenting an unpopular opinion, or sharing quotes from the persons past post history. I got flagged twice yesterday.

What is this garbage? How many flags does it take to get this cute little slap?

If this is a “thing” here, I’m out. I liked this community because it wasnt all sunshine and rainbows. If all it takes for a post to get hidden is someone not liking what you have to say, whats the point?

And also, if this fun little feature is in use, good luck to all that post in current events.

[endlessclimb]

Here’s an example of what got flagged:

"An experienced handler will not spank or spur a horse to get them into or over something. Especially not when the horse was going through it fine with a previous owner.

But when someone is a self-proclaimed unapologetic gadget lover (not my words), you can’t expect them to take the time to actually train a horse.

Riding =/= training. Each is it’s own specific skill set. You can be really great at the former and be piss poor at the latter."

[trubandloki]

@endlessclimb I do not know about your post, but I know another flagged post allowed me an option to read the post by hitting something (a prompt that said something about it being flagged but did I want to read it anyway).
I could not see the reason given for flagging it though.

I am betting that is just the default for flagging and the can edit this feature to work more like we are used to.

[endlessclimb]

I sure hope so. If not, I’d like to know.

[trubandloki]

If you think about it, that feature makes sense… Until it is not. For spam posts hiding them until a mod can look at them 100% makes sense. For posts that are flagged just because someone does not like what was said, not so much.

[endlessclimb]

Agreed. I bet they can sort it according to why it was flagged. If someone flags something they dont like as spam so it disappears, they get banned.

[Rallycairn]

I think it only takes one to get the “cute little slap” you mentioned. I wrote luster with a c in front of it and the punctuation to replace making something a “curse” word and got the pm and the message hidden right away. Pretty sure I’ve never been flagged or moderated before in all my years on the forum – don’t think I have, anyway. So I think it happens pretty easily.

[Moderator_1]

Hey crew ~ I’m getting caught up after taking the day off yesterday.

I adjusted the sensitivity of the “hiding a post due to a flag” feature from medium to low. We can also disable it. I agree. I think it’s sure nice to have for spam, but I don’t want it hiding posts when folks just disagree or think someone is being “rude” or something along those lines. We can also fully disable that feature, which I’m happy to do down the line if it becomes a problem.

I have a, what I think/hope, is a very positive update on the alarming “wrong log-in” glitch that had affected a few (which is too many) users. I’m going to provide the info from the developers below, then sort of translate it a bit for anyone who is interested in a condensed version:

In addition to Discourse’s own user session and cookie, we’ve added a couple of persistent cookies that will keep the user information. Think of it as a current user state. Whenever Discourse incorrectly changes a user session, we’ll compare it with the user state we have in our cookies. On detecting a different user state knowing that the user hasn’t logged in with a different user or logged out. We’ll automatically log out the user and create a log in DB.

This way, it will record any session mix up that will occur on the site and automatically logout the user if it detects an incorrect/mixed up session.

On your 7 am, when there were 35 active users on the site. We did a mass logout on the site for safety measures. So every user will now have to re-validate their accounts on the site.

Can I assure them if they log out, that no-one else can inadvertently log into their account, if they choose to steer clear of the site until we get it sorted out?

Yes, you can assure them of that. Also, this issue is server and Discourse related. There are no malicious user hacking or impersonating attempts on the site. Discourse software needs services on server which handle user requests and queue them up for processing. Our current server stack is a combination of Discourse, Apache/Passenger, Redis, and PostgreSQL. There seems to be some issue between the communication of Discourse and Passenger and as a result there is a mix up of user requests between them. We’re continuously trying more ways of fixing it.

We think our new user impersonation prevention and automatic logout system will temporarily resolve user concerns while we are looking into setting up and deploying a different server stack (Docker) for Discourse for a permanent fix.

To summarize, they’ve set up a system to automatically detect any of these log-in mixups and automatically logout the person from the wrong account (and make a log of it so they know if it’s happened.) That’s a short-term fix, so if there’s a mistake, it’ll be fixed right away automatically.

Long-term, they are changing the server stack system they use in conjunction with Discourse to avoid these mixups permanently.

And, I can assure you that if you’re still not comfortable for the time being, you can choose to not visit for a bit and you don’t have to worry about anyone being mistakenly logged into your account (though this should now be resolved). These problems only happened between users that had log-in requests queued up in the system, and they were getting mixed up by the server.

Please know that we take this issue very seriously at all levels.
Thank you!

[OverandOnward]

@Moderator_1

I think it’s sure nice to have for spam, but I don’t want it hiding posts when folks just disagree or think someone is being “rude” or something along those lines. We can also fully disable that feature, which I’m happy to do down the line if it becomes a problem.

I think I saw a hidden post in a thread a few days ago - couldn’t read the post, but the forum showed that it is there.

I’d vote to disable it. There is no reason to allow members to arbitrarily hide other member’s posts. Once the function is generally understood, the only people who will use it will be those who intend to censor. There really is no other reason to knowingly hide other posts, on this forum, that I can think of.

Also, I’d like to be able to flag a post that is a true concern without hiding it. That’s up to the mods to decide. If I think the post will be hidden when I hit the button, I doubt I’ll flag it.

Just my opinion.

[Where_sMyWhite]

@OverandOnward

Microsoft Pro 7 installed on a HP ProBook, Chrome for browser

If I think of it tomorrow I’ll try to do a video capture for you.

Also let us know what flavor of the forum you’re running… mobile or desktop.

[Ghazzu]

Wow. that’s pretty damned over the top automation.

[MHM]

I think the flag feature is useful to have for reporting spam and such. Maybe those posts do not need to be hidden when they are flagged. Or maybe they should only be hidden if they are flagged by multiple different users, or something like that.

If two or five or ten different people flag the same post, it probably contains something pretty objectionable.

[Simkie]

I really hope the auto hide of flagged posts doesn’t go away. Can certainly understand how it may need to be fine tuned if it’s hiding posts with only one report–especially for “this is inappropriate” which is so up to interpretation. But auto hiding spam?? Fabulous. Auto hiding ridiculous obscene rants, like we recently saw from the new Italian poster? Fabulous.

It’s a great tool. Adjust it for us so it takes more than one report to hide (esp with the more subjective report reasons), and address any posters that abuse it for personal vendettas 1:1, but please don’t get rid of it.

[MHM]

Ok, I just looked at the new flag options for the first time. Maybe one spam report is enough for a post to get hidden, while the other reasons should need multiple flags to be hidden.

[CrazyGuineaPigLady]

It would be easy to detect spam if all new users were limited to one forum where they are required to answer a few basic questions. It wouldn’t matter if they had to google “what is the triangle on the bottom of a hoof” and “what part of the mane grows on the front of a horses face” so long as they actually came back to give the answers.

Guests can already read and see what COTH is about so I don’t think it would discourage anyone who wants a legitimate account.

[JB]

@Simkie

Auto hiding ridiculous obscene rants, like we recently saw from the new Italian poster? Fabulous.

Oh c’mon, you know you’ll just click to see the hidden text anyway

[Simkie]

@CrazyGuineaPigLady

It would be easy to detect spam if all new users were limited to one forum where they are required to answer a few basic questions. It wouldn’t matter if they had to google “what is the triangle on the bottom of a hoof” and “what part of the mane grows on the front of a horses face” so long as they actually came back to give the answers.

This sort of question is already part of the registration process.

[CrazyGuineaPigLady]

Yes, but that still allows spammers to post wherever and however often they want once registered.

I’m talking about corralling all new members in a single forum until it is determined they real. Then you can delete and ban or open the gate to the rest of the site.

[Bluey]

@CrazyGuineaPigLady

Yes, but that still allows spammers to post wherever and however often they want once registered.

I’m talking about corralling all new members in a single forum until it is determined they real. Then you can delete and ban or open the gate to the rest of the site.

The program levels addressed that.
Posters had to achieve a minimum level to post freely, easy for a normal poster to achieve.
That feature has been changed as needed by the Moderator, i think, to work better now than how it was initially set.

[CrazyGuineaPigLady]

If the discussion is about how to flag and hide spam in one hit without hiding genuine posts, it might be easier to corral all posts until they reach the minimum trust level and have a uniform number of flags/complaints by different members needed for all the others.

This is routinely done on forums and some are hidden from members whereas others are open for a friendly hazing. It requires less moderation.