create reaction emoji to mark message as offensive

[rphuber]

Not a bug. Feature request

• kcd-discord-bot version:
• node version:
• npm version:

Relevant code or config

What you did:

What happened:

Reproduction repository:

Problem description:
It may be easy for people to send offensive messages in private messages that would not be able to be moderated.

Suggested solution:
have a way (such as a reaction emoji) for a person receiving an offensive message via private chat to report that message triggering a way for mods to investigate such actions and step in where necessary.

[kentcdodds]

Hi @rphuber!

Why should this be limited to private message channels? What if we enabled this for every channel and any time a 🚩 reaction is put on a message, the bot quotes and links the message to the moderators channel?

It would also need to make sure that moderators are given access to the channel if they don't already have access.

Thoughts?

[marcosvega91]

Maeby can be linked messages with at least 2 flag. If someone has said something unpolite I think that more people will flag the message

[smeijer]

It would also need to make sure that moderators are given access to the channel if they don't already have access.

That was exactly the original idea behind this request. The request originates from a discussion, which lead to this comment by @rphuber.

Let me summarize a bit to clarify.

A discussion about moderation and behavior, lead to the question: "what to do with private channels & clubs, how do we moderate those?". I suggested to add a disclaimer to clubs when they were created, and make the club captain responsible for misbehavior of students.

My concerns were and are:

1. We don't want to put all ~20 moderators in every private channel / club to keep an eye on everyone.
2. If two or more members open a private chat for what-ever reason, we don't want to invade their privacy.

The discussion continued, and @rphuber asked: is there a way for a non moderator to mark a message as offensive?.

That lead to the idea of using reaction emoji's to report certain posts. The bot could then forward those to a specific flagged channel visible to mods only, and 1 or 2 mods could be invited into the channel to get things straightened out / take back control.

I suggest to make this a multi stage action.

Implementation idea:

Stage 1

• User flags post, by adding the 🚩
• Bot forwards quote of the message, with a message-link to a flagged channel

Stage 2

• Based on the quoted message, mod decides if it is worth checking out
• If so, they add a 🚩 to the bot message, to request access (if necessary)
• Bot invites mod into the channel

Stage 3

• When things are straightened out, mod can add 🏳️ to the bot message, so other mods realize that it's been taken care of.

Open questions

1. Should the users' flag emoji be removed by the bot?
2. What about the fact when we have a private channel with only people that don't adhere the CoC?
3. Why should this be limited to private message channels?

My idea's regarding the open questions:

1. Removing the flag might be a good thing for privacy. Users might not want to come across as a "snitch". I don't know if the bot can do this though?

2. I couldn't care less honestly. We are moderating so that users are not unnecessarily getting hurt. When a private chat doesn't fit within our CoC, but nobody get's hurt / is flagging. I don't see why we should intervene.

3. It doesn't need to. That's just where the idea originates from. I think it's useful for all channels.

[smeijer]

Maeby can be linked messages with at least 2 flag. If someone has said something unpolite I think that more people will flag the message

Not necessarily if it's a private channel with < 5 users. And the mod's aren't very busy yet, so I don't think it will cause them to much work if an flag is occasionally misplaced.

We could make it configurable though, so that we can easily increase the number of required flags in the future, if it becomes a problem.

[rphuber]

Hi @rphuber!

Why should this be limited to private message channels? What if we enabled this for every channel and any time a 🚩 reaction is put on a message, the bot quotes and links the message to the moderators channel?

It would also need to make sure that moderators are given access to the channel if they don't already have access.

Thoughts?

I think it would make sense to allow this for all channels. I was mostly concerned about the private channels as moderators don't have easy visibility into those. Just having a way to get more information to the mods about what users find offensive would be very helpful.

[MichaelDeBoey]

My idea in this whole discussion was "we as moderators are here to make sure the CoC is adhered in the channels of this server, so that includes 'private' channels/OG clubs".

I liked @rphuber of coming up with a flag reaction emoji to report a message to the mods.
But if we go this way (which is a good idea imo), we should make it clear during onboarding which emoji needs to be used and we should also make sure everybody can find the right emoji back at any time.

My concerns are still with private chats that only contain people that are not adhering to the CoC.
For instance if they're sharing links to illegally download the workshops, ...
That's something we don't want happening in the server.
I know it doesn't hurt anybody (except Kent itself) and if they do this in DM we also don't have control over it.
But at least we can make sure we don't have those kind of conversations on our server.

I also like the stages idea @smeijer proposed and would also think that flagging messages shouldn't only be available in private channels, but just in every channel.

[kentcdodds]

This could probably automate some of the process in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VtR62dA9BTDtpzmsFxRX_1w-B8JIbRozuQFIN3HWf9Y/edit#

[kentcdodds]

Oh, and as for COC violations happening in private chats, I'm not concerned about that. I'm sure things could definitely happen in those chats, but I'm not sure why anyone would do that when the bot tells them that I can see their messages. They'd just take it elsewhere.

If someone is harmed, everyone who joins the server knows where to send complaints and they could also reach out to a moderator.

I'm not really concerned at the moment. I definitely want private channels to be available to everyone and it's more about a place to chat without bugging everyone else than it is a place for a truly private conversation (though it works that way nicely for situations when mods need to talk to someone about poor behavior).