Three strikes and your report button is out?

Question

Most people agree Yahoo's report policy is not working. Maybe we could petition Yahoo to change it? Here are a couple of suggestions:

1/ Reports are reviewed quickly (within 48 hours) and fairly (by a human rather than computer)

2/ People who make false reports are cautioned twice and for a third offence have their report function suspended for a month (‘3 strikes’).

What other changes do you think would help?

Answer 1

Sounds good to me, except that for it to work I think the criteria for reportable posts needs to be changed. It's actually against the rules to be insulting, apparently... whenever you have a rule like that you're going to have people clogging the report system because they feel insulted over everything. So get rid of that, and make it so the only things that are reportable are spam, threats, and potentially dangerous posts (such as posting someone's personal information). And then sure.

Answer 2

It would be good if the reports and the results of the reports were made public. Like a right to a fair trial where the proceedings and the results of the proceedings are open to public scrutiny

Answer 3

yer somethin weird sure is going on..........i got reported for asking the question 'how do you like to keep spark in your relationship?'........................wh... wrong with that question????????

Answer 4

The problem arises because of Yahoo's mentally-fragile report monkeys who take offence at the drop of a hat. They should be disbanded now to make Yahoo Answers a fairer place.

There are none so offensive as those who are DETERMINED to feel "offended".

Answer 5

I was reported for offering advice on pelvic-floor exercises, im a qualified fitness instructor and i don't see why i should be penalised for doing what i do best. Who wants a slack v****a anyway?

Answer 6

These are excellent suggestions.

And Yahoo's report monkeys should be more carefully chosen. Instead of giving them rewards and incentives as they do at present they should caution and suspend them for making false reports.

Answer 7

Nah what for it takes little effort to set up 10 new accounts. Are all the points you get worth a d**n ? Like do you get prices or money ?

@ actually yahoo being a private company there IS no freedom of speech on here, they can censor any way they like.

Answer 8

i agree except for people who make false reports should only have one warning the second time they are out.  I also dont think you should be aloud to report anything unless your at least a level 3 or 4

Answer 9

Suspended for a month? Why not a year, or 3 months at least?

3 is too little. 5 false reports is better. Insulting is one rule that needs consideration (people can take offence to anything. It is a variant of diving in football/soccer. You fall down when someone breathes on you, and the ref calls a foul) along with chatting (is responding to someone else's answer and/or the asker's additional details a violation? I think that counts as 'sharing information and offering opinions', which Yahoo! encourages)

As of now, real people are only looking at the appeals, not the actual reports.

I've already suggested some of this stuff, and more, and though I've amazingly caught Yahoo's eye, I don't think anything will be done before the New Year.

http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?pro...

Answer 10

If someone is reported for cloning, all of their content will be examined by the human from #1, and dealt with accordingly.

Not related to the report policy, but a good idea, anyway:

Y!A screen names will no longer be allowed to be used for more than one answerer.

Answer 11

I don't think it matters what we propose.

Nasty people who don't respect the notion of freedom of speech will find a way to vent their petty rage whenever they come up against someone with whom they disagree. Especially if they can't put a cogent argument up in opposition. Reporting is the only way they can try to hurt.

The more rules and whatnot that Yahoo! makes, the more scope for misuse.

I think the terms of service should be simplified - the offences limited to a couple of really outrageous actions like - extreme profanity (not that it would bother me, to be honest); spamming and such.

I think every report and reporter should be thoroughly scutinized and a log kept of the posts they report, so that it can be seen if they are harrassing anyone.

Answer 12

Who's to say whether or not a report is not false, it's based on opinion. Plus, doesn't it take two reports for an answer or question removal? -- So... I dunno what the deal is, but I thought you were on here yesterday arguing for a more influential report 'button'?

Answer 13

I agree, except after the third offense they should never get reporting privileges back. Great idea!

Answer 14

yeah good ideas

Answer 15

I think your idea sounds fair on the one hand, but I also think on the other hand a lot of people don't like to hear the truth about certain things, which is a shame. Just because I may not like to hear the truth about something is not enough reason for me to report that person, maybe I can learn from the truth.

There are tons of people I could have reported already because I didn't see eye to eye with them on issues, but I did not report them, because I still need to know how they think and what makes them think that way, and I would hope others agree with me on this.