Notify forum facilitators if a post is held for moderation.

[stpaultim]

A user asked if this post was being moderated: https://forum.backdropcms.org/comment/1225#comment-1225

The post asking the question was not being moderated. When I arrived to view the post, it was unpublished and an "approval" button was visible. I approved the post.

I then found an "approval" queue on the forum with a couple of posts in it.

The comments module on the forum has the ability to require moderation of posts. But, I can't find anything that explains what triggered the "moderation" of this particular post.

Any help?

Does anyone get notification of posts that need approval?

[stpaultim]

Looks like we are using Akismet content moderation.

[stpaultim]

Changing title to reflect added info. The task to be done here is to make sure that someone get's notified if a forum post is held for moderation. Right now, a post can be held for a long time before someone notices it in the moderation queue.

[stpaultim]

We have added a roles and responsibilities page on B.org - https://github.com/backdrop-ops/backdropcms.org/issues/467

This points to a list of moderators and admins for the forum. But, there is no official way of contacting forum admins.

The issue of notifying forum moderators of posts held for moderation got me thinking about this. How can we best alert forum moderators about posts held for moderation or how can someone contact forum moderators if they see something sketchy in the forum, without simply posting a comment in the forum and hoping one of us sees it.

I have the sense that we are trying to find solutions to problems like this that: 1) Don't create unnecessary adminstrative burdens 2) Does not put too much pressure on volunteers

My recommendation (in trying to keep this as simple as possible) is to create a single "contact@backdropcms.org" email group (or something like that). Then have a "contact" team of 3-8 people that agree to serve as points of contact across various BackdropCMS properties. Then contact forms and things like "moderation" notifications can be sent to this address and everyone on this team will be subscribed to the email group.

We could have specific teams for different properties/sites, but this would add additional administrative overhead for what is probably little gain.

I would like to see a contact form on the forum site where users can report problems privately and I really think that we need email notification of posts held for moderation. I often fine posts/comments that have been held for 1-2 weeks before I notice them.

Open to other possible solutions.

[stpaultim]

@jenlampton - I would like your opinion on this. I think that messages sitting and awaiting moderation for an extended period of time is a significant problem and discourages participation. It seems to happen at least every 2-3 weeks.

Open to alternative solutions. But would like to do something to fix this.

[serundeputy]

I was looking into this on Sunday during our sprint and I've got the architecture worked out ... now just need to implement, but need to find the time.

[jenlampton]

I would like your opinion on this. I think that messages sitting and awaiting moderation for an extended period of time is a significant problem and discourages participation.

I totally agree, let's resolve this issue during this sprint :)

how can someone contact forum moderators if they see something sketchy in the forum

There is a flag for this on every post and every comment. ~I can't remember if it's done yet or not, but~ content should be un-published when it has been flagged X times (what do you think X=3? or maybe 2?).

edit: https://github.com/backdrop-ops/forum.backdropcms.org/issues/14

I have the sense that we are trying to find solutions to problems like this that: Don't create unnecessary administrative burdens...

I would like to avoid direct email as much as possible, or setting up an email address specifically for any purpose (both maintaining the email list would be a burden, as well as dealing with incoming messages).

Then contact forms and things like "moderation" notifications can be sent to this address and everyone on this team will be subscribed to the email group.

There are problems with an email group that has multiple people on it. (This is something that I have encountered many times on various different group projects, including organizing events like DrupalConSF and BADCamp). With multiple people on a single email address, nobody feels like they have responsibility for the task 100% of the time. This means that there are times when nobody deals with it, and there are times when 2 or 3 people all respond at once -- sometimes with conflicting information. The more people that are on the list, the more this problem is amplified.

I would like to see a contact form on the forum site where users can report problems privately

This is a sensible thing to set up. But let's have a single person be responsible for handling submissions. We can add something to both the form and the thank-you message that sets expectations for a reasonable response time (24 hours? 48?), and recommends other ways to get faster replies if necessary (Gitter, etc) If/when the volume gets to be too much for one person we can revisit and set up different internal processes for how to handle submissions.

edit: see https://github.com/backdrop-ops/forum.backdropcms.org/issues/102

and I really think that we need email notification of posts held for moderation. I often fine posts/comments that have been held for 1-2 weeks before I notice them.

I'm in agreement here -- but let's not use a dedicated email address or anything that requires additional administrative action. Let's send this notification to everyone who has the role 'moderator' on the forum site. It should be fairly easy to set up as part of akismet module, ~if it's not there already~.

edit: see https://github.com/backdrop-contrib/akismet/issues/8

[laryn]

What about a view that shows the latest X posts that are awaiting moderation, which shows up to anyone with appropriate access when they visit any forum page? It can be styled differently to make clear it's an "admin only" block. This is less of a push notification but does make it more likely to get the list in front of eyeballs. (And this can be done in concert with other solutions of course)

[ghost]

Once this is done, then https://github.com/backdrop-ops/forum.backdropcms.org/issues/104 can happen (until then, Gitter notifications are a good way to know when something's been moderated (by the 'access denied' message) :smile: )