Rules about user isolation decisions

[Changaco]

In Lille @whit537 asked me who decides to prevent a user from using the social features of Liberapay (per article 1 paragraph 2 of the terms of service), and I was like "uh, me?" because we don't have a process in place for that. I think we should modify the rules of procedure to delegate this task to a group of "moderators" selected by the codirectors, make it mandatory to notify the affected users, and probably give them the right to appeal the decision.

[Zatalyz]

I'm going to start working on it.

First, I think that when we hide a user, it needs to be public. Not the user name of course, but the reason that we have forced the fact that it is invisible. Like this "The moderators have made invisible a profile due to spam".

After discussion on IRC, it's appear that we actually can hide user for 3 reasons:

• spam
• questionable profile
• controversial profile.

If you see other, please say it :)

So :

• What is "spam" on LP? A lot of profile created in the same time? A lot of profile for the same things? Other?
• What is "questionable"? Suspicion of fraud, money laundering? Other?
• What is "controversial"? Question about legality of the profile? Other?

I think that we should be more clear on the fact that the users of our service agree to:

• Comply with French laws
• Obey the laws of the country in which they reside in all situations where they use Liberapay, either on their profile page, their team, and the communities in which they create, and even the sites where they put the button to Liberapay. Don't use Liberapay on a site with illegal things or we can bannish you !

This is all I see for the moment.

[Changaco]

What is "spam" on LP? A lot of profile created in the same time? A lot of profile for the same things? Other?

Accounts created in large numbers are deleted, not hidden. The accounts we hide as spam are the ones that seem to be created only for self-advertisement with no intention of actually using Liberapay (i.e. to give or receive money).

What is "questionable"? Suspicion of fraud, money laundering?

Yes, any account that looks suspicious.

What is "controversial"? Question about legality of the profile?

"controversial" mostly means that showing the account is likely to result in all kinds of unpleasantness because who or what it funds is widely disliked if not hated. Usually we also don't like them so it's not just about external pressure.

[MartinDelille]

One rule could be that a user should at least received one moderator vote to retrieve its donation.

[mattbk]

At Gratipay there was an admin dashboard for screening suspicious accounts that was run before payday. I assume Changaco is using a similar tool that may or may not be accessible to other admins. Might be something to clarify on the website (who has the power).

[Changaco]

This issue isn't about blocking payments, it's about the "visibility" of user profiles.

Liberapay has 3 profile visibility knobs:

• profile_noindex: "Tell web search engines not to index this profile."
• hide_from_lists: "Prevent this profile from being listed on Liberapay."
• hide_from_search: "Hide this profile from search results on Liberapay."

The user can modify these settings in the Privacy page, and I can override them through the admin pages.

[MartinDelille]

About electing the moderator team, I propose the following:

• take the 10 most funded project on liberapay
• ask them to elect for one moderator

Involving these projects in Liberapay user moderation is important if we want to:

• keep the diversity in the moderators sight of view
• involve them in the plateform survival

Then the blocking should happen if 50% of the moderators decide to do so.