the lack of overnight responses to reports is making a mockery of this site and allowing trolls to run rife

[wannaBe]

at least two blatantly obvious troll threads over night. Yes in this instance it seems pretty obvious that they're trolls (in fact I'm not uncertain that they're not the same poster) But they are from people whose attitudes towards children appear to be so vile as to stir up a lot of harsh and deserved responses, as well as a lot of cries of troll, which are apparently not allowed on mn...

but if mn were quicker to respond to reports these posters wouldn't still be there and people wouldn't feel the need to A, take the piss, B, call troll, and your site wouldn't look like a playground for trolls after the hours of darkness.

I report - get to have a little chat with MNHQ about my weekends via email

It reminds me of when disable hate threads were left up, so that people could be educated, thank god thats stopped.
Trolls should be zapped, if people then feel they want to discuss the issue brought surely they can start their own thread,
A load of made up twaddle helps no one unless its afiction book

the one in step parenting is still there. first time poster, very inflamatory stuff said about the step children, talk of how the dp should take "his mammy's tit out of his mouth," [hmm[ and generally vile about children. it looks like a jeremy kyle show in the making..... and yet it is still there. There is not a chance in hell it's real, and a number of posters have pretty much called the op a troll on it yet it, and the troll calls, are still there.

It's the stupid made up 'hilarious' stories I can't stand.

I really want to post 'you credulous fools this is bullshit' to all the helpful letter drafters and posters for updates

This is what the nightwatch are for and we are currently looking into how we can work with what we have and perhaps expand it a little further.

I seem to remember when nightwatch was introduced, many people suggested HQ actually employ people to work nights, instead of relying on the nightwatch volunteers.

Surely it wouldn't break the MNHQ bank

It really is incomprehensible how an organisation as big as mnhq, with the traffic, post numbers and recent hacker issues, don't employ night moderators. It's bullshit.

Hi all,

As I mentioned in my previous post, this is something we are constantly looking at. We make most decisions based on the facts. Has the number of reports overnight risen? Have we banned more trolls than normal? Did they join at night?

We do have systems in place that alerts us and the NightWatch when X amount of reports are received for a specific post/thread/poster. The NightWatch are volunteers and do have limited powers of hiding things. They have no access to data protected information so they are restricted on what they can do during the night.

Please do keep reporting and we will have a look.

There have been several cases lately where someone looks like an "obvious" troll from the outside when they really aren't and also cases of people who seem totally legit who actually aren't. It is not always as clear cut as it may seem. These judgement calls take time and consideration, we do look at everything on a case-by-case basis and we do have other systems in place to help us spot PBP from coming back but this is not always possible.

Not all sites pay their community managers, we are one of the companies who do. It is a pretty difficult job at times and we deal with a huge variety of issues as best as we can but we do know we aren't perfect and we are constantly looking for ways to improve and make the community the best we can. We genuinely appreciate your feedback and we will discuss all of this further when we next meet.

Thank you all for caring enough to post and report, we'll keep you posted.

@Maryz

DrMarten, I've suggested that before - an autocount of reports, where if more than X number of reports are received about a post and/or thread it is autohidden until a mnhq-er comes on duty.

I've never got a reply as to whether it is technically possible.

I think it would help with pbp's who know when to return and how to wreak maximum havoc in the time their posts are left to stand, and it would also encourage people to report obvious trolls. At the moment loads of people don't report because it's obvious that others already have. If we knew there was a cumulative affect, and the individual reports were counted up in such a way that reaching a crucial level of report would cause threads to disappear, then lots more people would report.

The issue with this Maryz, is that it could easily be abused. People could mass report things they don't like to get them removed. Just because lots of people don't like a point of view, doesn't mean it should be auto hidden. Or someone could be in distress and folks want us to see it and the system would auto hide it.

We do have alerts set-up on this principle that MNHQ and the NightWatch can view. We are considering recruiting more NightWatchers. Again this is something that we will be discussing and we'll start a thread about soon.