Real posts (from kbin.social magazines) are becoming quite rare. I find myself coming to this site now to do the following circuit:
sort by new and report SPAM and block users
scroll through headlines and read (the few) recent comments/posts to mags I'm interested in
come to kbinMeta and see if anyone else is seeing what I'm seeing and feeling the same way
see if the radio silence has yet been broken by the dev
It's a fascinating case study in the rise and fall of an internet community and digital communication platform. And it highlights one important fact about human community management and technology development: COMMUNICATION IS KEY.
Using this approach, I am seeing none of those posts on /science. I updated the filters a bit today. The top post is a legitimate article from 2024-04-13 and is by HeartyBeast.
Now, I understand that this is seen as an unnecessary step (too fancy) for some. People want zero ads out of the box without anything extra. So I'm thinking about the next approach here.
Framing the problem:
Filtering should be automatic
End-user wants zero additional setup
There is no active upstream development
It's not possible to inherit moderation of a magazine due to some queue of moderator application requests that is not being approved
The third point and fourth points are important here, since that's currently intractable. You can't reconcile zero additional setup with that.
But let's suppose becoming moderator of a defunct magazine (point 4) were possible while point 3 remained unresolved. In other words, at least moderators can try to pick up the pieces. Something being underestimated here is how annoying it would be for the moderator to manually cull posts every single day. I think you would have instant turnover after a couple of weeks once the tedium sets in. Manual solution is not good. Clearly, automation is needed on the moderation side.
So assuming you could actually inherit a magazine, but with no guarantee of upstream development, what about restructuring the tool above so that it's for moderators, instead of end-users? That's pretty easy, and I could make it something the moderator clicks once and it's done, auto-banning the posts. This is a pretty good method.
But you can't inherit moderation right now, so that's back to square one.
Realistically, that leaves these options at the moment:
Wait (a long time) and see
Use the tool above and make magazines readable, albeit at some sacrifice of convenience (?)
Migrate to another instance
Third approach is the path of least resistance and is best for most casual users. Second is for diehards who cannot move instances due to some personal or technical reason. First approach is the most annoying and eventually leads to the third approach after frustration sets in.
Pick your poison, I guess. I can't think of any other prophylactic approach at the moment, maybe this comment triggers some idea.
I understand if you don't want to add yet another third-party tool just to browse the site, but if you feel at all inclined, give it a try. For me 99% of magazines went from unusable to essentially clean.
I don't use a smartphone. im a smartphone luddite. Heck I don't even have a cell phone on me often unless I know I need it (expecting a call or oncall)
I understand why they disabled public downvotes (since they're accepting incoming ones now, they don't want to expose everyone's downvotes from other instances), and I remember they gave some reasoning on Github for why it makes sense to not hide upvotes too, but do we really need incoming downvotes? I think that feature should be a toggle where you either have downvotes hidden but federated, or visible but not federated. And then the instance owner can decide what they prefer.
That's really my main issue with mbin. While I've gotten too used to the All Content view and collections, both of those are on their roadmap, so they'll be coming eventually.
Preventing this issue doesn't seem like a userscript issue (though that's definitely a good start).I think the auto report function is severely needed; it's happening everywhere. If the script can automatically block any user whose post it suppresses, it would be awesome.
But I think the issue is that we need to get support top-down on this.
If the script can automatically block any user whose post it suppresses, it would be awesome.
It does! I've reworded the OP to hopefully make that clearer. After using this approach for a few days, my blocklist (generated entirely programmatically) is ten pages long, and there is nary a bad post in sight. I'm expanding the filters on a daily basis.
I think the auto report function is severely needed; it's happening everywhere.
The idea is that it takes the burden off of myriad (N) users having to manually do this themselves, and lets a single user (the KES custodian) prepare the filters, which then propagate out to any user of KES. Instead of 1,000 people manually blocking, one person builds the heuristics, and everyone benefits.
Preventing this issue doesn't seem like a userscript issue...but I think the issue is that we need to get support top-down on this.
I understand, but the stated goal of KES is addressing issues that can't, or won't (due to some design conflict), be addressed, or which fall through the cracks. At the moment I'm seeing a lot of people voicing frustration, but due to the skeleton crew situation with administration of the site, it seems like screaming into the void. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and hopefully it gets some traction. But my job with KES is just to provide fixes for the end-user, albeit of a third-party nature.
Starting to feel like there's more SPAM than posts on Kbin, at this point.
I sort by new and comb through reporting "SPAM" and blocking users, but it's a never-ending cycle it seems and users reported for SPAM are still posting (hence why I block them in addition to reporting the individual posts).
Thanks for the hard work!
Even though I don't post much so mostly ignore all those messages, still it is a big problem. Until we get it sorted out having tools like these helps stop "bleeding" by people who want to use kbin.
Had few pop up on my magazine even though there is barely a traction but saw few times bloat when posted on other magazines which is really discouraging.
I don't read magazines in-depth much either, so I wasn't aware of the extent of the issue at first, but I was appalled at what I saw. I agree with you that it creates a negative impression for anyone wanting to venture into or use a magazine. I know that needing KES upfront may be a non-starter for some people, but for me the difference with filtering is night and day now.
FYI, I tried the process you mentioned, I'm not sure it's as simple as your post implies (if that process could be called "simple" anyway). I've tried a few different orders of "report, delete, ban", and clicked the "ban" button in at least two spots (one that was directly in the feed and another that comes up under Reports in the magazine panel). No matter what I do, it always shows up as "unban" in the mod log. However, there is a list of bans under the magazine panel, and that does show the accounts as banned.
So, I'm really not sure what is going on here. Maybe it's just a problem with the log and not with the banning itself?
Anyway, thanks again for pointing this out. Hopefully someone can figure out what is going on.
I've been curious about trying out mbin, and this seems like a good instance to do it on. So I absolutely like option 2 the best.
That said, I tried to sign up earlier today, and never received the registration email. Tried to sign up with an old Gmail account. Might be worth looking into. :)
Sorry about that, and thanks for letting me know. I had no idea the email system was down. I'll probably try to look into it after the migration to Mbin. I've gone ahead and manually verified each user from the past week, so you should be able to sign in now.
Sounds good! Migration probably won't happen today, but maybe tomorrow or the day after if we get lucky. Unfortunately, I ran into a problem while trying to set up Mbin due to one of the mbin/kbin dependencies suddenly disappearing out of the blue (see here).
Actually, it would really help if the "Block" button was right next to the username on the spam post. Having to hover over the name and wait for the modal to appear and then go click on "Block" makes it more of a nuisance. I wonder also if in the future you could choose not to display posts by user accounts less than a month old with only downvotes or who have been blocked by hundreds of people.
It would be nice if the report feature had a way to indicate if the problem is spam, content or whatever other issues people might have. You could have a threshold for spam reports to put the account in review and prevent of hide it's posts.
I have to type 4 letters for every spam I see. I'd prefer to check a box (on my phone where typing is annoying this is even more useful) I do this dozens of times per day - it gets annoying fast.
A short pull-down list would work well: Spam, Harassment, Site ToS Violation, Thread/Group Rules Violation, etc.
This way you can automate rules like: if an article get's N spam or harassment reports it's put into the review queue and hidden until a Moderator can review it.
@Kierunkowy74
Yes, moderators can access the reports tab within the magazine panel. Every report must include some reason, hence moderators see them. Regarding bans: without giving a proper reason, no ban can come into effect.
You can also check the modlogs on kbin and lemmy instances for bans (does not apply to mbin). @bayaz@jayrhacker
Most forums have dedicated categories for common stuff like this. Written reports are fine if an explanation is needed, not for the newly created samename37 spambot account illicitly selling drugs (or something that is probably phishing, like the delta airlines refund ticket type stuff) without really doing much to hide it.
It's the same communities and overwhelming at times to the point it doesn't even feel productive or even needed to report it. This is the lowest of low-hanging fruit.
@bayaz It's you who gave me food for thought, alongside many other moderators! I only found out yesterday how to properly ban spam accs on kbin.social.
I really appreciate all efforts to grow and take care of communities, be it on kbin, on lemmy, or on mbin! Every day, I try to keep learning from other moderators.
Given the sheer lack of moderation tools, many mods do great work. I hope the situation will improve so that moderatoring will become easier.
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