Is there a way to add another alert reason for posting untrue information?

[highplainsdem]

25. It's a difficult problem to deal with in a forum like this one where people are in basic agreement on so

much, because it's such a rare problem.

The usual reaction of DUers to being told an OP is incorrect is to delete it or correct it. I'll delete if there's been little response, and I try to remember to post an explanation and apology as a reply first, and I've often emailed people who engaged with the thread, even just reccing it, to explain and apologize.

If there's been more engagement it's sometimes best to correct the OP and edit the thread title as well to add in caps that it's an update or correction, but if you do that, it doesn't lock the thread, and sometimes it would be best to lock it.

EarlG, would it be possible to add an explanation feature to the self-delete feature, so the person self-deleting can explain why they did so? That would help more than simply adding the explanation in what will be the final reply in a self-deleted thread.

I've been on, and sometimes moderated, boards where all posts were reviewed by a mod before they were released for others to see, or where at least all newcomers' posts needed moderator approval for a certain amount of time. But that requires a lot of moderators and isn't a viable option here. (I have memories of logging in on one board on family holidays and finding pages of new posts to review and release, when I was supposed to be fixing breakfast for a dozen people and getting pies for dinner in the oven.) I was wondering yesterday if reviewing posts in advance of release still might be a possible option if a single user was repeatedly causing problems posting misinformation...but that still creates a burden for the people who'd have to review those posts, especially if that person posts a lot.

No one here should be posting misinformation repeatedly. No one should be ignoring requests to correct threads after mistakes are pointed out to them. They shouldn't require babysitting, if they're adults. If they're intentionally malicious, they shouldn't be on the board...and MIRT does a very good job of weeding out most trolls.

I honestly didn't have the impression the now-former DUer posting so much misinformation recently was a troll. I think they.were posting what they thought would be impactful and help Democrats and hurt RWers, and they said as much early on, IIRC defending posts like the one using AI art to suggest Taylor Swift had endorsed the Democratic nominee, saying that was fine if it upset Republicans reading DU. But that isn't the purpose of DU, which is for Democrats to share info and post info for other Democrats. That newcomer misunderstood what this community is about, and I was hoping through yesterday that they would FINALLY understand DU and stop posting the kind of stuff creating problems.

Now that DUer is gone, and I hope it will be a long time before another DUer repeatedly posts misinformation but doesn't want to correct it.

But we still need some sort of alert for.misinformation.

It can't be the regular jury system, which isn't perfect but at least allows for quick responses to an alert. I stopped being available for juries a while back because I don't use my phone for DU and.I might not look at my tablet or one of my laptops for a long time even while logged in. I figured if I don't see a jury request pretty quickly, it's better not to be one of the DUers contacted.

A quick response time, though, isn't always compatible with fact-checking.

It might be necessary to have fact-checking alerts go first to forum hosts (since they'd be the.ones most familiar with any.similar mistakes), but if none of them can take the time to fact-check, then to a list of volunteer fact-checkers, ideally DUers with a certain number of years and/or posts here. They won't need a separate private forum for discussions, unless that would be more convenient.than group emails (which can be enabled on all board software I'm familiar with). Just one news story from a reliable source should be enough to request a correction, with the software both sending a message to the person who posted the.misinformation and temporarily hiding the thread until a correction is made. It should be hidden in that interim so it dorsn't keep getting recs and replies.

And those temporary hides shouldn't count toward FFRs. Unless, perhaps, the person posting the misinformation refuses to correct it.

It still isn't a perfect solution.

I don't know of any perfect solutions.

Ideally, boards should have large enough teams of moderators with most of the moderators having a lot of experience, and with those mods responding to alerts as well as reading as many new posts as possible. Most forums don't have that. Being a moderator or admin of a board can be exhausting. Last year the senior moderator of one of the largest subreddits asked me to join the moderators, after we'd corresponded and they'd made changes I'd suggested. It was flattering but there was no way I could commit to so much time there, even though they use automated moderation software as well to alert them to problem language suggesting bigotry, etc.

If there are enough experienced moderators, they can hide posts and write to the person who made the problem post to fix or delete it, and that's the very quickest way to deal with problems. Alerts can be sent directly to mods instead of to a jury.

But we don't have that here.

Btw, I saw some posts here (#17 was one) suggesting the alerts jury members get no longer show the reason a post was alerted on (except in LBN?). That surprised me, and if that's correct and jury members aren't now given the reason for an alert, I hope that will be changed.