Comments
2 years ago
Minnesota, USA
Helix
She/Her, They/Them
2 years ago

Elo/SRC staff, y'all need to do something about comments, like, yesterday. Spam is one thing, but this has also created a big opportunity for relatively unmoderated harassment, and the fact that images and videos can be embedded means people are posting straight up NSFW stuff.

The only way we can moderate this is by:

  1. Actually looking at it in the first place, which is an issue for larger communities who can't possibly keep tabs on the comments of every single run (not to mention that we're volunteer moderators who have actual lives outside of this, and we shouldn't be expected to consistently subject ourselves to whatever we may find in these comments).
  2. Deleting and reporting the comment, in which case the commenter in question can just post again until someone finally reviews the report and takes appropriate action.

As I'm sure you're aware, there are quite a few minors on this website, who may now be unwittingly subjected to... 18+ content, potentially in the comments of their own run(s). Shut this down ASAP, and give us an option to disable comments for our runs and the games that we moderate, as well as the ability to ban users from commenting. Personally, I'm not sure automatically embedding images/videos is a great idea either. Alternatively, just remove comments entirely; this is a disaster.

Edit: Wait, apparently the commenter has the power to restore their deleted comments? Yeah, this is a complete and utter failure. Do something about it, now. People are leaving the site because of this, and I think it may be a legal issue as well.

Edit 2: I have direct confirmation that Elo staff are aware of this, especially the legal issue bit. Here's hoping changes are made quickly.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Otterstone_Gamer, discranola and 24 others like this
Germany
Zanon
He/Him, They/Them
2 years ago

I will add to your first point that it is also possible to comment on obsolete runs that aren't part of the leaderboards (by default), which also makes the job much harder for everyone who wants to keep tidy boards, let alone to prevent abuse and harassment. The fact mods don't get notified of notifications is both good and bad - less spam but also less of a chance for them to know what's going on. It's a completely unnecessary feature that ultimately only accomplishes one thing: making moderators do things that they shouldn't be doing in the first place. Leave the comments for YouTube and for each games' forums.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Vallu, Klagarn and 8 others like this
Minnesota, USA
Helix
She/Her, They/Them
2 years ago

Yeah I'm gonna go ahead and say that it has been sufficiently proven that comments do not belong on speedrun.com.

Elo, if you're still listening, please get some beta testers and actually run site changes by users before implementing them. (I feel especially bad right now for the programmers who have to work very hard to address these urgent issues immediately, because this was all implemented with zero warning or beta testing.) You want to do right by the community, do you not? Act like it.

Quivico, discranola and 8 others like this
Bahrain

Yeah, from what I have seen, comments are fuckin weird.

Hamburg, Germany

I 100% agree with Helix's points. If the site really wants to keep comments and doesnt want to give us the opportunity to disable them for our board entirely at least add a tab to moderation hub where we can see new comments and immediately block those that are inappropriate.

And as always: you need to communicate guys. This site is a site used and run by the community. So imo the community should have a say in what happens. Also your site is kept clean by volunteer moderators so give them the tools to moderate and dont make their live harder.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Helix and Sena like this
New South Wales, Australia

Comments is something I thought I wanted for a little while, never asked just thought it might of been a neat idea on paper knowing full well that moderating it wouldn't be easy. Now ngl i want them gone.

Pear and Helix like this
Scotland

Comments were a terible idea. Everyone else can explain why in terms of harassment, bullying etc

But since anyone with any experience of community management would know that let me put it in terms you guys understand.

Comments are a threat to the continuing survival of SR.C. People do not want to deal with it. Communities are already organised off this site and are able and willing to move to another leaderboard site. You guys own nothing, your lock in is being the site that everyone uses. Once it is decided that everyone doesn't want to use this site it is finished.

If you want to have a viable website in ~6 months you should disable comments today.

Nightwish and Helix like this
Scotland

Decent fix. But comments should be opt-in not opt-out.

otherwise you are relying on people turning off comments on their own or having mods go through and resubmit every run and turn off comments.

Nightwish, JulianTexo and 3 others like this
Ontario, Canada

@YUMmy_Bacon5 They can be disabled only by the runner and it has to be on ALL runs and not specific ones. Also mods don't have the option to disable comments on their games which should have been top priority over anything else.

Nightwish, Helix and 6 others like this
Hamburg, Germany

Let's be honest a few days; actually a few hours would have been enough to test this and get feedback that the change is not well thought through. I hope Elo and Sr.c staff learn from this and learn to

  1. Communicate better in the future.
  2. Ask and include the community in decissions about site-features.
  3. Implement some kind of beta-testing.

(This is me dreaming and I fear its not possible. But it seems such a simple and logical solution that I would like to hear reasons why its not possible.)

Pear, Oreo321, and Nightwish like this
European Union

[QUOTE=Helix] As I'm sure you're aware, there are quite a few minors on this website, who may now be unwittingly subjected to... 18+ content, potentially in the comments of their own run(s). [/QUOTE] While I am 100% in favor of removing comments, I think this is a pretty poor argument. Comments are not magically opening a pandoras box to 18+ content, you can still expose minors to that stuff through profile themes, your profile picture, your run video, DMs, etc.

In fact it's actually better if it happens in run comments because you won't even get notified of it, and idk about others but I never go to my old runs after I've submit them.

The real solution is to support actual moderation

Edited by the author 2 years ago
landus likes this
Argentina

[quote=1]While I am 100% in favor of removing comments, I think this is a pretty poor argument. Comments are not magically opening a pandoras box to 18+ content, you can still expose minors to that stuff through profile themes, your profile picture, your run video, DMs, etc.

In fact it's actually better if it happens in run comments because you won't even get notified of it, and idk about others but I never go to my old runs after I've submit them.[/quote]

The thing is, if any of the avenues you mentioned are used to post porn or just generally reprehensible stuff, they're still much easier to moderate as of yet, while if someone comments on a run you don't get notified or have in general no way to tell where the spam is taking place.

Thus, a new runner could come in to watch the WR for a game and get completely shocked by the amount of NSFW comments on it while noone on the community would be the wiser until the damage is done.

Unless ELO is planning to release extra moderation tools and other counter-measures (which I sure hope so), I don't see comments working out well for the site, but who knows.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Oreo321, Pear and 3 others like this
Canada

[quote=JulianTexo]I hope Elo and Sr.c staff learn from this[/quote] Thats funny

Edited by the author 2 years ago
New Jersey, USA

[quote=Helix]As I'm sure you're aware, there are quite a few minors on this website, who may now be unwittingly subjected to... 18+ content, potentially in the comments of their own run(s). Shut this down ASAP, and give us an option to disable comments for our runs and the games that we moderate, as well as the ability to ban users from commenting. Personally, I'm not sure automatically embedding images/videos is a great idea either. Alternatively, just remove comments entirely; this is a disaster.[/quote] Hello! I hope I can enjoy my stay here! :slight_smile:

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Minnesota, USA
Helix
She/Her, They/Them
2 years ago

So now I have a new question

Why can't we report users and forum posts???

Argentina

You can report users through the support hub, it's just not readily available as a one-click button for each post: https://www.speedrun.com/knowledgebase/supporthub/report-user

PS: I already reported this user myself anyways, but feel free to do the same.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Quivico, Helix and 2 others like this
New Jersey, USA

[quote=MrMonsh]PS: I already reported this user myself anyways, but feel free to do the same.[/quote] What did I do wrong? 😢

Argentina

@I_PlayOsu You had a NSFW avatar (but I doubt you need me to tell you this anyways since you were quick to remove it).

Edited by the author 2 years ago