WHAT IS REPORT ABUSE?
A plugin that allows your user community to notify any content concerns to specific space moderators for their immediate action.
WHY USE IT?
Social media communities bring social interactions into the virtual realm. Virtual interaction allows almost all forms of one-to-one social interaction to occur including the negative ones like violations of privacy, bullying and even damage to reputations.
Report Abuse brings a level of regulatory control over your user community. The ability for anybody to report content that they believe is in breach of the user standards of the community or employment codes of conduct brings a degree of safety to users.
A reported comment is immediately notified to the specific quality or risk moderators associated with the space. The reporter is informed that their report notification has been received and they will be advised of the outcome of the investigation.
The outcome of this investigation will be to allow the comment to remain, or to ban the comment or page. The ban function is restricted to the moderation user group.
Where the banned content was, it can be replaced in the conversational thread with a generic banner e.g. stating "this comment was banned".
MAIN FEATURES
1. Comment with report option
Alongside the options of reply or like a comment, the user has the ability to report a specific comment. Any comment may be reported to the community administrator or moderator of the space or the individual page.
The reasons why a user may want a comment brought to the attention of the community moderator can be varied. They may believe the content of the comment is:
- in breach of the user policies and standards or the enterprise's code of conduct due to the
- in breach of workplace standards and could be inferred as a form of bullying due to the author's tone and use of language
- a staff member's or even a client's privacy has been breached
There are no criteria that must be met for this report option to be selected. This is entirely at the discretion of the user and how they view the comment content. This may depend upon the entire conversational thread or it could be the wording and tone of the specific comment.
By providing the report option to all members of the community, you are intimating that a degree of control and policing is continually in effect. This helps to maintain the required level of professionalism to ensure your enterprise social media community is seen as the place where staff can contribute their comments and
improve collaboration within your enterprise, safely.
2. Confirmation of report that user sees once they select option to report
Immediately upon selecting the report option the following two actions occur:
- The user who has selected the report option is advised that the comment has been reported to the space moderator/administrator who will investigate the comment, and
- The space moderator/administrator is notified by email that a report has been made. The information contained within the email is configurable per space and may provide:
- The name of the reporter
- The name of the author of the comment reported
- The content of the comment reported
- The location within Confluence of the reported comment
It is important that the reason why the comment has been reported is not captured at this time. This allows the site moderator/administrator to review the comment impartially.
3. Shared notification moderator receives
The space moderator/administrator group is notified by email that a report has been made. The information contained within the email is configurable via a space template:
It is important that the exact comment is captured at the time the report is made so that even if the author subsequently edits their comment, the original content which led to the report being made, is preserved.
The site moderator/administrator reviews the comment impartially i.e. there is no indication as to why the comment has been reported. If after an initial investigation of the comment, it is not immediately evident why the comment has been reported, the site moderator/administrator can contact the reporter directly and ask for further information before making a determination.
From the time the comment is reported until a determination to either allow the comment to remain or to ban the comment, there is no indicator raised against the comment to highlight that it has been reported. This is to ensure that any reporting of a comment is seen as a serious action and one that should only be undertaken if a user deems the content is inappropriate, and not because another user has also reported the comment.
Any comment that is in serious breach of the user communities standards and policies will undoubtedly be reported multiple times, which can assist the site moderator/administrator with their ultimate determination.
4. Comment with option to ban
Once the site moderator/administrator has investigated the reported comment, one of the possible outcomes is to ban the comment. As is common with the role of a site moderator/administrator, higher or greater functions are given. This is the case with the option to ban a comment.
Report Abuse provides API components to have it integrated into your Confluence theme. Once integrated the banning of a comment has the effect of making the comment 'invisible' to the user community and it is instead replaced with a generic comment which states "This comment has been banned by the Moderator."
The banned comment remains visible to the site moderator/administrator but is no longer available to the author or the user community for editing.
There are times when removing or deleting a comment is not a viable option for a site moderator e.g. Human Resource policies may require an inappropriate comment to remain insitu should any future disciplinary actions against the author be undertaken, or country or state laws may require that all information regarding a specific topic from an enterprise is made available under certain official requests.
5. Result of banned comment i.e. big red banner
To ensure the site moderator/administrator is aware that a comment has been banned, this will always display with a red background.
The banned comment is invisible to the user community, and to the original author, therefore, removing the ability for an inappropriate comment to be subsequently edited.