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Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

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Re: Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

#71

Post by ianferrel »

bisby wrote: post #58
ianferrel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that putting a real head-scratcher as the very first choice in a tutorial mode is a brilliant move at all. Tutorials are supposed to be easy and hand-holding. But also: this isn't actually a hard judgment call. It's just bad instructions. There's an objective difference between "content that breaks laws" and "content that promotes the breaking of laws" and the rules could easily be changed to indica…

"Content that breaks laws" "Content that promotes the breaking of laws" "Content that is clearly satire/parody/a joke" A lot of time context matters. In a forum thread called "What would be the worst title for a self help book?" a post that just says "Give up, kill yourself" is not actually promoting self harm. It's saying that its the worst advice. assuming the entire point of the game is "moderation is harder than…

I think that content moderation is in fact quite difficult, even given clear rules to follow, because so much content requires lots of context to understand.

But that makes me even more annoyed at this game which rather than presenting me with legitimately difficult judgment calls, just gave me clear rules that were not the rules that the actual game used when determining whether I did the right thing.

It's possible that this is a cleverly designed thing to make you realize that the real rules are unwritten and the whole thing is a Kafkaesque contraption with no correct answers. Or it's just a quickly-made game where no one proofread the actual instructions they were giving players.

Re: Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

#72

Post by ethanbond »

ianferrel wrote: post #66
ethanbond wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t think content moderators have to deal with: “hey kid, you should go shoot up a school?” Just cleanly not in their domain?

I think that content moderators often have to deal with that issue, and they are given rules like "remove posts that suggest that others commit violent acts" or something like that. And those are reasonable rules for moderators to enforce. But the rules that this game give do not include that rule, and it's a mark of a poorly designed game that the rule says "don't allow illegal content" and then when you (correctly!…

I see I see now what you’re saying. You’ve convinced me :)

Re: Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

#73

Post by kadoban »

seany wrote: post #38

I don't get what the point of this is. Just approve everything and move on

This said on a site that basically only exists because the moderation is extremely well done, and is definitely not just "approve everything".

Re: Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

#74

Post by rodgerd »

DennisP wrote: post #69
gpm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I'm nearly certain that that post does violate some "international law or regulation". Do I know which one? Nope, not a clue. But many countries have pretty weak free speech protections, and pretty strict drug laws. The idea that that violates none of them seems quite unlikely. The fact that your local laws have strong free speech protections doesn't really matter when the criteria is "local or internationa…

Maybe the policy should be rewritten then. If no content is allowed that violates any country's free speech restriction, then it probably means the site will remove criticism of the government of North Korea.

Well, that's a problem that social media companies have with China and India, both of which are big markets.

These are actual problems.

Re: Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

#75

Post by wizzwizz4 »

I expected the tick to mean "take action on review/appeal", and the cross to mean "reject review/appeal", so that threw me for a few of them.

A few of the cards were really frustrating: the correct solution to some of them would be writing a ten-word response, or making an edit, but I only had "take down" and "leave up" buttons. (‘It's just a game!’ I remind myself.) I do hope real content moderators aren't so bereft of tooling.

The story is… really boring, actually? There are a couple dozen little things going on in the background, but not many, and there's not enough gameplay time for them to be explored. I'd hoped for something more like Papers, Please. (Judging by the achievements, there are actually several possible stories; I can only seem to get the election one.)

The sentiment of the general public doesn't seem to behave realistically, either: not when I made obviously-unpopular decisions, and not when the CEO made obviously-unpopular decisions.

Re: Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

#76

Post by joe_the_user »

Wow,

The game is tense and boring and it illustrates both why paid Facebook "moderators" suffer PTSD and why this so-called "moderation" fails to improve the content of discussion or build community.

Actually worthwhile moderation involves someone caring about the whole direction of the discussion and not merely considering "is this content over the line", especially since a large portion of "don't talk about drugs" or whatever is pure CYA. "Don't say that 'cause someone might sue us".

Re: Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

#77

Post by idopmstuff »

joe_the_user wrote: post #76

Wow, The game is tense and boring and it illustrates both why paid Facebook "moderators" suffer PTSD and why this so-called "moderation" fails to improve the content of discussion or build community. Actually worthwhile moderation involves someone caring about the whole direction of the discussion and not merely considering "is this content over the line", especially since a large portion of "don't talk about drugs"…

That works when you're dealing with something the scale of HN and have the resources to hire dang. At the scale of Facebook or Twitter, though? The sort of moderation you're describing is just impossible.

Re: Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

#78

Post by ianferrel »

ethanbond wrote: post #72
ianferrel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that content moderators often have to deal with that issue, and they are given rules like "remove posts that suggest that others commit violent acts" or something like that. And those are reasonable rules for moderators to enforce. But the rules that this game give do not include that rule, and it's a mark of a poorly designed game that the rule says "don't allow illegal content" and then when you (correctly!…

I see I see now what you’re saying. You’ve convinced me :)

Always great to have a discussion with open-minded people. Cheers, internet buddy!

Re: Show HN: Moderator Mayhem, a game about the difficulties of content moderation

#80

Post by joe_the_user »

idopmstuff wrote: post #77
joe_the_user wrote: post #76

Wow, The game is tense and boring and it illustrates both why paid Facebook "moderators" suffer PTSD and why this so-called "moderation" fails to improve the content of discussion or build community. Actually worthwhile moderation involves someone caring about the whole direction of the discussion and not merely considering "is this content over the line", especially since a large portion of "don't talk about drugs"…

That works when you're dealing with something the scale of HN and have the resources to hire dang. At the scale of Facebook or Twitter, though? The sort of moderation you're describing is just impossible.

I moderate a largish, active Facebook group on a controversial topic (5k members, 3-5 posts a day). I spend about 10 minutes per day on this on average. But the fact that I care about the topic, that I can directly ask people to not to engage in shit and that people want to have a decent are basically what makes things much easier.

So it's possible on Facebook. It's just not possible for just Facebook. Reddit seems a better model for community at scale but somehow I haven't jumped into that.

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