Topic Quarantine (72 hours) – quarantiner’s tools

Tools for Quarantiner

Situation ;
Quarantiners need to make decisions and take actions in the procedures for quarantining topics. A similar process is also applied to the continued quarantining of all following topic by the same author.

These are some ideas that might be useful for the tasks involved in quarantining ;

1a) When a moderator stops a topic from being posted for what ever reason, they are presented with a list (drop down) of the range of reasons, that they can select from. This saves any typing.
b) When they select the reason on the list, the topic is then recorded as being stopped for that reason, and any other details that may be needed may be recorded at the same time.
c) The selected reason is then used to generate a message that attached to the topic, for the author to see.
d) The selected reason generates a link to an explanation of the reason, and how to avoid further similar actions or situations, or this information could be pop-up/drop down available in the topic for the author to see.

2) There might be made available some options for the author to choose, based on the information in the explanation, which may include any of the following;
a) choose to delete the topic
b) choose to amend or edit the contents
c) choose any alternative activity that may be suggested

3) In situations where it has been decided to continue quarantining a topic author then the following functions could be automated ;
a) make a decision about how long time, how many topics, or other conditions to be satisfied, at the start. This way there is some way to see if the applied measures are beginning to go on beyond what was reasonably anticipated at the start.
b) for every topic that gets put in (temporary) quarantine, the quarantine message, contains the reason (or all the reason-s) why the quarantine system is being used for the topic author.

4) Once a quarantined topic has been checked and ;
a) is then passed out of quarantine, to be posted on the forum, it could be certified as having passed quarantine checks. Say, have some icon to show this. This could limited to the view of the user and moderators, or could be made viewable to all.
b) is denied being posted on the forum, it could be certified as having been stopped. Say by an icon – a bit like the padlock icon, which locks a topic closed.

The essence of these ideas , is to find ways to make the quarantine processes that the moderators use, involve less typing, smoother decision steps, and automated communication of important and timely information to the user, without as much need for custom typed messages from the moderators.
At the same time, it makes it much easier for the moderators to review the course of events.
Similar situations happen in customer management systems, and “help ticket” systems.

All the improvements that get made to this system on the WordPress site, can be incorporated in to any forum plugins for use in wordpress based sites, just as some improvements in wordpress plugin forum plugins might have some application to the system here (might – I don’t know – I haven’t checked – maybe somebody is researching that already).

Thank you for all the hard work done in the Quarantine Team,
and I hope the website and forum development teams find something of help or use in at least some part of the above.