Add a Moderation Actions tab that would record every action by a curator

Feature Requests
1

Platform(s), such as mobile, website, API, other: Website

URLs (aka web addresses) of any pages, if relevant: Curator Profile Pages

Description of need: Currently, there is no way to search for all of the moderation actions of a curator. For the sake of transparency, I suggest that there be a list named “Moderation Actions”. which records every action that a curator does that is restricted to curatorship (Taxon changes, taxon framework changes, flags, hidden images, hidden comments, hidden identifications, etc)

Feature request details: Similar to how the Moderation History tab functions, I suggest there be added a “Moderation Actions” tab underneath the “Followers” button a curator’s profile page. This tab would look almost the same as Moderation History, but with one key difference: This tab would record every action that a curator does that is restricted to curatorship such as; Taxon changes, taxon framework relationship changes, suspensions, unsuspensions, hiding images, hiding comments, hiding identifications, flag resolutions, etcetera. This list could be either (1) visible to all users or (2) visible to all curators.

Entries to the tab could be formatted similar to this:
August 21, 2024 (insert local time) Plantman4 removed Imaginary taxa from Internal Taxa on taxon framework relationship 211194 (Phylum Tracheophyta)

August 22, 2024 (insert local time) Plantman4 hid photo 1 on observation 1 for “Inappropriate Content”.

August 22, 2024 (insert local time) Plantman4 commited taxon change 13172 regarding taxon id 3 (Class Aves) and taxon id 362131 (Subclass Neornithes)

The list could be searchable by a similar search bar as inaturalist.org/flags, where you check or uncheck various boxes, or input text, to narrow the search.

2

I think this is a reasonable request, though I think, if created, it should probably only be accessible to curators/staff just as Moderation history is.

1 Like
3

“We’ve investigated ourselves and cleared ourselves of wrongdoing.”

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4

There is a large and diverse enough group of curators in the community that this should not be a concern. (And it’s not a democracy anyway - Staff always have final say over any curator actions.)

What is a concern is revealing potentially sensitive adverse actions against other users to the entire community. That is why Moderation history of a user is only visible to staff and curators, and I agree that Moderation actions should have the same visibility, for the same reason.

12 Likes
5

I support this. I think this must already be recorded behind the scenes somewhere as the people page displays number of flags resolved and taxa curated, so this would just be making a new page to visualize some of the data which already exists. Speaking of which it would be good to have that page link the each curators’ history.

I see no reason why only curators should be able to see such a history. I vote that any user can see what curators do. What is there to hide?

6

I am generally in favor of transparency. I wouldn’t have any problem with the taxonomy side of things being totally open. However, the moderation history is somewhat sensitive. I can think of at least a couple of reasons not to make this totally public on a curator’s page:

  1. Curators sometimes have to moderate the content of one or a small group of users a lot. This could be a way for the general public to see the actions of users that they otherwise wouldn’t see (or at least not so easily) and target other iNat users (not the curators).

  2. It would likely open curators up to being targeted for more harassment than they already receive. Harassment is already an issue for curators who moderate content a fair amount. I would wager that a good portion of curators have been targeted with harassment (nasty messages, comments on IDs, fake IDs) because they moderated content from bad actors. I have. I know some curators who say that they have cut back on or stop moderating content (at least temporarily) because of harassment which is a shame and something that they shouldn’t have to deal with. Which curator initiated a suspension of a user currently is not visible publicly (pretty sure). But this information especially could be used by bad actors to target curators for retaliation. It’s not rare for suspended users to create sockpuppet accounts to continue to harass users on iNat. So I think the cost here to curators would not be worth the benefit.

8 Likes
7

That’s fair. I suppose the best case would be to have it say “Comment removed ” / “User suspended ” and all further details removed for users who are not curators.

3 Likes