Disclaimer: This post is not intended to demand anything or be expecting of changes. Just food for thought I’ll bring up.
Using the report function to bring rulebreakers to the attention of mods and admins! It’s a great function and it serves a vital purpose. I’ve used the report function quite a few times over the course of the many many years. However, I wanted to share the experience I have as a user of the report button on Derpibooru as compared to another somewhat similar site, e621.
On e621, when a report is viewed and considered by a mod, the reporting user is immediately sent a DM. Usually this is to the effect of “Thanks for reporting, we handled it.” Occasionally the response will be “Thanks, but this doesn’t break rules, so no action taken”, and very rarely there might be direct followup.
On Derpibooru, though, this doesn’t happen. You can open your list of reports as a user to see which ones are still open, and which ones have been closed. When a report is closed, you receive no communication as the reporting user, aside from the rare case where the mod needs extra information from you. Now, just speaking personally, this more often than not just leaves me asking “Did the mods do anything? Was my report valid and action was taken? Or, was my report invalid and nothing was done?”
By receiving that instant communication via the DM, I immediately know whether I was in the right or the wrong to use the report in this case. So, if I see something similar happening I’ll report it again. Otherwise, if it was invalid, I will no longer report anything similar as I know it was a misunderstanding on my part. It also gives a timeframe to know the point that the mods dealt with a user, which can be referenced if the same user continues to misbehave in the same way. With the way this site handles it, I don’t know if my report against User A resulted in anything happening. For the sake of argument let’s say the report was invalid and no action was taken against user A. Since I receive no communication besides “ticket closed”, I might see user A doing the same thing again and make another invalid report.
This has actually led to
confusion on my part before that I had to post on the forums to get answered. It’s also left me wondering why the comment that suggests a bunch of real people should die was left up without being taken down.
Don’t get me wrong, the system on Derpibooru isn’t broken. It’s perfectly functional the way it is, but I think it could be a lot better. I feel much more comfortable and confidant reporting misbehaviour on e621 than I do on here, because on here I have to ask “Was anything done?” at least 75% of the time. It wouldn’t have to be a personally-typed message every single time; if it’s possible to automate it somehow that would still be fine. Or, alternatively, change the backend somehow so that instead of just showing “Closed” it could say either “Handled” or “No action taken”.