ModCP and moderator tools need lots of work

[Colonel_mortis]

Things that I strongly feel should be changed:

The report center should filter by active reports primarily, with the option to fall back to viewing all reports if you want. 99% of the time, moderators aren't interested in what has already been resolved, they're interested in what else needs doing. This also extends to the previous/next report buttons at the bottom of the report - it should be previous/next active (or maybe just open) report. Even better, show the next report that would be visible on the filter that the mod used to access that report (defaulting to active or open).

Report status should support ajax updating, so I don't have to refresh the page to see whether anyone else has started dealing with the report if I didn't mark it as under review, or want to make sure that the report status hasn't changed for any other reason. Ideally, this should also send out a notification to anyone currently viewing the report, just as new replies to a topic does.Mods should be able to follow comments on a report, so they don't have to keep checking back on it to see if anyone's responded. You support this on all other comments in the suite, but not reports.

The number of warning points that a member has should be displayed to staff (though probably not the member) next to all their posts, as well as whether they are banned/suspended/mod queued/etc. Clicking it should show an inline dialog with their previous warnings and the option to add a warning.

Previous warnings should be displayed on the add warning page. If you decide to warn a member via a post rather than from a report, you have to jump through hoops to view their warning history. Knowing a member's warning history is essential when writing out a warning.

If you change the punishment that a member is being given, then change your mind about the number of points that they should get, that should not reset the punishment that they get, at least if the preset punishment isn't altered.

You should be able to set the expiry date for points based on a relative timestamp, not a specific date. I want the member to have points for 30 days, not until 18:00 on the 10th March.

If a post has been edited, either by the poster or by a moderator, it should say so in the report, but display the post as it was when it was reported. At the moment, there is absolutely no indication to moderators that the post has been modified from within the report, so if the evidence has been removed, it may be closed before anyone notices that it was reported and looks at the edit history.

Things that I think would be good to change:

Hide and move topic should be options at the bottom of the report, not just delete topic - now that delete actually means delete, many sites will almost never use delete, and use hide instead. Moving topics from the report center would streamline that workflow considerably.

You should be able to set a punishment based on the type of warning, not just based on the cumulative number of points. I don't want members to be automatically banned after a certain number of points - that should be the moderator's decision, but I do want Ban Evasion to ban the account by default.

When you merge a post, it shouldn't say "content deleted" in the report. Ideally, change the report to point to the new post, or at least say "post merged" or something, so mods can see what's happened.

If a post is hidden, it should clearly say so in the report page, so mods don't visit the page, just to find that it's already been hidden by someone else, who hasn't updated the report status.

Posts that are reported should have a visual indicator on them for mods, like they did in 3.4.

When moving a topic, the current subforum should be selected by default, or it should say fairly clearly where it currently is, as a double check that it is where you think it is, and that it hasn't been moved by another mod since you entered the topic.

It's not possible to make a profile field that displays to moderators but not to members - the options are everyone or just in ACP. Mod notes are really useful tools, and ideally would also be displayed on the "add warning" page so that you can see any comments that other mods have made but which didn't end up resulting in a warning.

It should be possible, at least as an ACP option, to edit the "Notes for Moderators" section of a warning after the fact, if additional evidence comes to light that you want to cite, or if you just made a mistake. Also, you seem to be tracking the report that links people to a thread, so it would be great if that was included in the warning, either in the notes for mods, or as a dedicated field. The warning could also be displayed on the report page, so other mods can see exactly what action was taken for that report, though I guess the previous warnings pane sort of does this.

[Colonel_mortis]

The subforum that a topic is in should be displayed on the reports page (would be good to change)

[Xelphos]

Pretty much agree with everything you mentioned. One small thing I would also like to see.

 

The ability to assign a report to a moderator.

[Colonel_mortis]

You should be able to report members, to allow for violations such as content in their About Me section, their profile picture, and so mods can bring a particular member to the attention of other mods (eg. a suspected ban evader) for discussion (really should be changed)

[PedroNL]

+1

[TSP]

These are all things I've heard from our staff as well. For example one community I'm at has 20 staff members, watching over a forum that gets 4000-5000 posts a day. This is a community that gets very actively moderated. 

One of the most common feedback among them after the upgrade to IPS 4 was two things: 

1. The post content is not kept as it was when it was reported. This makes it difficult to really have any proof when it comes to what they actually said at a later time. Yes, there is the edit history. But I have two problems with it, it stores all edits. I would only be interested in edits to comments that have been reported. And this edit history is not readily available or made clearly aware of how there has been edits in the post after the content was reported.

2. The report center shows all reports as default, which makes it difficult to actually view the things that needs to be sorted now. Additionally I find the color coding here confusing. There is a light green color which I initially thought would mean the report has been resolved, but that actually means the report is open. A more appropiate color coding would have it be slightly red (or let actually completed reports be slightly green and active reports have no background color (white) ).

There should be an additional filter here that shows "Active reports" that contains both "New reports" and those "Under review".

That these things you mention and especially those two things mentioned here have not been adressed yet is beyond me. Maybe the current system works for forums that receive less than 5 reports a day. But not when you receive 40+ separate report items a day (yes I'm serious), then it gets really unwieldly. 

I really hope for a report center and moderating overhaul.

[Jed Rosenzweig]

I would like the ability to keep moderators from deleting reports. As an admin, I'd like to know I'm seeing all the reports in the report center. We lost this ability from 3.x AFAIK.

[Colonel_mortis]

Is there any chance that any of this might be implemented in 4.2?

[TSP]

Could you please consider all of this above?

I still have to alter your code after every release because of this, for example: 

Quote

2. The report center shows all reports as default, which makes it difficult to actually view the things that needs to be sorted now.

The code that handles it isn't extendable either, so I can't make a hook for it unless I copy the entire parent method code. 

Also see 

 

It would be usability improvements that would make my day better