So, Will My Stigma from Flagging Last Forever?

Maybe you should contact Reed. I always felt that this whole "limit the number of games for a long time" strategy is relatively poor. I would prefer a system that suspended the person completely for a while, and let he/she play again after that. With a permanent ban after X offenses (of course if you rush and make X offenses before being suspended for the first time you could be banned directly). Anyway, this stuff is for the suggestion forums, so, back to your point: I think no one knows exactly when the restrictions wear off. Good luck trying to figure that out.

Thomas, I didn't see too many troll worthy panels of yours, but trolling is fought against pretty hard here, and people have a low tolerance for it, despite it being pretty common.

They're probably trying to make a strong point to quell the trolls, but if you didn't understand about the game when this happened then that's a different story, I'm not sure what you can do besides trying to talk to Reed.

I'm with Tiago on this. Aside from some of the most obsessed players, I don't think the guidelines are nearly as clear as some might imagine them to be. It's also pretty easy at present to violate what seem to be some unwritten rules, though less clear at times which ones will be seen as permanent red marks and which will be forgiven and/or ignored.

Hoping Reed will keep looking at this, and find some way to reach a happy median, without inviting trolling and efforts to probe the margins for the lulz.

(I haven't seen any statement anywhere about a time limit on these restrictions, only a description of what the restrictions are, when they strike).

You should be able to play more now - I reset the flags on your account.

Currently they last forever unless I manually remove them when someone requests a review. But want to automate it so flags go away after a week or two...

Thank you very much. Also, for the record, I never trolled intentionally.

So, are we obligated to report a panel called "A Bag of Dicks, Literally"? lol, just to clarify....

lol, Jemm I think that there are no specific guidelines about what we should flag. Apparently, we decide what's appropriate and what's not.

Reed - Do you mean automate it so the FLAGS go away, or so the restrictions are lifted?

My thought would be that if the flags were removed, material would then be viewable and older frames couldn't be "reflagged" because of the expiration on flagging.

Just looking for clarification - thanks!

I would assume (given "automated" was in the sentence) that Reed was referring to automated aging off of the restrictions on the users. What possible rationale would there be for dropping flags on a panel once it had been restricted, unless, of course it were done by some manual appeals process?

@Jae - I realize now one source of confusion. In programming terms a "flag" simply refers to anything that can be set in an on or off position (programmers love these, because they can be set by changing or checking the state of a single binary bit in the file that describes each user's status -- it's as efficient as it ever gets, 0=off, 1=on).

So it's naturally confusing, especially when images of flags are also used to mark something as abusive. A "flag" probably exists to enable or disable every optional feature there is in the game, including many things that are unlikely to be offensive in any way.

Time should never be an automatic way of removing flags.

You really do need a moderation team, automation is only useful as a tool for moderators to use.

A required number of 'clean games achieved' would be more appropriate than a temporal limit. I can imagine trolls alternating 2-3 accounts to keep playing while other accounts are 'resting'. Someone deliberately trashing games shouldn't be able to come back from a fortnight's holiday and be able to pick up where he/she left off.

@Moku that makes sense. Agreed.

@Moku, yeah, that's probably better. Though the % of trolls who would bother coming back is very low, those who correct their future submissions will be able to get back into regular play more naturally.

Something to keep in mind is that the vast majority of trolls are one timers. They mess with a few games, then disappear for good - most don't come back (not just for this game, but that's troll behavior in general on forums or anything else). They have their fun and move onto the next thing. Once in a while a particularly lame troll will create multiple accounts, but that's pretty rare.