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A Day on the Internet: Early Morning Edition
Well, midafternoon for those of you in the UK and "Saturday" for those very far to the east.
In case you missed it yesterday,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
lj_biz announced that the code/process for deeming an LJ or individual posts on an LJ as "explicit adult content" or "adult concepts" - the former will block those under 18 from seeing it, and the latter will block those under 14. Yes, I think this could be abused and create a climate of concern and fear, etc., but I don't have a huge problem with it because in a lot of ways, it's similar to the way friendslock works. And it's done by you, or by a community mod, and if you're over 18 it won't impact what you can see as long as you have your birth-year in your profile settings.
I have a bigger problem with the "flagging" process, which allows other people to "flag" content on your LJ for Various Things They May Have A Problem With - and my problem is basically that this is something that can be so so so easily abused, and if LJ takes the tack with these things that ffn did - where you can get your content deleted or your account removed because of one complaint that doesn't get investigated (and yes, I understand that ffn doesn't do that anymore but they supposedly have in the past), that's bad. If 100 complaints from brand new accounts at the same IP or anon IPs come in, I hope LJ treats those as noise-without-signal - but also, given that it's relatively easy to talk one's friends into raising a hue and cry over something, even a large number of complaints about something need to be fully investigated - this is going to be usable for legitimate reasons, but it is also another way of taking a grudge over something to a new level, and that's making me uncomfortable. I want to see what happens with how LJ deals with flagged complaints, in other words. But hopefully it will work the same way as abuse complaints - which do also have the ability to be misused, but...
ETA: It seems that LJ will not allow accounts that are under a month old to flag posts at all, which is a good thing. There is still potential for abuse, but making a thousand new accounts so you can go on a reporting spree that evening isn't one of them. /ETA
One difference between these flags and abuse complaints is that generally, complaints to Abuse have been public - if you have a problem with something, anyone can see it, at least initially, when it's posted to Abuse. Will flags be done the same way? Is there a discussion of this anywhere in the 2000+ comments on the biz post?
In much better internet news, GMail now has Group Chats and more emoticons! Yay, Google, for giving people what we want, and trying to be Not Evil!
In other words, Google - 1.0; LJ - 0.023! (LJ gets one tenth of a point back for blocking accounts that are under a month old from Flagging Stuff)
I also learned last week that in posts to a community, if the community is set to allow anyone to edit tags, even if comments are turned off and the comm is set to moderate, the community members can edit the tags. I wasn't sure what to do with that knowledge, and I refrained from being Evil in the tags even though I sorta wanted to be, but I thought people other than me should know this. Especially because I think that there's no IP tracking at this point on tag-editing. Dear LJ, this is probably a hole, no?
In case you missed it yesterday,
lj_biz announced that the code/process for deeming an LJ or individual posts on an LJ as "explicit adult content" or "adult concepts" - the former will block those under 18 from seeing it, and the latter will block those under 14. Yes, I think this could be abused and create a climate of concern and fear, etc., but I don't have a huge problem with it because in a lot of ways, it's similar to the way friendslock works. And it's done by you, or by a community mod, and if you're over 18 it won't impact what you can see as long as you have your birth-year in your profile settings. I have a bigger problem with the "flagging" process, which allows other people to "flag" content on your LJ for Various Things They May Have A Problem With - and my problem is basically that this is something that can be so so so easily abused, and if LJ takes the tack with these things that ffn did - where you can get your content deleted or your account removed because of one complaint that doesn't get investigated (and yes, I understand that ffn doesn't do that anymore but they supposedly have in the past), that's bad. If 100 complaints from brand new accounts at the same IP or anon IPs come in, I hope LJ treats those as noise-without-signal - but also, given that it's relatively easy to talk one's friends into raising a hue and cry over something, even a large number of complaints about something need to be fully investigated - this is going to be usable for legitimate reasons, but it is also another way of taking a grudge over something to a new level, and that's making me uncomfortable. I want to see what happens with how LJ deals with flagged complaints, in other words. But hopefully it will work the same way as abuse complaints - which do also have the ability to be misused, but...
ETA: It seems that LJ will not allow accounts that are under a month old to flag posts at all, which is a good thing. There is still potential for abuse, but making a thousand new accounts so you can go on a reporting spree that evening isn't one of them. /ETA
One difference between these flags and abuse complaints is that generally, complaints to Abuse have been public - if you have a problem with something, anyone can see it, at least initially, when it's posted to Abuse. Will flags be done the same way? Is there a discussion of this anywhere in the 2000+ comments on the biz post?
In much better internet news, GMail now has Group Chats and more emoticons! Yay, Google, for giving people what we want, and trying to be Not Evil!
In other words, Google - 1.0; LJ - 0.0
I also learned last week that in posts to a community, if the community is set to allow anyone to edit tags, even if comments are turned off and the comm is set to moderate, the community members can edit the tags. I wasn't sure what to do with that knowledge, and I refrained from being Evil in the tags even though I sorta wanted to be, but I thought people other than me should know this. Especially because I think that there's no IP tracking at this point on tag-editing. Dear LJ, this is probably a hole, no?
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On a slightly less obnoxious, its Frisay and I no longer have a brain note, my concern would be comms that you belong to setting themselves up as "adult" and somehow that showing on your profile page. I don't belong to any that I *think* would but I work for an insanely conservative schhool district and am dumb enough to use my real name. As a result I am careful what I do online, but if something I dint do can affect my profile and a parent sees it I could be screwed. Using myself as an example but there have to be people really in that situation.......
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If I recall correctly from my time in Support, this is only true for complaints to Abuse if they're initially posted to the public Support board, which isn't actually the process people are encouraged to use. Actual Abuse reports using the "Report Abuse" link are private from the beginning, and Abuse reports that turn up on the Support board get moved to the private Abuse category as soon as possible. I'd guess flags won't be publicly visible, although I don't know for sure -- if someone has an entry they don't mind having reported, we could test this.
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I will say this - I like that people who flag have to be able to actually *see* the post, which means that only someone on your flist/filter can flag something flocked or filtered.
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Since this is all so new, I really don't know how it's going to work in the long run. Each thing flagged gets looked over by someone, it doesn't fly off into the ether.
I think what's *not* worrying me about grudge reporting is the fact that I'm quite sure it's -- at least most of the time -- going to be used on stuff that isn't a violation, and we'll just dismiss those reports. (people do this all the time, trying to get people suspended by reporting their entries as spam). I mean, just because someone reports something 500 times... if it's not a violation, it's not a violation.
I just wish poeple would *stop* reporting staff and various journals... really, you're not funny. Really.
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As for the adult content stuff, I wonder if RPGs will start using these. Hmmm. And yay for Google Group chat.
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That was one of my first thoughts as well. If we're forced to, how long before RPG journals are just disallowed by LJ? I know I'm being alarmist/cynical, but...
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lamb for slaughterstaff person,no subject
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FF.net, for instance, categorizes stories but doesn't forbid honest ff.net users from reading material that's categorized as mature. You're on the honour system to abide by the regulations and read what's appropriate for you. Frankly, in my opinion, age is just a number. I know some 18 year olds who aren't comfortable with reading the material that's rated M or NC-17. I'm comfortable with my 12 year old reading anything that's PG-13 or equivalent, but all of a sudden the new LJ system will make that impossible.
So I don't get a choice to parent my child on LJ anymore as a bunch of communities get terrorized into going into lockdown and driving out the teens. A lot of stuff that people didn't mind her reading (and I didn't mind her reading) will go on automatic lockdown and I'll just take her away from LJ rather than leave her in the empty canyons of LJ-land that are deemed "suitable for children".
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