Garden of memories forum in Sharon's thread. 2 of them in a row.
The thread "Sharon Brown (Sharon)" in Garden of Memories forum

Already deleted, red exclamation point works great!

Aw shoot!! I goofed & hit the bookmark symbol.

:

Wait a minute. Correct me if I'm wrong here please. Now I thought the red exclamation point was for use when a member posts something objectionable enough that it gets reported 4 times & then that member is automatically banned from THAT FORUM. I get that. However, in the case of spammers, we want them banned from the entire site forever. I was not under the impression the red exclamation point would achieve that end goal.
??????

I'm pretty sure that once admin takes a look, the spammer is banned. It does work to hit that report button.

OK, thanks.

4 tattles bans one from an entire forum? Forever? Or is there a 'time-out period?' It all seems rather harsh to me. Particularly since some folks' ideas of inappropriate can be hugely different. And some topics can easily become heated, which to me is not necessarily a bad thing - one can remain cordial while still voicing a strong opinion.

@Bonehead, it seems I was wrong about the # of reports it takes to ban someone. The # is unknown. Here, read this thread about the whole thing:
The thread "Two new features: Report this post and ignore this user" in Site Talk forum

I reported that spam post this morning too and noticed the post was gone later so apparently enough reports were received that the spammer was taken care of.

@Bonehead

Deb, the post wasn't really anything "inappropriate"; it was a spam/junk/advertisement. If someone has a product to sell, they usually post on the Classified Forum and I don't remember what the advertisement was about but there was no product information, no contact information included ... I'm not sure but I think a lot of spam stuff is computer generated and probably mass "sent" to many online sites.

The span was about payday loans

flaflwrgrl said:@Bonehead, it seems I was wrong about the # of reports it takes to ban someone. The # is unknown. Here, read this thread about the whole thing:
The thread "Two new features: Report this post and ignore this user" in Site Talk forum

Ann, I did follow that thread (but thanks) when it was happening. I didn't agree with it then, and still don't. I strikes me as vigilante justice. That said, no need to rehash it - it's a done deal.

@crawgarden Rj, I'm old and my memory is horrible ... I couldn't for the life of me remember what the ad was about.

Bonehead said:I did follow that thread when it was happening. I didn't agree with it then, and still don't. It strikes me as vigilante justice

Deb, you think it's vigilante justice that members have the ability to report inappropriate posts??

I'm thankful that members are allowed to report posts that may be out of order, offensive or not meant for these forums. Administration is busy running the site on a daily basis and it might be impossible for them to know about some of the spam and inappropriate posts that appear. Yes, we have the freedom to ignore something that is unappealing to us but there are young and old alike here and some posts just need to be taken care of ASAP.

If it's considered vigilante justice, that we as members get to report anything deemed inappropriate, than I'm grateful for vigilante justice. Just because we have the ability to click the little "report" icon doesn't necessarily always mean that a post will be deleted ... it just gives us as members the right to have management look into something we feel is inappropriate.

I realize that what is inappropriate to one person, may be far from offensive and inappropriate to another but I'm glad that we are given the voice to at least point it out to admin. and let them make the final decision.

I belonged to another gardening website for a few years (where many of us used to be regulars) and the last year I was a member there, a lot of changes seemed to be taking place; the site was purchased by a huge conglomerate and things seemed to change drastically. I was really stunned to see so much nastiness and inappropriate threads with horrible name calling and ugly messages being typed between members ... it was really sad to see and the new management team didn't seem to care. It got so that the subject of a thread could never seem to get back on topic because of all the arguments and nastiness.

I am so thankful that NGA is operated by a family with such high standards.

Lin, by vigilante justice I mean that the person being scolded (for lack of a better term) doesn't really have any chance to defend him/herself, or perhaps apologize. It seems to me that it's all done behind the scene. I just prefer transparency and due process. But, it's OK. I just find I have less interest in forum participation with these new 'rules.' And that's OK too. I'm not a fan of censorship.

I do not publish the algorithm that causes a person to be banned from a specific forum due to red-icon reports...

But also, I personally investigate all reports that are entered in, and find spammers that way. When a number of people report a spammer, I see it, and I go ahead and ban them from the entire site. That part is manually done by me.

Another spammer here:
jackmayer
I've reported.

Yep, looks like someone who just signed up to post spam ads. I reported each one.

https://garden.org/users/threa...

I reported too. I saw the first a while ago but didn't see the second one Lin. Thanks.

OOPS! Here's another one: