Moderation

Friday, October 24, 2008 1:48:49 PM

This week we've used the hammer of justice quite frequently on My Opera. More than 100 accounts has been banned and a large number of offensive content has been removed. The accounts were primarily banned due to violations of our terms of service. There has been extensive abuse of our internal messaging system (PM) and we've removed a lot of sexual content. In addition, we've locked and closed many photo albums and sent warnings to users who have been posting offensive content.

We will continue to remove this kind of content and make My Opera a nice place for you to stay in.

We are working hard to keep My Opera clean, so for the next release of My Opera there will be a report feature you can use to notify us on offensive content. This will greatly ease moderation on My Opera.

Should you at any point find content that is not suitable for the My Opera Community you should always report this to the moderators so that we are able to remove it as soon as possible! Either use the contact forum or send a private message to a moderator. All reports will be investigated!

Here are some statistics on content we've removed and closed this week:

Bans	Reason
35	PM spam
8	Spam
2	Abusing mods
7	Porno
2	Hentai Porn
8	Porn Posting
3	Comment spam
10	VTS*
2	Mod Abuser
32	Porn

*VTS = Violating Terms of Service

The My Opera Terms of Service can be found at the following URL when you are logged in: my.opera.com/signup

Comments

1 2 Next »

Tamil # Friday, October 24, 2008 1:59:35 PM

What is difference between Abusing mods & Mod Abuser?

(116)

DesertDawg # Friday, October 24, 2008 2:04:13 PM

Everyone needs to keep their acts clean for the young Opera fans.

I guest "Mod Abuser" is when I put Espen's face on top of James Bond's body and posted it. Sorry! No offense meant.

A word to the moderators: if you are going to write English, then you need to spell correctly and use correct verb forms. If someone notes a typo, please fix it.

Matt Coxcoxy # Friday, October 24, 2008 2:04:31 PM

There's also respective forum threads for reporting spam on OC:

CharlieBAMAToNE # Friday, October 24, 2008 2:07:47 PM

What's the difference between Porno and Porn? And I love how Hentai gets its own category, heh.

Aleksanderaaas # Friday, October 24, 2008 2:12:36 PM

@Tamil: Tomato/tomato

@BAMAToNE && Tamil: The "Reason" is the reason the Moderators have used when banning the user. The same as with Tamil's question is that it was probably two diffrent moderators banning and they described it in diffrent ways.

Pattty # Friday, October 24, 2008 2:25:34 PM

That is nice

Charles SchlossChas4 # Friday, October 24, 2008 2:48:43 PM

Haavardhaavard # Friday, October 24, 2008 2:59:00 PM

This week was a bit on the slow side, actually, and has been quite slow lately compared to the amount of spam we used to get. I guess some of the measures put in place to limit spam are helping.

Originally posted by DesertDawg:

A word to the moderators: if you are going to write English, then you need to spell correctly and use correct verb forms. If someone notes a typo, please fix it.

Considering that the ban reason is mainly there to be used as an internal reference and will rarely be seen outside of Opera, I don't think grammar is or should be the first concern when someone has to deal with abusers

José Torreszetorres # Friday, October 24, 2008 3:42:13 PM

Great because we want to see our kids here too!

ali alhsonykanob75 # Friday, October 24, 2008 5:04:52 PM

//////////Hi evryone

Lerato lovedale MaponyaLovedale # Friday, October 24, 2008 5:50:41 PM

I thnk its great we sick of all the explicity

KittyliciousZaphira # Friday, October 24, 2008 6:25:02 PM

I think the mods are doing a great job, and I've been met with positivism every time I've reported something abusive!
Continue the good work please.

Peterpman45 # Friday, October 24, 2008 9:20:48 PM

Great job guys.

Rafael Luikrafaelluik # Friday, October 24, 2008 9:24:59 PM

theoddbod # Friday, October 24, 2008 9:36:10 PM

Are groups bannable too? I gather this isn't something available to a non-Opera mod.

53north # Friday, October 24, 2008 9:38:51 PM

Come on over to my blog and see how many gadgets I can get in my sticky post

DavidSchalandra # Friday, October 24, 2008 10:09:20 PM

...We are working hard to keep My Opera clean, so for the next release of My Opera there will be a report feature you can use to notify us on offensive content....

How clean will that be? How much political correctness will we have to face? I'm just wondering because I just changed my theme to be a little bit more mature and I guess that some people might find it "not clean enough", not sterile enough, not appropriate or assimilated enough.

Or maybe this reply is already too offensive?

...yes, I am paranoid, but that doesn't mean that I'm not getting followed.

Dustin WilsonKhadgar # Friday, October 24, 2008 11:03:43 PM

@Schalandra: I don't think you have anything to worry about with your layout. It should be quite within the rules.

dirkthetomster # Saturday, October 25, 2008 12:17:22 AM

as long as clean doesn't mean sterile ... keep on banning ...

Arnt # Saturday, October 25, 2008 1:17:29 AM

We are working hard to keep My Opera clean, so for the next release of My Opera there will be a report feature you can use to notify us on offensive content. This will greatly ease moderation on My Opera.

In my eyes, this will be the most important feature here on My Opera.

HenryAOTEAROAnz # Saturday, October 25, 2008 2:37:08 AM

Mantasgrawity # Saturday, October 25, 2008 11:32:14 AM

What's the difference between "Porn" and "Porno"?

D1sasterp1ece # Saturday, October 25, 2008 11:54:23 AM

"... hammer of justice crushes you overpower"

slackwrdave # Saturday, October 25, 2008 12:47:47 PM

The "report" feature will be very nice, since in the past I've always had to search around and do some reading to get to the right place to report something. However, I must say that once I got something reported, it was dealt with lickety split (very quickly)! I assume there will still be a human element in the review of reported things in case a user goes on a vendetta against others.

One thing about PM spam, sometimes I accidentally click "delete" instead of "report spam", thus blowing it. This usually happens when big fingers are tapping on small keys while using Opera Mini.

I enjoy "adult content" quite a bit, but I know where to get it when I want it. Nobody would want to see my opera become the cesspool that geocities did years ago.

I think most my opera members truly love it here and want it to be the best. Protecting "the baby" is in everyone's interest.

Oh, one more thing, some of the opera employees and mods are quite young (compared to me!), yet have shown amazing wisdom and judgement in handling content that pushes the envelope. I've never seen a rush to censor and would prefer it to stay that way. They keep the "vibrant" in the community slogan. It can be a difficult line to walk.

Haavardhaavard # Saturday, October 25, 2008 2:31:48 PM

Originally posted by slackwrdave:

I assume there will still be a human element in the review of reported things in case a user goes on a vendetta against others.

Yes, and we have had several cases where someone would try to "frame" someone else. Since administrators can get an overview of a user's content (such as the number of blog comments or sent PMs) and thus easily check if the report is acurate, this is quickly picked up on. More often than not, the person who tried to get someone else banned for no reason got himself banned instead.

I've never seen a rush to censor and would prefer it to stay that way.

We've had quite a few request to be even stricter when moderating. When a site gets the traffic we are getting now, things can quickly get out of hand. We definitely want to keep the signal to noise ratio high. Currently, there is a lot of noise at times. The problem is that trying to reduce the noise inevitably rubs someone the wrong way, and they will start with name-calling, various accusations, and so on.

It should be noted that we have several voluntary moderators who put their neck on the line, so to speak, and deal with abuse. To keep them from being personally harassed (you wouldn't believe the venom you can get when dealing with abuse - see the "mod abuser"/"abusing mods" ban reasons), we're going to keep moderators as anonymous as possible, while still ensuring that people who break the rules understand why a moderator was forced to step in and take action.

With more and better tools at our disposal (development is on-going), it will be easier to have abuse reported and dealt with, while people who follow the rules and generally behave well will have nothing to fear.

H82typ # Saturday, October 25, 2008 7:06:21 PM

In general, +1.

Aleksanderaaas # Saturday, October 25, 2008 7:17:59 PM

@theoddbod: Groups can also be banned, in certain cases we also remove users of the group if the content is not suitable.

H82typ # Saturday, October 25, 2008 7:36:45 PM

@Schalandra: They'll be watching,though!

/ sort of offtopic.

Captain FalconTriforceOfAnnoyingness # Saturday, October 25, 2008 9:24:40 PM

wow so many perverts...

DavidSchalandra # Saturday, October 25, 2008 11:47:53 PM

@H82typ:
I knew it! I'm getting followed... they are everywhere.

@TriforceOfAnnoyingness:
Hey... I'm paranoid, not per... uh... okay, maybe a little bit.

Captain FalconTriforceOfAnnoyingness # Sunday, October 26, 2008 12:35:38 AM

@Schalandra: not you all the people who posted porn and stuff.

H82typ # Sunday, October 26, 2008 1:16:27 AM

I don't care what that sheep said, she's lying!

Wanney IdrissWaneyidriss # Sunday, October 26, 2008 1:29:47 AM

It's nice to know that the Opera people are trying to keep it clean. Keep it up guys. And BEWARE...You dirty ones!

H82typ # Sunday, October 26, 2008 1:36:31 AM

Dacotah # Sunday, October 26, 2008 2:56:38 AM

YAY, keep up the great work.

53north # Sunday, October 26, 2008 10:31:26 AM

"-Accurate", "-harrassed"

=0)

DesertDawg # Sunday, October 26, 2008 10:38:39 AM

Abusing Users
http://my.opera.com/chooseopera/albums/showpic.dml?album=612183&picture=8388650

darumaki # Sunday, October 26, 2008 11:42:25 AM

The world isn't clean so why should Opera be any different ? Censoring is big brotherish, the internet is still free isn't it as in free speech, that wonderful inclusion in the constitution.

Ronironieith761 # Sunday, October 26, 2008 11:52:16 AM

keep clean, keep peace!

make it comfort

JoeGoJoeGo # Sunday, October 26, 2008 2:02:20 PM

@darumaki: so Opera should allow child porn, spam and flooding? Because, you know, censorship is evil

Miladin MiladinoskiEagleMKD # Sunday, October 26, 2008 4:55:56 PM

Darn good!

theoddbod # Sunday, October 26, 2008 5:24:34 PM

The internet has never been free, it is simply not well-patrolled and laws are usually either ill-enforced or unenforceable.

Aleksanderaaas # Monday, October 27, 2008 9:15:13 AM

I have been following this post over the weekend, and I am amazed over the amount of positive feedback from you all! A big thanks to all of you!

@slackwrdave: Thank you for those kind words, we do try our best.

@darumaki: I agree that the Internet is a place for free speech, however there is different channels for different topics, the kind of topics we do not tolerate on the My Opera Community can be found elsewhere.

Aleksanderaaas # Monday, October 27, 2008 2:08:33 PM

@Investor: Thanks!

klonkkombolan # Monday, October 27, 2008 6:51:08 PM

in tradition of a many 1000 year old combat against the dark forces ...
good luck for the future

Federicokoppieop # Monday, October 27, 2008 11:16:23 PM

To darumaki: freedom does not, certainly NOT, mean that anything is allowed. Rules are always necessary, starting the very first day of our lives. If parents do not draw the line at the outset, toddlers are likely to become spoiled grown-ups who often are a nuisance and make whimsical decisions...