From what I understand, “machine-generated content” has historically on iNat referred to content that is produced with automation, e.g. running a program that uploads hundreds of observations without a human supervising every action.
Yes, I agree. The definition on the suspension page is:
“Machine generated content: We do not allow machines to generate and post content on iNat with no human oversight curating each piece of content, and any account suspected of doing so is subject to suspension and the removal of the content. Read more about what constitutes machine generated content here.”
I think this is considered differently from the AI-generated media flag that @jenna489 was referring to (and much more seriously). I would think that AI-generated stuff might have the same suspension progression as Copyright Infringement? But I agree that it should be explicitly included on the chart.
I too agree. I didn’t read the text under ‘Machine generated content’ in the new guidelines, like most others here, to also include AI generated media.
My sense is that it is a lot less common, and most users/curators don’t come across full-on machine generated IDs, scripts, etc. AI generated media meanwhile is (and will become) more prevalent.
So, it’d make sense to mention the guidelines for it explicitly (or mention/combine with copyright violations).
Thank you! Given that the purpose of these new guidelines is (at least in part) to enable more consistent treatment of violations, making explicit the expected treatment of AI-generated images would ensure that we are all on the same page and well-equipped to apply consistent treatment.
Agree that clarification on this would be much appreciated. CNC, at times, felt a little bit like whack-a-mole — e.g., a user uploads copyrighted images → warn them not to do that —> they start uploading AI-generated images —> warn them not to do that —> they start falsifying dates → warn them not to do that…etc, etc.
Sure happy to try to clarify, thanks for asking!
For
I wasn’t necessarily proposing a free text option like
though that could be good. All the things I was thinking about would be on the Moderation History alone which would only be visible to curators. Currently in the “Body” column, there is a moderator note or the text of any flag, either the user-entered flag text or the standard flag text. In cases like “copyright infringement” or “spam,” these auto-generated texts are helpful in assessing user history, but there is also “inappropriate” which is not, as it could really be anything. For flags with user free text, it also isn’t necessarily clear which (if any) of the infractions from the Suspension Guidelines may be applicable (sometimes the text of the flagger doesn’t make much sense or is wrong for instance).
My proposal would be to allow curators to add an optional value either in the “Body” column or another, new column for “Infraction” from a dropdown of (almost) the same standardized choices as the “Reason for Suspension” dropdown. However, I would want the insults choices to be changed from “Insults or Threats” to be broken out to the choices in the Infractions table (“Minor Insult”, “Major Insult or Threat”. This would allow Curators to quickly scan the Moderation History page to get a view of any past issues a user has had. This wouldn’t overwrite the original value, but just be underneath it (shouldn’t be an issue as the lines on Moderation History already expand to accommodate longer texts)
For
my proposal is a bit different.
I would propose adding a column that is “Warned?” or “Warning” or something like that which notes whether a warning was given by a curator for that specific action/line in the Moderation History (not any suspension). Curators would have the option to select a yes/no value for it to denote that a user was warned about a given action/line in the moderator history. So the warned value could be on the entry for a flag for copyright infringement or whatever. Combined with the Infraction value proposed above, this would give curators an easy way to scan the history and say “Ok, this user has 5 flags for copyright infringement but they were warned only once”, so a new copyright flag would just lead to the second offense (Suspend for three days).
This would also be useful because sometimes currently a moderator has to add a moderator note noting that they warned someone for a previous action on the moderator history. This adds another line, and it also isn’t always clear exactly which issue/flag/line of the moderation history the warning is for (usually the one preceding, but not always).
For the Action column, I don’t know all the permutations possible, but it only seems to have “view” in it and the view text links to either the flag itself or the flagged content (like a comment or identification) when it is hidden or unhidden. This is already a little inconsistent, and, when it links to the flagged content, just duplicates whatever link is already in the Type column (so it is unnecessary in that regard).
My proposal would be to just make the “Flag” text in the “Type” column a link to the Flag (like it already is a link for the content - user, photo, message, comment, ID, whatever). The “Type” column could then go away and free up space for a column in the moderator history page to use for something else like the proposed columns above.
Just a heads up that @caseyhh is an iNat staff member, I just added him to the staff group on the forum, so “iNaturalist Staff” now appears next to his username. Sorry for the delay on that.
Thanks @tiwane !
Thanks for all the feedback, it’s much appreciated! I’ll try to respond to some of it here. FWIW, we haven’t received any appeals from suspendees of timed suspensions, as of earlier today.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, at least at the outset. But we could maybe combine it with the copyright infringement category as well.
Thanks, it’s an oversight and I’ll add it to more places.
I was thinking after the warning, and giving them a grace period to make sure they’ve had time to read it. So, Infraction discovered, could be after 1 stolen photo, or posting 50 → warning given = first incident. But agree it needs a more clear definition.
Yeah, it’s a tough thing to make part of a universal process. Some people might want to engage with a user before a suspension, but others may not, or may not have the skills or time to.
We decided to go more toward a shorter first suspension or warning system for minor/non-malicious infractions, eg minor insults, copyright infringement, so that the consequence isn’t too terrible (like being suspended for a day, or getting a warning) so that it’s not a huge deal or something a curator might waffle over, that will still let the user know what’s not acceptable without them being affected by a long suspension. But we’ll have to see how it plays out.
See https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000232621-how-to-suspend-an-account#Intervention-definitions I think they’re fairly clear, but if you have specific questions please let me know.
I just want to make sure that these aren’t thought of as “punishments” (I don’t meant to pick on you, just using this as an example). Let’s really think of warnings and suspensions as interventions to stop/prevent behavior that is detrimental to iNat. We are not trying to inflict pain (which “punish” implies), just trying to protect the broader community and uphold the guidelines/ToU.
Noted, I’ll take a look at separating.
FWIW, for years now each curator is told “We ask that our curators be models for other iNat users, so violations of our Community Guidelines can result in loss of your curatorial status.” I agree a few minor insults probably aren’t a big deal, but revocation of curator status isn’t necessarily permanent. I should add this to the list of intervention definitions.
In general I would go for the longest suspension in these cases.
The guidelines we posted are for common infractions:
Right now there isn’t a hard and fast rule about this behavior. We’re hiring someone who head up moderation/curation in the next few months, and working on systems that will help curators make decisions and hopefully reduce bottlenecks. I don’t want to set a whole lot of new rules before they come on board, so I think for something like this it will have to be case-by-case for now. In my experience it’s pretty rare.
Sounds great for you and stressful for them :-)
I agree with this, the point I was trying to make is that in some cases of minor insult, verbal deescalation is the most effective intervention to stop the behavior, and requiring that suspension or the threat of suspension be used has the effect of shifting the guidelines in a more punitive direction than just trying to stop the behavior.
Noted, I’ll take a look at separating.
Personally I think the guidelines for threats should be more strict than those for hate speech. I have no objection to the current guidelines for major insults.
revocation of curator status isn’t necessarily permanent
Ah, this makes me feel a lot better about the guidelines. I do agree that curators should not be allowed to get away with lots of violations.
See https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000232621-how-to-suspend-an-account#Intervention-definitions I think they’re fairly clear, but if you have specific questions please let me know.
I had the same question actually. As far as I can tell an indefinite suspension is a curator or staff decision to suspend an account until they successfully appeal, and a ban is a staff decision to never grant an appeal, but it is somewhat unclear if this is what is meant
Also the difference between “Account banned” and “Ban from iNaturalist” is not stated, are these 2 ways of saying the same thing? Or are they different?
In regards to:
and
Direct personal threats of real world harm have been thankfully very infrequent in my tenure. The most common threats I see are for online retaliation, usually on iNat itself, and the single most frequent is some variation of “How would you like it if someone bumped back IDs/cast DQA votes on your observations???” often accompanied by a couple intentionally incorrect IDs or DQA votes. I think the guidelines are appropriate for these kind of things. For serious threats of in-person harm, especially if there are >1 threats in a single incident, I think immediate suspension is warranted to stop the threats. I don’t think all threats are the same, but I think the guidelines as written give the flexibility for curators to make that call.
The scenario above does bring up another question I’ve been pondering though:
What to do in situations/incidents where a user has multiple distinct violations? I’m not talking like 20 copyrighted photos in one day (this type is addressed in the new guidance, and I agree this is really just one incident), but situations where a user does something like make a threat and make intentionally incorrect IDs as in the example above or something else. Conceivably, any suspensions could “stack”, though trying to calculate this could get complex. My personal instinct would be to apply whatever the strongest sanction is (e.g., if it is the user’s second threat, and second instance of discrimination, I’d go with a one week suspension). I would also, however, warn them about both issues, and consider the next time (if any) they did either to merit the third sanction for either.
I was interpreting a threat as a statement of intent to physically harm the person, I’ve only ever seen this a few times, but I have seen it.
Under the current guidelines it appears that these cases would require consultation with another curator in order to suspend for more than a day, which does not make sense. I think threats to mis-ID or otherwise be a pain on the internet can still be handled as major insults, but threats to commit physical crimes against someone, or saying that someone deserves to be the victim of violence, should be an immediate indefinite suspension IMO.
I agree that the current guidelines are fine for retaliatory mis-IDs and stuff like that.
I agree — I am sure that we all use iNat in different ways and have different “workflows,” but sometimes I’m in “ID mode” and sometimes “curator/flag resolution mode.” And other times “admire-pretty-photos-of-cool-organisms-from-all-over-the-world mode,” but I’ll set that aside for a moment… :)
It feels a bit trickier now to cleanly differentiate being in “ID mode” vs “curator mode.” For example, when IDing unknowns — which I suspect may have a relatively higher proportion of copyright issues — historically I’d quickly flag such issues and move on. But with the very small amount of extra friction (“paperwork”), I’ve found myself just ignoring probable copyright issues because I’m in an ID groove, and don’t want to interrupt that to put on my curator hat.
I’m realizing that a better way to handle this may be to just to bookmark or favorite the observation, and revisit next time I am in “curator mode” and want to help with data quality issues. A couple times I just flagged it and moved on, but that felt suboptimal — even though that would be appropriate for non-curator IDers. I am curious if others been having similar experiences and/or have workflow recommendations? (I am still very much in favor of these guidelines overall.)
Here are a couple of thoughts/questions that have been running in my head since the new guidelines were published.
Some others have touched on the very real human side of moderating on iNat. There are instances when, for different reasons, moderating feels best done quietly. By that, I mean we raise a flag, hide content, and move on; I don’t mean hiding content or acting without accountability/transparency. Examples I can think of are the occasional copyright violation, a rare inappropriate human observation, or a joke ID/comment/argument of a long-time user. There have been times when quietly flagging/hiding such content felt most appropriate, least antagonising or helped avoid further escalation.
While the new guidelines are certainly for the better, and overall make things more transparent, I’m afraid of two outcomes. One, that it kind of forces us to issue warnings to users to explicitly document having done so (more on that further down); two, that we may end up with fewer moderators willing to do this (and potentially risk affecting the diversity in the pool of moderators).
As I said, full transparency of all curatorial/staff actions is totally called for, and I’m not advocating for the opposite (I’ve only been frustrated by the lack of it). I’m merely thinking out loud about striking the balance; we’re human and generally seek to avoid unpleasant experiences with others in the community.
And about warnings themselves, we’d all agree that it’s not always best to bring up suspensions when we warn users, especially for minor or first violations. Is it still considered a warning if we avoid mentioning consequences, and point the user instead to community guidelines or proper use of iNat otherwise? I believe so, and I’ve even been wording my comments that way. But I’d like to hear how other curators are wording their warnings.
I do not agree here. If a suspension is possible for a user’s next infraction of the same type, I think we actually have a duty to warn users (politely) about the potential consequences of continuing the action. In my opinion, it’s best to try to phrase that more informatively as opposed to sounding scary and punitive. But if someone is going to suffer negative consequences, and we don’t tell them, that doesn’t seem very fair. If I were doing something in some facet of my own life that could lead to any kind of official sanction, I’d much rather know about it so I could avoid the sanction in the future. My stock language is something like:
“Users who continue to upload copyrighted images may be suspended…”
or
“Repeatedly posting photos that are not the user’s own work can lead to account suspension…”
though that’s evolved over time and may continue to. I try to phrase it that way so it doesn’t come across as “You will be suspended” but it’s of course difficult to know how any user will take each comment and there may be translation issues.
Thanks for your inputs, as always.
That does make sense, and I see now that it is in fact our duty to warn users about negative consequences.
Based on current guidelines, almost all violations have the possibility of a user being suspended for a repeat violation. And so, we’d have to warn them of that possibility.
I understand that moderation is constant work-in-progress and so are the new guidelines. For minor offenses (eg., copyright violation) that still carry possible suspension when repeated, warning users of possible suspension (carefully worded, yes) during first instances of violation would be in a bit of a conflict with recent conversations I’ve had with tiwane under flags. There we had felt that bringing up suspension might be too escalatory when we first intervene. These new guidelines didn’t exist then, but it is still something I’m thinking of. We must be fair to users, and not be too escalatory ourselves. It becomes all the more important for us to phrase warnings better; we need to convey the message strongly without sounding too harsh.
Phew!
That’s exactly my concern. It shifts likely responses from “ah, ok” to “you don’t get to tell me what to do”. Not just on part of the user who’s directly involved, but also for anyone else who reads this later. In my mind this conflicts with the goal to make bad behavior stop.
Perhaps there’s a way to shift the threat of suspension to a help page. A link to the community guidelines, for example, isn’t as confrontational as the threat of suspension no matter how nicely phrased. Whatever we link to can then spell out explicitly that suspension is a real possibility.
If the person’s immediate response is going to be something like
then I expect they’re going to get themselves suspended sooner or later. Might as well make it very clear up front.