I Want to Improve the Experience Project

EP Needs To Make Immunization Of Restored Content Finally Work

Just days ago SammiSakura complained here about a story of hers that was flagged off the site, appealed successfully, and then flagged off the site yet again. <a href="http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Want-To-Improve-The-Experience-Project/5097267" target="ep_blank">EP Link</a>

We have been promised that content that has been restored on appeal will be immunized against further robo-deletions by malicious members, but I have yet to see any evidence that this has happened.

I have previously written stories in this group on this topic at <a href="http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Want-To-Improve-The-Experience-Project/4346332" target="ep_blank">EP Link</a> and at <a href="http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Want-To-Improve-The-Experience-Project/4598636." target="ep_blank">EP Link</a> I have a story that has twice been robo-deleted, appealed, and then restored on appeal. It was robo-deleted by my malicious enemy (who is one of the commenters on the story) a third time on July 16. I of course appealed it immediately, but I also asked on July 25 at the second of my stories linked here that EP bypass the appeals process and restore the story immediately in view of its having been cleared twice. EPArsineh assured me that she had put the EP engineering team on the matter.

Months have passed, and I have found plenty else to be busy with. I have never heard back from EP about the matter, either in my email box or my personal messages at my EP profile. I have thoroughly checked both to make sure. I note that this is happening to one of EP's paying members.

I request that the story be restored immediately on the basis of its already having been cleared on appeal twice, a fact which I can readily document if it is needed.

At <a href="http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Want-To-Improve-The-Experience-Project/5085616" target="ep_blank">EP Link</a>, one of EP's teen members plaintively asked : "Why does my content keep getting removed? Even the ones about depression....." She also is suffering from robo-deletion of non-violating content by malicious flaggers, and has also suffered repeat robo-deletion of the same story. The ability of members to delete other members' content at will with no prior review by EP staff has brought immense needless and undeserved pain to rules-abiding EP members. Ending this ability is the right thing to do.

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Enigmatrix

When I came here it was because I was told it was THE best place to share in an unrestricted range of life experiences and to give and receive help and advice: it seems I was either badly misinformed or this site is not as it once was.
Before making any decision about whether or not to attempt to share any of my experiences I have spent time looking around the site, and I'm not liking much of what I've found.
I have already seen and commented upon a post that would appear to suggest that EP only permits the sharing of life experiences that fall within a range that THEY deem SUITABLE, with anything else from real life that falls outside that range seeming to 'Disappear', either through so called 'malicious flagging' or by stealth removals carried out by self-appointed vigilantes within the ranks of EP staff.
After reading through the details of the instance that Angelsvengeance has mentioned, it seems like this site operates a system where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
If a story was removed and then reinstated after being reviewed and found NOT to breach EP's own standards, that SHOULD have been an end to it.
For a member of EP staff to then high-handedly expel a member on the grounds that the very same story DID breach those exact same standards was despicable, and was, to me at least, far worse than any example of malicious flagging.
I cannot help but wonder if the person who carried out the flagging was/is a friend of the staff member concerned and the expulsion had nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the story in question, and everything to do with their friend telling them to get rid of someone they had decided they did not like, for whatever reason.
If EP condone cyber-bullying, or, worse still, actively encourage it, as it seems happened in that case, this site is doomed.

Enigmatrix

From other comments I've seen on this particular subject, it seems this is an ongoing problem that EP seem to not want to address. Could it be that they don't have the necessary technical know-how to work this out, or is it a case of they just don't care, or are too damned lazy to do anything?

Dare I even suggest that the entire flagging process is fundamentally flawed, as it gives these malicious minded individuals the perfect tool for making the lives of others a misery?

Flagging is fine, in principle, but to automate the system is leaving it open to abuse. If flagging is to work effectively then any flagged story or experience should be reviewed, by a human, BEFORE the story is taken down, NOT afterwards and only following an appeal.

I also believe that the individual who has been flagged should be told WHO has flagged them and why. Maybe knowing that their username will passed on will deter the malicious individuals, and only flags that are justified will be acted upon in future.

conceptualclarity · M

Great ideas. Deterrence is obviously needed. But human review prior to deletion is most essential.

stargirl58

They are more interested in replying to the good reviews of the app, sayong things like 'x knows what he's talking about' [when he says the app is excellent] and 'yes [we know we are great] but we are totally different from candy crush [to someone who preferred it to candy crush] than responding to and sorting out real issues on the site from loyal users or even replying to not so good reviews.

dragonexpert

Perhaps a story should only be auto-removed if it has received x amount of flags by different members. This would make it less likely to be abused.

There also should be some kind of punishment for false flagging if it clearly doesn't violate the Community Guidelines. Possibly including the loss of ability to flag content.

@Enigmatrix: It isn't hard to have it not be removed again. I have extensive knowledge on PHP and SQL which is what this site uses. There are plenty of ways including querying the reported_content table or even as simple as adding a column to the stories table. If it was up to me, I'd query the reported_content table since not as much database space will be used in the long run.

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Enigmatrix

@dragonexpert: I think I may know what EP might be doing wrong. Perhaps they're using PCP instead. };-)

conceptualclarity · M

Whatever x amount of flags would be set for auto-removal, what I called robo-deletion, could be attained by a malicious member, perhaps with the help of friends, creating as many duplicate accounts as are needed to delete other members' content. That is what is happening now. The bad people on EP have figured out how to do that.

stargirl58

I really think some of the biggest users should run the site, not the people who currently run it. in theory it would be better and people would actually be properly listened to. but we only came here to join a site, not run it.

Angelsvengeance

Some people are lucky. There are others who have had stories deleted by malicious flagging, appealed the deletion, had their story restored, then the person who maliciously flagged the story in the first place flagged their profile, so their entire profile was deleted with no option to appeal.

conceptualclarity · M

That's very, very serious. Would you consider gathering all the facts and writing a story here about it?

Angelsvengeance

All of the facts were gathered and written up last March, by at least two different users. EPArsineh replied to both of them with generic boilerplate garbage about violation of the TOS, and couldn't be bothered to even take note that the content had already been reviewed and restored.

http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Want-To-Improve-The-Experience-Project/4066391

The user who maliciously flagged her story and then complained when it was restored to get her entire account deleted has since left EP and deleted his own account.

EPArsineh

Once content has been flagged and restored, it should not be allowed to be flagged again unless it's been edited.

There is clearly a bug that is allow content to get reflagged. Our engineers will reveiw this once gain to find and address this bug.

conceptualclarity · M

Thank you very much, EPArsineh. I did not edit the story in view.

SammiSakura

Hi! Just an update, my story was removed again, and an additional one. I'm really getting tired of it..

conceptualclarity · M

I hate that for your sake.

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