How to Fix Pottermore Vol. 5

This is a big one, and I am saving it for last. This is MODERATION, the inglorious white whale that every user hates deeply with a passion... so can this behemoth even be fixed? We'll see.

As I helped write a petition sent off to Pottermore, these are among the higher ranked changes that people wanted to see and some that I had wanted to see personally.

First, we have reports. Reports are currently the bane of existence on Pottermore leading to more drama and suffering than one would think. While there's conversation about needing to do away with it all together, I would imagine a limitation on reports per hour, and allowing people to report conversation threads would do more to help Pottermore in this regard. The logic behind this is that it's usually conversations between two-three users that would be inappropriate, and it would be difficult to report it piecemeal, thus a group report, encompassing all the comments, would help a moderator see how it was inappropriate as they could see it in full context.

The second thing of interest that I would like to bring back up is how moderation is not live. This is something I would find as a hinderance to Pottermore, but not entirely without logic. The problem is when things do get out of hand. When they do, live mods would be more than necessary, and they would be able to act faster, stopping spamming immediately and basically acting as an Avenger taking down a bank robber. However I'd say that it risks imposing too much on users as a result, as depending on the moderator, this could lead to even worse common room conditions than it is currently. The only way you possibly get around this is with a small prefect class able to send a prioritized report, if that was a possibility. (From what I have heard, moderation's system cannot be customized too much, so while "live moderators" may be a good plan, it should probably be reserved as a nuclear option, and there would have to be things put in place to prevent the moderation from being overly burdensome to users that may unknowingly break harmless rules.

Next, we have the issue of receiving reports. This hasn't always been the most timely system, as reports could come in say, the day before a ban, and a ban could happen before a person sees the reports. The owl system is good, but without seeing the warnings, there is no signal for a user to adjust behavior. On a similar note, as the notices are simply on the report existing, with no way to rebuke it, or even know the specific causes of the report, it can be hard to figure out what to do from that point onwards.

So here comes the difficult part, how to fix that? I think when one gets the report, a button saying "reply" should be available. I think you should be able to defend what you said. Furthermore, I think you should be able to see the reason why you were reported, directing you to the rule that was at issue. This is more or less how actual legal complaints work, and should give some example to how actual users work through. As for bans and suspensions, this should follow the exact same way. People need a way to properly protest their bans, and why they even occur. If moderation is run by humans as Pottermore claims right now, that gives even more reason to put this in place. The problem is, even if we were to assume that this is run by reasonable human beings, they have bad days, they make mistakes, and while it's easier to say the computer glitches, humans are just as prone to error, if not more so.  Because of this, Pottermore can not say that the moderators are absolute, nor are they perfect in judgement, so this necessitates the ability to appeal, argue your own case and move forward.

There are other requested changes to moderation, but most of them are things we would probably not get (like a white list of okayed sites) or generalities like Pottermore's staff working more with users, as the primary problem here has been a lack of communication, as not only are the rules and reason poorly phrased for the layperson, but trying to contact Pottermore to get something fixed can often feel like rolling a boulder to the peak of a hill.

So what are your thoughts on how to fix moderation, would you like to add on live moderation, or would you just be happier with a chance to self-govern and defend ourselves properly?