Flagging

[louiselux]

It's blowing a gale outside and raining hard. It's good being inside with tea and internets and writing.

However! I've been attempting to manage my stress levels by mostly ignoring the LJ flagging thing, but I'm failing because every time I see 'flag' on someone's post it gives me a nasty little shock and I get all mad. What's the point of it, if you can already just contact the abuse team about a post you are offended by? Also, their definition of offended is gloriously vague. As far as I can tell there is still no clear system for judging the complaint either.

I haven't changed my journal settings to 'adult concepts' or 'explicit adult content'. I can see how this might be genuinely useful though, to protect oneself. Especially now that LJ have upped the stakes.

Comments

[inksheddings.livejournal.com]

I have my viewing options (http://www.livejournal.com/manage/settings/) set so that I don't see the warnings, etc., and I guess nothing is filtered. So LJ looks the way it always did before all this flagging business. Have you done that? Not that it would change the...questionable sense of all of this, but at least then you don't see the weird cut tags, etc.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I changed my settings, thanks for the tip.

So, is it the case that you only see the 'flag' link on a journal's entries if that journal has changed its own settings to 'adult concepts' or 'explicit adult material'? I'm slightly confused about this.

[inksheddings.livejournal.com]

Yes, if you set up your journal to flag the entire thing as either adult concepts or explicit content, all the entries will have that flagging lj-cut automatically.

Or you can simply flag specific entries and not your entire journal. If I wanted to, for example, I could go back and edit all my NC-17 fics and flag them for content. Only those specific entries would then have the flagging cut. I would never see those cuts, though, because of how I have my settings, well, set up.

And yes! It is confusing. :S

[kanzenhanzai.livejournal.com]

Actually, the flag button shows up if the journal hasn't already been marked as having adult content.

The journal owner can either set the whole lj as having adult content, or just mark specific posts (the second option seems like the better one if someone's actually going to bother with this stuff. When you mark the whole lj, anyone who's not logged in or hasn't changed their settings sees all your posts put under an lj-cut warning for content. Really annoying!)

[avierra.livejournal.com]

I have been pondering how many people are hitting the "flag" button as they think "I wonder what this does."

I read LJ's flagging explanation and it's the same vague folderol they delivered after the TOS bannings. One would have thought they'd have learned from that to have a well-thought-out strategy in place before they do stuff like this, but apparently not.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I keep wanting to click to see exactly what it does, even while well aware of its damaging result.

LJ has handled this badly, yet again. Siiigh.

[baka-gaijin.livejournal.com]

I have been pondering how many people are hitting the "flag" button as they think "I wonder what this does."

I've been wondering the same thing. XD

[emungere.livejournal.com]

The only point I can see to this action is that, once everything is tagged, they will know where it is and it will be much easier for them to delete it, a la fanfiction.net. However, my give a damn seems to be busted. Eh. Whatever. Should I write the angsty duck feeding?

[emungere.livejournal.com]

Also, have some adorable baby coyote:
http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/2007/10/death-of-sock.html
http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/2007/10/party-favor_13.html
http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/2007/11/cat-should-be-canonized.html

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Awww! I want one!!

Please do write angsty duck feeding (and the porn too hehe). That would be most wonderful. <3

Yeah, I don't know what LJ is up to, but you'd think they might've learned to handle stuff like this better. That lj biz announcement had 44 pages of comments, most of them hostile.

[harukami]

Since I saw a lot of misinformation in this post, some clarification from what I read from LJ employees:

LJ's already listed -- via marta, at least, if unclear in their original announcements -- the repercussions of flagging. People can (as per MOST sites) flag something they find deeply offensive, ONLY if it's not something the eyes of minors should see. If multiple people flag the same thing, LJ will review it, but not unless multiple people review. LJ has promised zero deletions -- the absolute worst-case scenario if things get flagged multiple times and they agree that children shouldn't see it is that they set the security to "over 18", which means that anyone under 18 sees an LJ cut with a warning and the content isn't visible, and everyone else views it normally. Even people under 18 can still read these rare posts by logging out and clicking; they'll get a "confirm your age" message and if they confirm it as over 18, they can read the post. No content will be removed, only put behind a security filter based on the date of birth given to LJ at registration.

Flagging is completely voluntary. There's no need to put one's own work behind an LJ cut; even if other people flag your stuff, LJ will review each entry (which receives multiple flags) individually. To prevent abuse of the "other people can flag entries" aspect, they have set a limit that each person can only flag five posts per... I believe it's week, but I might be misremembering it, it might be a day.

I'm leaving my own opinion out of this, and only posting it because the comments here showed that people commenting hadn't found LJ's explanations, while I know I had. *g*

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

I think, personally, that in theory it's a fine concept. I just really, really don't trust LJ not to pull an ffn.net and say yep, anything that explicit must go. If it's a year down the line and it works, then I might start tagging, but as it is...

I want to trust lj, but trust takes time and they haven't earnt that back yet.

[harukami]

Like I said, I'm leaving my own opinion out of it. But I can point out what LJ has said will happen, and the fact that they're doing this smacks of a compromise. Also that most sites have some sort of "contact the server to let us know if this is offensive" method. As things were, it's a step actually a step away from the "likelihood to delete" that their previous report system had.

I'm not here to speak up for LJ. Again, I'm trying to keep my personal opinions out of this. I am here to pass on information that seemed to be unknown, from what I read in the comments.

[hibem.livejournal.com]

Okay, here's what I don't understand. If they're already allowing access to flagged content based on the age you report in your userinfo, why do I still have to tell them that I'm over 18 every time? Does that seem redundant to anyone else? I am really glad that I can turn that off, but still, as a concept, I just don't get it.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I'm still terminally confused by the whole thing, so I can't help, sorry. I wish I could...

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

And now we're all Russians to boot. I wonder what SUP's policies will be like?

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Are we all Russians? I has missed the memo on this!!!1

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

We've been sold down the Volga to SUP, who apparently have ties to the Kremlin, and/or are run by a pal of Yeltsin's. They're the company who bought livejournal.ru - there are some posts around discussing their politics, and an awful lot of outright anti-Russian comments on the news post.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I have now read in full the frenzy and panic bought on by this. Hmmm. I really have no idea what to think or who is right, but the general scare mongering anti-Russian tone is shitty. It all seems to spell doom to me. I wish that scribblit site was up and running so we could move on.