Search Flagging Forum Transcript

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Introduction

Madhavi Linden: hi everyone, thanks for coming. Today jeska and kalpana will be talking about search flagging About the project and get your input and thoughts about it

Jeska Linden: Thanks Madhavi!

Kalpana Linden: did everyone get a chance to read the RFC that was sent around

PM Sands: did not see it on this topic flagging

Kim Anubis: Yep, saw it

Jeska Linden: Last week we emailed a proposal for Search Flagging to several places for initial feedback and we'd also like to get your feedback and thoughts as well.

Jeska Linden: PM - I'll get you a notecard with it, just a second :)

Jeska Linden: We've gotten some really good questions, thoughts and feedback so far and I have a few questions for all of you.

Jeska Linden: I'll let you all read it quickly :)

Ability to Flag Search Listings

Jeska Linden: Let's start out with basic thoughts- what do you think of the idea of a simple way to flag search listings as spam/prohibited or improperly listed?

Annie Milestone: very good

Kim Anubis: A good idea but subject to gaming and grudges. I'd still vote for it, though.

PM Sands: looks good to me

Leah Salome: I thnk its a good idea as long as you don't get people abusing it. For exmaple, people trying to ruin their competition by creating alts and flagging negatively etc..

Angelo Biondi: exactly

Jeska Linden nods

Addressing Potential Abuse of Flagging

Angelo Biondi: after how many times that the parcel was flagged as Spam/Prohibited an action will be done?

Kalpana Linden: yes. alts and delidberate abuse is something we need to address

Jeska Linden: Angelo - that hasn't been determined yet, we're looking at various ways to address abuse

Annie Milestone: Only problem might be, that some events or so don't match any existing category

Jeska Linden: (including limiting the number of times you can report per day/per account, etc)

PM Sands: This flagging (report abuse) is useful, and would be great to see it on the post forums and JIRA. Anyhow, looks good for inworld.

Kim Anubis: I think the flags should roll off after a while. A negative flag a year ago, for example, may well have no bearing on a current build.

Jeska Linden: PM - It would be great to have it elsewhere, i agree - this proposal is only for search listings

PM Sands: :)

Annie Milestone: good point, Kim

Jeska Linden: Kim - that is one of the open questions actually, raised by one of the mailing lists - how long is a flag active

Jeska Linden: What do you think is a good amount of time, given how content changes?

Kim Anubis: That's a hard question

Leah Salome: If the flagging was policed and popel caught abusing the system would get afine, that would be a good deterant. make it a really big fine :)

Leah Salome: people*

Annie Milestone: half a year maybe

Kim Anubis: Maybe there needs to be a survey of SL residents to see how often they change their listings

Jeska Linden: Leah - we'd be watching for patterns of abuse, it would be handled using the Community Standards as wtih any other harrassment/abuse/griefing/

Jeska Linden: (mostly curiousity)

Jeska Linden: Kim - good idea! I'd like to know that for other reasons too ;)

Angelo Biondi: the opposite scenario for abuse of the Spam flag is to have some alt that flag their parcel as showcase

Kim Anubis: I was also wondering about the inability to change a flag. I used to make mistakes when we had a rating system for avatars, and I was really glad I could change my votes.

Jeska Linden: Yes, the Showcase flag is to work with our plan to change out popular places for the showcase

Angelo Biondi: this is a good idea, the flags can be useful, but we also know that often these features are abused

Jeska Linden: The first step is making it easier to nominate things from within the client.

Jeska Linden nods

Kim Anubis: Also, because things are so changeable around here, we could have a situation where flags from a week ago have nothing to do with a current listing. It would be good to be able to change flags.

Jeska Linden: Kim - it's tied to a search listing (parcel listing/classified) - so when you create a new one, it should lose the previous flags. I'll ask the developer if there are other ways to tell when something has changed...

Kim Anubis: Oh, that's good

Angelo Biondi: i agree

Annie Milestone: But if a flag disappeaes after some months or so, the user should also be able to flag that item again then, including changing his opinion then

Leah Salome: Would flags be visible somehow to all residents?

Preventing 'Gaming' of the Flagging System

Kim Anubis: Then the "game" will be changing your listing every time it gets some negative flags.

Angelo Biondi: there are a lot of ppl that give votes/rates on the fly

Kim Anubis: The other game will be rating parties, like the old days, but this time to get into the Showcase.

Angelo Biondi: maybe they can just misunderstand the content

Kalpana Linden: kim: good point. we will be reviewing all flagged content

Jeska Linden: It shouldn't be as gameable, because it's not a direct correlation

Jeska Linden: ie: you're nominating a place not guarenteeing it'll be included

Kalpana Linden: /kim and repeat offenders will also be flagged

Jeska Linden: (re: showcase)

Kim Anubis: That's really good. But it's still going to put load on the system because people will try to game it anyway. And I worry about system load around here :)

Jeska Linden: You are also limited in the number of times you can rate things both by account type and by time

Kim Anubis: Limiting flags just makes it more expensive to bribe people. hehe

Annie Milestone: but it's difficult: when parcel owner gets roo many negative flags, then he just changes his parcel (rename or whhatever)?

Annie Milestone: THat doens't make sense

Kim Anubis: The thing is, any sort of rating is going to mean people will try to game it, so . . . I'm just playing devil's advocate anyway :)

Jeska Linden: I think the thing to remember is that you are flagging search listings, not content inworld - there is a difference.

Annie Milestone: ok I see

Jeska Linden: The goal is to improve both search relevance and prevent spam/abuse of listings, ie: events that aren't actually events, etc

Leah Salome: Maybe if you made it so that only peple who had payment info on file could use the flagging system, it might stop some abuse?

Jeska Linden: Yup! That's in there :)

Leah Salome: or only premium accounts

Kalpana Linden: yes indeed. thats in there

Jeska Linden: "Anonymous basic residents or residents whose accounts are less than x days old will not be able to

Leah Salome: ah ok :)flag content"

Kim Anubis: Only premiums?

Jeska Linden: It should include anyone who has payment info on file

Kalpana Linden: not only premiums - only "trusted" accounts - where trust could be various things

Kim Anubis: Good -- there are a lot of people who rent land these days instead of going premium :)

Jeska Linden: Yup :) It's more about preventing anonymous accounts from abusing/griefing

Kalpana Linden: for reference here are some broad topics we know we need to think about (from eedback we;'ve gotton so far): * Griefing Concerns * PG vs M Concern * Human Review * Help Stop Event Spam * Categories Needed * Abuse Tracker Type Oversight

PM Sands: I see. all sounds goods. I can only see gamming occuring on nomination by alts -and I've not thought about it enough to offer a fix.

Kim Anubis: I think as long as there's human review it's probably going to go pretty well. Without it, though, some freaky things would happen!

Flagging Camping Regions

Annie Milestone: What about flagging as camping region? or parcel

Jeska Linden: Annie - I'm not sure what your question is...Can you explain?

Annie Milestone: Well, people might flag a parcel as consisting mostly out of campers. So that would give information of about the richness of the content

Jeska Linden: There will be several categories that people can choose to flag a parcel with, but we haven't looked at adding open comments (like tagging). Although that would be cool :)

Kalpana Linden: the first step though is to clean house- prevent egregious abuses of search listings

Annie Milestone: ok

Kalpana Linden: and as we learn from that we will add more flagging/tagging capabilities

Jeska Linden: *hopefully* ;)

Annie Milestone: I see

Flagging Mature Regions

Jeska Linden: Ok I have a few more questions for everyone, then I'll let you back to your Second Lives :)

Jeska Linden: We didn't really talk about the mature portion of the flagging proposal

Jeska Linden: Mature = the listing is adult only content

Kim Anubis: That's tricky, because the ratings are already vague

Jeska Linden: Which is a bit of a change. One of my requirements for this is to make the ratings less vague

Kim Anubis: yay :)

Jeska Linden: But I'm not sure how specific we can be

Leah Salome: and also are skins counted as mature? Pictures of naked skins?

Kim Anubis: I would go with M and G instead of PG.

Kalpana Linden: Leah: we are struggling with that one. anyone have ideas. note: mature flag will not take down any listing, its just informational and perhaps filtering if needed.

Jeska Linden: Currently, any content that is publically visible within search needs to conform to "pg standards." I'm not sure if that would change at the moment

Kim Anubis: The LL interpretation of PG is different from that in, for example, the film industry

Jeska Linden nods

Kim Anubis: the US film industry -- it's different elsewhere

Jeska Linden: Which has led to much confusion over the years, agreed. Perhaps we can pair a better definition with the search flagging

Kim Anubis: and the definition here is vague. I don't know what's allowed for sure, and I have been around for a while.

Kalpana Linden: we also need to understand that SL is really very global. so our standards have to be somewhat applicable globally.

Leah Salome: Maybe we could do a survey to see what people consider as pg and mature, with certain things

Leah Salome: thinsg that arents as obvious as others

PM Sands: hmmm. I dunno, not my forte, I guess I'd look at how search engine companies handle it.

Jeska Linden: There are also various laws to follow in various countries, which is where things get a little more complex. But thanks, that was helpful feedback!

Classifieds

Jeska Linden: The last question I have...Is about the classifieds. If a classified ad is flagged and removed, the person who placed it will recieve a pro-rated refund for their ad. They can also place another ad at the same time. Does that seem fair? Confusing?

Kim Anubis: It makes sense to me

Leah Salome: I think that is fair. But maybe repeat offenders shouldnt get a refund - for exmaple if they do it 10 times

Jeska Linden nods

Annie Milestone: Maybe he should get nly half back. That might prevent from just try it

Angelo Biondi: prohibited contenct could not get a refund

Leah Salome: everyones going to make mistakes at the begining

Jeska Linden: Repeat abuse could be treated as such by the governance team

Angelo Biondi: but generally it's a good idea

PM Sands: sounds very fair

Closing Thoughts

Jeska Linden: Ok, that's all I got. Anyone else have questions, thoughts?

Leah Salome: I just think if the consiquences were a bit harsher you wouldnt get so many people trying to game the system

Jeska Linden: Or if you think of things later, feel free to email me

Annie Milestone: I have something else, not exactly today's tpic, but a bit related, and maybe a good topic for a special frum:

Annie Milestone: *forum

Annie Milestone: What I'd find helpful in search in general, is each listing in search would have a main country. Maybe that could be discussed in another forum

Kalpana Linden: annie: yes. could you send jeska a note with use cases where country would help?

Annie Milestone: sure

Kalpana Linden: that will be very useful. thanks

Annie Milestone: ok

PM Sands: thank you Madhavi, Jeska, Kalpana :)

Jeska Linden: Thanks everyone :)

Kalpana Linden: thank you all!

Kim Anubis: Thank you for asking for our input. This is why I love LL. :)

Angelo Biondi: nice to meet you all - good bye for now

Madhavi Linden: thanks everyone for attending

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