Ponybooru Moderation Feedback

@ZizzyDizzyMC  

 
You and Luzion. You are claiming to be more honest and transparent than Derpibooru, but you are pulling the same shit they did. Yesterday Luzion did not even mention Zippy had mod tools until Zippy said he did: https://ponybooru.org/images/2826245#comment_31644
 
I think this is the code that Derpibooru did to show hidden staff. You should copy this: https://github.com/derpibooru/philomena/commit/87c07f800a97df73be4aeddf0166aaaf95bcaf95
 
@Anonymous #B8DB  

 
This is simple. If the staff is inactive, then list them as inactive remove their mod powers.
 
CP should not be an issue. Cloudflare has a free tool to automatically block CP until active staff can delete it: https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-csam-scanning-tool/

@Anonymous #61A0  

opinion disregarded  

any automatic moderation has unacceptable rate of false positives and false negatives.

The staff would have to decide, for themselves, if Cloudflare’s marigin of error is acceptable in dealing with CP.

Automatic moderation?
 
Oh great, let’s be less like “Derpibooru” and more like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other silicon valley platforms. Such an improvement!

@FeatherTrap  
Given the topic, it’s more like Tumblr kermitting sudoku with its NSFW ban rather than Twitter (which needed feds bringing thermorectal cryptoanalyzer to them to BAN LITERAL PEDOPHILES SHARING LITERAL CP).

@Barhandar  
Use whatever comparison you prefer, I’m still going to call: BULLSHIT! on anyone who complains about a lack of transparency and abuses with moderation, and then suggests automatic moderation as an alternative.  
Ignoring the massive amounts of false negatives/positives caused by them even when working as designed, are we really going to overlook how easy it is for someone with the right privileges to simply delete anything they don’t like and blame it on “muh algorithm”, otherwise known as “weekdays on SV sites”?

@Zaknel  
It’s not an AI guessing if something is CP like Tumblr does. It uses signatures from known and confirmed CP to identify CP. It does not ban or delete anything. It just blocks the server from sharing an image until it is reviewed. That gives mods more time to review without having to rely on secret moderators.
 
I do not trust Ponybooru having secret moderators. If someone can see my votes, IP address and username when I am posting anon, they should be listed.

@Anonymous #61A0  
If it’s just something that looks for known sources of this content, then that’s fine. You just made it out like you were saying that it would look at the images themselves, like Discord does.
 
And yes, Zippy should have been listed on the staff and we should have been aware of his presence, but as long as it’s the only time something like this happens, can’t we move on?

@Luzion  
@Sapphie  
Every account with staff permissions should be visible on the staff page for transparency, no exceptions,  
if there are staff whose roles don’t fit with the existing ones or that don’t want users to contact them about site issues  
you could stick them at the bottom of the page and add a note or something
 

 
So are Zippy and Curtained the only hidden staff members or are there others?

@Zaknel  
How do we know that is the only time? They should list everyone with mod tools on the staff page so we can be sure.

@Anonymous #61A0  
That’s what I’m hoping they’re going to fix right now.

@Barhandar  

 
I have heard this about Twitter being soft on MAPs aka actual pedos under a mask sharing CP. Jeremy, aka the Quartering made a video on this topic, as well as some other people. Jack Doresy should be fucking investigated for his shady antics and the like, and so should Zuckerberg! Also, I agree that Cloudflare is not the best of options.

@php111  
I agree. I was always opposed to keeping shadow staff, but I’m just giving a reason why it ultimately was kept. I wasn’t the only staff member opposed to it, but ultimately none of us spoke up vocally enough, so that’s on us.  
There are two shadow mods still.  
We’ll try to push for the removal of hidden staff (either by making them official, or by removing their status as staff). We’ll need solutions for how to deal with potentially illegal content, though. A solution would be to appoint more assistants—whose only job would be to watch out for this kind of stuff, and, should the worst actually happen, ping us off-site and hide it asap. No other obligations or powers.
 
If you have any other suggestions, feel free to pitch them.  
We are most likely not gonna go for cloudflare, mostly because >cloudflare. Though that’s not my call to make.

@Zaknel  
Yeah, I have read it.
 
In reference to the types of people I was responding to, my feelings have not changed.

@ZizzyDizzyMC  
You can feel however you want and nobody has any right to judge you for it. But how you choose to let your feelings determine your action is something that, like it or not, can and will be judged by others.

@Zaknel  

 
Very much so indeed. Zizzy needs to learn to put his feelings aside more when it comes to making admin decisions. Feelings don’t govern the the planets, galaxy, nor the universe.

You guys seem to think my feelings are involved in my decisions here. You’d be very wrong. I don’t particularly care how I feel regarding PB. I want it to be a place where people do not have to worry about their speech being struck down for stupid, sometimes petty reasons.
 
However this does not shield people from my, or anyone else’s ire shall they use their freedoms to willfully and deliberately be an asshole / abrasive / dick / abusive / non-helpful / cause problems etc. You get what you give on PB, and if you’re constantly a dick to other users including myself, expect to be returned in kind.
 
Reminder that people like this, genuinely exist and their input isn’t helpful at all to any meaningful conversation regarding a pony website:
 
@Anonymous #4AFE  

@ZizzyDizzyMC  
Ah, the flashbacks come back.
 
I went to a Vocational High School, Zizzy. My teacher was a master electrician who had been in the trade for over 40 years. And he told me exactly what you just told me.  

 
And I remember when he said that, I thought that was the most ridiculous thing ever and I did not understand why he was teaching it to us like that was a good thing.
 
Since then, I have moved 1600 miles away, I have my own place, my own job, and other things as well. And my feelings about that ideology have not changed.
 
Everyone’s being rude to you? So you’re rude to them. Congratulations, now nothing’s happening except everyone is insulting each other. Is that what you were trying to accomplish?
 
Because that’s about all you’re going to accomplish doing that. But don’t just take my word for it, reread this thread. That’s all that anyone sees you as. You can lash out at people all day long, but what will that really get you at the end of the day? I’m genuinely curious. Do you think that by lashing out at them and being rude to them consciously and deliberately, while proudly declaring that you are doing so deliberately as you just have, suddenly everyone is going to like you?
 
Think of it this way as well. If your ideology is, “be rude to those who have been rude to you,” doesn’t that logically mean that because you’ve just declared that you’re being rude to everyone, everyone should be rude to you?
 
 
Or, even besides what I just said, why do you assume that they’re doing it deliberately? I do believe I explained why I don’t have reason to believe that they’re deliberately trying to control you, or at least not as much as you think. Do you have anything to say about that?

honestly just de-mod zippy at this point, stop acting like he is the only person who can delete illegal content, there’s literally like 8 other mods who can do it

@Perplexia  
In the end, he’s accepted to join as an official mod. We’ve gone ahead and de-modded one of the other two, and we’re waiting for the reply from the last.

@Sapphie  
We would still like to know who the other two are. They could see who we were when posting anonymously. Why can we not know who they are?
 
Is the inactive staff feature going to be added to prevent this from happening again?

@Anonymous #E96B  
I would need to check, but as far as I know, they never had those permissions enabled, so in fact they don’t know anyone’s IPs.
 
As for the second part, I’m not the person to ask, but I’ll push for it

@Anonymous #E96B  
Is this being ignored? Who were the other hidden staff? Why did you not add the inactive staff feature yet?

@Anonymous #9892  

 
Yeah, I have to agree. This is a feature that needs to be either implemented or given a reasonable explanation for why it has not yet been implemented. It should not be ignored like the trash in my apartment.

We’re currently discussing privacy concerns that those two people may have. The temporary mods were told from day one that they would be anonymous during the site’s start up, until a time when they wished to become official staff.  
One of them was just there to help the site get started, and only remained anonymous as a place holder if he decided to become public.
 
Currently, all previously hidden staff have been either stripped of power (until they decide to publicly become mods), or were made official (Zippy, in this case)