My site has a number of members who push the boundaries of our terms and conditions, and acceptable content.
Some of them are well-known and popular users on the site, and we want them to continue using the site, but we continually have to keep placing short-term suspensions.
That means we need to remember to bring them back, etc
It's a very time-consuming process and always the users get very irate too when they've been banned.
Ning's moderation capabilities are a long way behind others networks, and you'll note that even if Ning's help docs it recommends using 'moderation' sparingly.
Unfortunately, our experience has been that the lack of moderation abilities have meant our site has struggled to get past a certain plateau.It's too time-consuming to moderate properly, and without proper moderation it cuts us off from users who would like a "friendlier" environment.
So I would like to suggest that these features get a little spruce-up to make them actually usable.
1. On Member Categories, include a check-box that says 'moderate content'. This way any user in that category, their content goes into moderation. You could use this for new users, who have to prove themselves before being given full-access (very standard feature on forum software) however, the way we would use it, is to have a 'naughty corner' member category whereby all their content is moderated. That way they can still paritcipate, but we get to check their content before it goes up. And if they amend their behaviour we can make them a normal member again.
2. Allow more user-moderation. Instead of just having a "report issue" button, make a button that is "flag as offensive", and if a post hits a certain number of flags it hides by default, with an option to reveal the content if users want to read it.
3. The ability to hide/ignore users. I prefer the model whereby the users that annoy you are collapsed/hidden in some way. That way you can still see them if you need to (ie they may have written something mean about you) but you don't have to put up with them. Even better if we can incorporate this into member categories as another option (hide as default), which would be another way to deal with troublesome users.
4. When you suspend someone, have the ability to do it for a certain amount of time. ie Suspend for 5 days so they get a email informing them they have been suspended until a certain point, and then another message when their membership is automatically restored.
I've pretty much given up on growing my site, because of these lack of membership/moderation features, and I think they would make a massive difference to anyone who has built a site that has developed a bit of scale.
Replies
Hello!
Thank you so much for taking your time and sharing with us all your thoughts on the possible functionality improvement.
I see that everything that you described sounds reasonable, and such updates would be a great help for big communities. I will pass your suggestions to our Project team and it will be up to their managers. Unfortunately, we already have certain goals for the current and next quarter, so if your ideas will be approved, most probably some time will pass till we can start working on the tech part.
Thank you once again!
Best regards,
The NING Team