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View submission: Reddit Community Values
u/spez I have a specific technical suggestion for addressing a specific problem raised in the r/ModSupport thread cited above, reviewing a specific incident in r/science: examples were given of report handlers failing to correctly handle offending one-word comments because they didn't parse the context.
Split reports into two queues, "default" and "context". Mod reports go into the default queue by default and are handled by the present system. But there is a ticky box on the report interface so mods can flag a report "check context". These reports go into a different queue for report handling, where the report handlers know to look for the larger context of why the comment was a violation; in the "context" queue, if the report handler can't see why something might have struck a mod as offensive, the workflow is that they contact the mod for more info, not just rule it not a violation.
If there are productivity standards for report handlers, they need to be different for the two queues, since the "context" queue will be much more time consuming to process than the default queue.
By separating the queues, there's a way for mods to let report handlers know that the violater is being sneaky about it, and they'll have to invest a bit more time in parsing the situation, but allowing the default to be read at face value.
There's a temptation to just have a flag for default vs context, and not have two separate work queues. If you don't separate these into two different queues, the report handlers will be constantly having to monitor for whether a report is a context report or not, which is extra cognitive load and slows them down, and their managers will have more trouble load balancing their work. Obviously there will probably be some report handlers who are better at parsing context violations than others, and it would be beneficial to be able to route those reports to them.
I would recommend that when a report that went in the default queue and was found not a violation, a mod should be able to forward it to the context queue if they think it appropriate, for re-evaluation.
There's nothing here!