improving the flagging and curating system

[bouteloua]

Hi! As the site grows, having an active group of people to manage various issues that come up will be more and more important. The current system of flags makes it very difficult to even find these issues. From one curator: "I would be more involved with flags if it were easier." Here are a few of my and others' suggestions:

1) super low-hanging fruit: make the Flags section on the dashboard link to inaturalist.org/flags

2) fix flag search

2a) filtering leads to a 404 page and the URL must be manually modified for it to work. e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/flags?utf8=%E2%9C%93&user_id=&flag=copyright_infringement&commit=submit (result of trying to filter by copyright infringement) vs https://www.inaturalist.org/flags?flag=copyright_infringement (modification of URL)

2b) looks like right now that flags filter searches the text in the flag "reason." Probably flags should be assigned categories instead (spam, copyright infringement, other). There's no way to search for "other" flags, is there?

2c) ability to search taxonomically, e.g. all flags on taxa that fall within Asteraceae or below

3) add some sort of reviewed/archived category for flags that are intended to be left unresolved so that the list of active flags is not 3000 pages long (literally). Being able to archive spam flags is one way to help find the numerous false positive spam flags that I often find when I look

5) alert users when their content has been flagged (and voted on in the Data Quality Assessment)

6) ​add a complete list of 100% resolved flags somewhere

7) ability to filter by type of content that is being flagged: taxon, user, comment, identification, observation, photo, list, project, journal, guide, ? Is this possible with any existing URL filters?

8) filter by username to whom that content belongs: "@suchandsuch has been flagged 4 times for inappropriate comments and copyrighted observations." Is this possible with any existing URL filters?

9) along that vein, a curator-and-admin-only area to share notes on flagged issues such as problematic users. Knowing who, when, and why they suspended a user is impossible currently

9) create different types of curators? Some may never want to deal with inappropriate content-type flags and only focus on taxonomic issues

10) figure out what to do with duplicate observations - its own flag category, a Data Quality Assessment item, ?

11) for curators/admin, prominently indicate that a taxon has been flagged on its taxon page, e.g. upper right corner alert

12) if you keep the Curate Taxa page, please add a link to the actual flag and the number of comments on the flag

13) curators cannot view other users' messages. But there are many messages that have been flagged (e.g. as "inappropriate") and are unresolved. What to do?

14) curatorship - should it be based on some amount of activity? There are curators who have posted no observations and have never curated anything

15) related bug: flag notifications do not get cleared from the upper right notification count if they are clicked on from the dashboard. Clicking from the dashboard should clear the notification

cassi

[bouteloua]

4 ) I knew I would mess up the numbering.

[Charlie Hohn]

Ha! Thank you for doing this

[Chris Cheatle]

A couple of brief thoughts:

• proposal 13 is a step too far. If a user has concerns about messages they are receiving, they should be asked to provide a copy or screen print etc of the content. Opening what should be a private communication tool to general reading by curators should not be the solution to this
• not related specifically to any point you raise, but filling out the curators guide with additional content would help. Almost all the content there now is related to taxa curator. There are other areas not really covered such as:
• dealing with copyright material, is there a standard when you suspect a photo is not original, but can't find the original as proof.
  
• dealing with duplicate observations. Pure 100% duplicates are one thing (same user, date, photo etc) - but what about cases that are pretty evidently dups - but some features are different, ie a series of separate observations where the timestamp has advanced 10 seconds or the organism has moved 1 centiemer.
  

[cassi saari]

Thanks Chris, I agree on further clarification of copyrighted/not-taken-by-the-user-but-not-copyrighted content as well as written guidelines on both duplicates and near duplicates.

To clarify on #13, I did not suggest that curators should be able to read messages. I definitely agree that they should not have that ability. I just wish we had clarification on what to do in these instances and wanted to point out that many messages have been flagged and are unresolved.

cassi

[Janel Johnson]

Thanks for posting this Cassi, I too would help more with curating taxa but it's so hard to use that I get frustrated. On #12, it always baffled me why the "View" link doesn't view the flag itself and you have to click 3 more links to find the flag.

[Tony Iwane]

This is great, cassi, and thanks for all the feedback, folks. Keep adding to it and I'll try and make a summary for our retreat next week.

And thank you for all the curatorial work you do, despite some of the shortcomings noted here. iNat really wouldn't be possible without you.

Tony

[Corey Lange]

Cassi,

Thanks for putting this very thorough list together. I think some of the more pressing issues for me are your points 3, 5, 6, and 10. But I agree that all of your points would be beneficial to implement.

[Star Donovan]

Is it true that project admins don't get a notification when projects are flagged?
If so, is anyone associated with the project informed, or is it only the admins investigating the project flag who can see it?

[bouteloua]

When content is deleted, the flags associated with that content should not also be deleted.

[bouteloua]

Star, correct, users are not notified when their content is flagged. That includes project admins/curators/managers as well as users who contributed flagged content elsewhere on the site: commenters, IDers, observationuploaders, journalposters, etc. No one associated with a project or other flagged content is informed when the content is flagged. It will display a little "flagged" icon/text, but no notification is delivered and the text/icon is easily overlooked.

It's generally good practice to try to resolve issues prior to elevating it to a flag. e.g. privately message the admin of the project or use some of the frequently posted comment templates, depending on the issue.

[Tony Iwane]

Slowly grinding through these, guys. 1 and 2a should be fixed now.

Tony

[Chris Cheatle]

I have to admit I am growing a little ambivalent about #5 (informing users about flags placed on their content). It does seem fair for people who make legitimate mistakes, are learning the platform etc. On the other hand on 3 separate occasions in the past 2 weeks after flagging copyrighted pictures or inappropriate content, I have been on the receiving end of "revenge flags" where the person turns around and flags my postings or post profane messages on them.

[Chris Cheatle]

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting people not be informed if their content is flagged. I am less certain there is a compelling reason to inform them who flagged it.

[bouteloua]

Would 2b be difficult to implement, at least partially -- sort flags by "other" ? There are a ton of flags lately.

cassi

[Chris Cheatle]

I know myself and at least 1 other person are doing a big purge of spam accounts. As was listed above, either allowing filtering of these or simply not showing them (since they dont really require curator action) would help.

[cassi saari]

Definitely don't completely hide spam flags. I find false positives all the time--mostly flags on comments and messages.

thanks!

cassi

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[Chris Cheatle]

Yes, I was assuing that flagging a user as a spammer had a different context that meant it could be differentiated versus flagging content/comments etc.

cassi

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[Charlie Hohn]

I don't have a ton of time to devote to flags but would be able to do so more if these features were implemented! It's really hard to get through them when there are just the handful on my dashboard and otherwise they can't be filtered. it would be also nice to be able to do something to spam flags to mark them reviewed by a curator without resolving them (which marks them as not spam). 

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Charlie Hohn
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[Chris Cheatle]

I dont know if it is important to differentiate between the 2, but suspending the user does not generate a flag. Marking as a spammer does so.

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[Charlie Hohn]

the issue is mostly with wanting to be able to review accounts marked as spam by the spam algorithm, because sometimes it creates false positives. But maybe that isn't as much an issue any more.

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[Whitney Mattila]

I wonder if having the duplicate flag be something that isn't a possible automatic mark against an account, except on a case by case basis. This seems to be the case for now, but I'm not quite sure.

There's been accounts that are automated, gateway accounts for very young users, and/or abandoned, so alerting them by leaving a message instead of a flag doesn't work. However, I feel that I might hurt an account if I flag something as a duplicate.

[cassi saari]

There are no marks against an account for duplicate observation flags (and most types of flags).

cassi

On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 10:52 AM, Whitney Mattila <wbma...@gmail.com> wrote:

I wonder if having the duplicate flag be something that isn't a possible automatic mark against an account, except on a case by case basis. This seems to be the case for now, but I'm not quite sure.

There's been accounts that are automated, gateway accounts for very young users, and/or abandoned, so alerting them by leaving a message instead of a flag doesn't work. However, I feel that I might hurt an account if I flag something as a duplicate.

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[Whitney Mattila]

Oh, good! That makes it easier to mark things when it's necessary.

[Chris Cheatle]

One thing I would like to see considered is a status for users of "On notice" or "warned about behaviour" or how ever you wish to phrase it.

Exempting stuff that clearly merits immediate suspension, I tend to lean towards giving users a warning to stop or face suspension. However this is not evident to other curators if I do it by private message, or they don't find the observation I leave the message on.

Often I then find more aggressive curators go ahead and suspend the user when they have not done anything else since my message (either due to getting the point or just not being on the site) not knowing they have been warned.

[Tony Iwane]

I think that's a great idea, Chris. I too favor warnings over suspension in most cases.

Tony Iwane

[Colin Purrington]

Would be nice if teachers in charge of class Projects would be alerted whenever a student observation was flagged. 

[Charlie Hohn]

would be nice if there were functionality for class projects. Collector projects help some but are any classes doing that yet? 

On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 7:22 AM, Colin Purrington <colin.pu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Would be nice if teachers in charge of class Projects would be alerted whenever a student observation was flagged. 

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[Ian Toal]

As a new curator, your second point about more information in the guide would be appreciated. I was overwhelmed when I looked at the list of flags, and had no idea how to deal with things like duplicates. I'm slowly learning, but it's a mentally demanding effort, and I'm not at my best just now. I'm also reluctant to bother the "Help" folks - they seem to have so much on their plates!

Ian

[Richard C. Hoyer]

Is it possible for a non-curator user to see a list of flags they have created and are still outstanding?

Rich

[Tony Iwane]

We've added a "View Flag" link to flags on https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/curation so that should resolve #12. We're also working on designs for #11 as well.

Many of the other suggestions would require more substantive work and perhaps changes in philosophy regarding curation, so they will take longer but I'm working on this.

Thanks for all you do, curators!

Tony Iwane 

[Tony Iwane]

Alright, there is now a flag indicator for any flagged taxa (eg https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/145304-Spinus-pinus) which only curators can see. Should save you from scrolling and using the Curation menu.

Tony Iwane

[cassi saari]

wahoo! Already had a long-unresolved flag fixed today because someone noticed it.

thank you.

cassi

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[Tony Iwane]

Hi cassi,

That was all Ken-ichi and Joelle, and of course you for the suggestion.

Tony Iwane

[Chris Cheatle]

I dont know if the indicator is working in all cases. I see it on some like this ( https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/711676-Nycteris-thebaica-capensis ), but this taxa is flagged : https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/57636-Pteris-vittata

Yet no indicator.

Flag #1 - https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/240384

Flag #2 - https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/240383

On Thursday, March 1, 2018 at 8:30:20 AM UTC-5, bouteloua wrote:

Hi! As the site grows, having an active group of people to manage various issues that come up will be more and more important. The current system of flags makes it very difficult to even find these issues. From one curator: "I would be more involved with flags if it were easier." Here are a few of my and others' suggestions:

[Tony Iwane]

Chris, for https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/57636-Pteris-vittata I see an indicator that it has two flags, but if i click on it there are no flags listed, and the two flags to which you linked return 404s. That happening for anyone else? 

Tony Iwane

[cassi saari]

It seems there is a delay between when something is flagged and when the taxon page displays there are flags.

It's not a big deal to me personally because the new flag display is most helpful for really old flags.

Those two flags Chris mentioned must have been deleted rather than resolved.

cassi

--

[bouteloua]

Would love to be able to "follow" flags, like you can subscribe to comments on journal posts or follow observations.

[bouteloua]

Resolved Flags Link:

Example: Taxon has 0 unresolved flags, but 8 resolved flags: Items in curation drop-down are only: "Flag for curation," "Edit photos," and "Edit taxon." Right now we have to manually add "/flags" to the taxon URL to see if any resolved flags exist and view them. 

Request: Adjust dropdown links to something like:

"View flags (0 | 8)" <---- 0 unresolved, 8 resolved

"View flags (2 | 1)" <---- 2 unresolved, 1 resolved

Knowing there are previous flags on a taxon may be helpful for the current unresolved flag. Flags also currently serve as our only "notes" section on various issues with a particular taxon. And, I personally don't mind if n=0 and the link is retained in the dropdown. 

cassi

[bouteloua]

Re "10) figure out what to do with duplicate observations - its own flag category, a Data Quality Assessment item"

The new guidelines when flagging an observation say: "For duplicate observations, please ask the observer to address the issue instead of adding a flag, because site curators cannot remove observations."

Can we get "Duplicate observation", and tooltip guidance, added to the DQA, or some other way to deal with duplicates? In many, many cases, users still don't address the issue once it's been pointed out to them.

cassi

[Charlie Hohn]

i vote for putting it in the DQA though it may be hard to make sure they don't both get flagged. Flagging could work too.

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[Charlie Hohn]

oops, it says not to add a flag, disregard my comment on flagging.

[Jane Widness]

Adding a vote for including a link to resolved flags