Linden Lab proposes search flagging

By Tateru Nino

Linden Lab have presented a prospective design for a system which allows users to flag search results for attention. The proposal was sent out for comment on the Second Life developers' mailing list yesterday.

The proposal describes a system where search results may be flagged by users as spam, mature-content, prohibited content or for consideration by the editorial team for the Showcase feature.

The full text of the email is reproduced below:

Hello!

You've been asking us to do better with inappropriate content and content classification and we've been listening. In an effort to make our abuse reporting system easier to access and more effective, we are planning to introduce a flagging system for our search results – and we'd love to get your feedback.

The new flagging system will help Residents to flag inappropriate postings for rapid removal, while preserving everyone's ability to express themselves freely in world.
How it will work

  • First, when you post a classified, group, event or parcel listing, you will have to self-declare if your content is mature or not.
  • Second, every listing will have a "Flag This" link. You can use this to report inappropriate or mis-classified content or nominate great content for the showcase.

Flag Categories

  • Mature – the listing is adult only content
  • Prohibited – the listing contains content that is prohibited on SL
  • Spam – irrelevant listings (examples: commercial posts in non-commercial venues, event postings for non-events)
  • Showcase – nominate something for possible inclusion in the Second Life Showcase (http://secondlife.com/showcase)

[All listings will still have to follow the Community Standards and Terms of Service.]

Types of listings that can be flagged

  • Parcel listings
  • Classifieds
  • Events
  • You will not be able to flag avatar or group profiles

What happens when something is flagged

  • Every flag counts as one vote for that flag category. While one (or few) votes does nothing, if a listing receives enough votes in that category, it will be auto-classified as reported.
  • Prohibited and spam content will be taken down immediately when it gets enough votes
  • When content is flagged several times, the content owner will be notified by SL support team and may be penalized according to Community Standards

Anything else?

  • Residents will be allowed to flag a particular search listing only once. You cannot change your vote, so flag with care
  • There will be a limit to how many times a day a Resident can flag search listings
  • Anonymous basic residents or residents whose accounts are less than x days old will not be able to flag content
  • Residents will still be able to report abusive content from inworld via the Abuse Reporting system under the Help menu
  • Of course, no system can be perfect, so if you think something was flagged in error, you can always file a support ticket for review

Thats it. We hope that this will make content flagging more effective and will help the community better regulate what is appropriate and what is not.

Please reply to this email with your thoughts and feedback on this proposed design!
Cheers,
Jeska, Kalpana and the LL Search Team

After some — well what can only be described as spirited discussion, Jeska Dzwigalski (aka Jeska Linden) provided some additional clarification.

  • Listings flagged as mature by some unspecified number of users would automatically be moved to mature search results.
  • Listings flagged as prohibited by some unspecified number of users would automatically be removed and flagged for the governance/abuse team (that would be gambling and child pornography, pretty much).
  • "Anonymous basic" users (we're not quite sure what that means exactly) and users under a certain number of days old would not be able to flag listings.
  • A listing can only be flagged once by a given user, and a user can flag a limited number of listings per day.
  • A single flagging is insufficient for any action.
  • Classified listings that are taken down will receive a refund for the unused portion of the listing time, and notified.

Despite that none of this is related to in-world content but to a subset of search results only, there's obviously considerable potential for abuse in such a system, as Second Life users have amply demonstrated in the past with the old ratings system, and with the current abuse-reporting mechanisms.

What do you think of the proposal, gentle readers?

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