The general question is: as a dev, if multiple users are entering conflict in the comments section of my game, how should I handle this? Generally it climbs like this:
- user 1: low-quality post
- user 2: small offense
- user 1: medium offense
- user 2: big offense
The usual technique in communication is to deescalate… But on my game page, I’d rather be it quick. Ideally, I would hide the whole conflict from the public eyes and handle it in private, flagging posts and getting help from an admin (according to https://itch.io/docs/general/community-rules, there is no moderator except community moderators i.e. the dev and people they hired; I have no such community moderators, so it seems that only “admins” will look through flagged comments).
Unfortunately, the only way to hide comments is to delete them, and that prevents any further report/discussion. I am not sure whether it keeps any history for admins/moderators to look at later and decide what to do based on user behavior.
So unless I want to keep the game page super clean at all costs, I would flag the posts. But which posts? Because of the escalation, it’s hard to pinpoint a particular post/user being responsible for all of it.
I could:
a. flag only the low quality post as either spam or off-topic. In this case, if the post is recognized as spam and deleted by an admin, what happens to the conversation tree? Will the other child comments stay and not make page? I guess admins would just do the most meaningful thing and delete any conversation that spawned from it?
b. flag only the first small offense from user 2 as offensive, but then I’ll have to “recognize” the low-quality post, and user 2 will feel down because ultimately, they just criticized a post I would have criticized myself if I were there earlier (I could argue that they were wrong for not using the Report button? and also for flaming, not just kindly backseat moderating)
c. flag both first “bad” posts of each user (everybody’s bad!)
d. flag all bad posts in the comment tree (pragmatic)
e. reply (without flagging) to each user to point at their bad behaviors and hope for a peaceful resolution (after which I can clean up the bad posts).
f. flag AND reply to notify them kindly that I flagged their posts, but I’m not blocking them or anything, just need to get the irrelevant posts removed.
Which solution would you recommend?
Is it considered common practice to flag posts but still try to discuss?
If a post is low-quality, but technically replies to the previous one, is it fair flagging it as Spam or Off-topic? Honestly a one-liner is generally not a problem, but a post with a picture takes a lot of space and is more easily disrupting. Note that this comes back to the discussion on moderation queue for posts containing images and hyperlinks (https://itch.io/t/847203/commenting-please-add-moderation-and-reviewapprove-dialog).
It would help me in https://itch.io/docs/general/community-rules gave more instructions regarding low-quality posts and backseat moderation (esp. the more offensive kind). For instance, tell user that “you can criticize another comment but as soon as other users start using insults, call a moderator/admin with the Report button” or something.
I do understand though, that we may need case-by-case handling and that’s why we have human moderators and admins. Maybe I’m overthinking this, because as soon as one post is flagged, admins will just look at the whole picture and make a decision based on it? If so, I’ll just flag the first post and let you do your job.
I have a few technical questions that you can answer objectively though, and that may help me make my decision if there is no general guideline:
- are deleted comments stored in some history in case we need moderation on past actions in the future?
- any way to hide posts from public eyes while keeping them around for resolution with moderators/admins in private?
- how does the moderation process of flagged comments work? Do I get notified of the final decision? Do I take part in it? Is it applied automatically or with my agreement? Of course, the question is for when reporter = page owner!
Thank you.
Here is the specific comment tree for reference: (discussion now removed)