i’ve got another discourse community that i moderate on, that’s likewise full of usually self-policing mature users, and the biggest problem i have is users are too timid to flag posts and get the mods involved. over there the biggest problem that’s resulted in to date is threads getting out of control before a mod can get online to intervene, not exactly comparable to what’s happened here, but i think (especially after seeing @Pkdragon’s post above about noticing something weird at the time) that more flagging can help in either case.
basically, it’s a natural human response to think “oh, this is too trivial to bother the mods about”, and i think if you fought it by encouraging people to use the flag button for even small things, that (combined with the increased awareness we regulars will automatically start having after today) would go a long way.
it’s a tough problem and no solution is going to be complete. just my 2¢. and thank you so, so much for the quick and involved response; it makes me feel proud to be part of this community.
editing to add – i’ve always thought of flags as like, “i wish this post would get deleted”, but perhaps the flags that would help the most here would actually be on a different sort, those disclosing age/gender that would make one a target for abuse. then a mod could come by with a quick PM or email to that user with just a heads up about common abuse patterns. that’s more likely to get read than a sticky topic. (although i think discourse auto-hides posts after 3 flags? which is ng if that can’t be disabled)
We try to help out each other as much as possible, you can bet on that, but there’s really a limit to what even we see. Personally in this case, I noticed nothing off and I talked quite a bit with both people involved. Its pretty easy to hide stuff from the public that you think would give away true intentions. Their age gap was a big difference, sure, but at the same time the two people I’m closest with on here are both over a decade older than me and of the opposite gender. Despite that, we are just friends and nothing of this sort has occurred. I am a bit older than elise, but still. Maybe I’m biased, but even I really didn’t see this coming at all.
We will all do our best, but unfortunately if there is a predator, chances are they will be smart enough to just keep everything private with whoever they are trying to manipulate. Educating the potential victims effectively is the best option im my mind.
Yeah, I respect that. I actually wasn’t suggesting you add any names specifically or even a date at which this incident occurred. I think it should be doable to mention that such an incident has occurred without giving anything away about the victim. Obviously current users will know, but that’s a solid shouganai right there.
I try my best. You’re trying to protect a community that I myself hold dear, so the least I can do is drop the Vanilla character and give my two cents. Happy to help.
also @koichi i sent you an email because I couldnt pm
This is the first time I’ve ever seen something like this happen to someone I was familiar with (I’ve seen references to incidents like this but never witnessed it firsthand, and never knew the people involved). So, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know I myself will be keeping an eye open now.
Yeah, to be clear, I noticed nothing that would even be a red flag. Just a couple posts I thought were a bit odd, but I shrugged them off. Even knowing what I know now, I still wouldn’t think much of them, given how many inside jokes there are in this forum, but I do wish I had paid more attention at the very least. With PMs off, and sharing private information being discouraged, it should be easier for the community to spot something like this, though. I hope so, at least.
Thats my hope as well, but if they somehow figure out eachother’s LINE, discord name, or anything else, then it would be no different as when PMs were a thing.
@vanilla, fyi
the abuser (not Vanilla) tried to trick me into getting LINE, but I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t feel comfortable with ANY of it, but I atleast drew the line there.
I do think that better awareness of what exactly people should be looking out for could help. Sometimes having a firm line in the sand drawn and an understanding of the risks can be the difference between someone looking into the situation and deciding to stay quiet, especially when the signs are subtle.
Wew, I read that first part as “Vanilla tried to trick me into getting line” and got a bit of a scare.
Well, I am glad that you were able to draw the line there at least. Hopefully this never happens again, but if it does, I hope the other victim will be able to draw the line there as well. As others have stated, best case scenario is that everything is forced to be sent for the public to see so we can spot out the bad apples. I’m not sure if we would have as much persuasion power as parents, but we can always try.
I’m glad that you listened to yourself and set that boundary. Paying attention to those feelings is really important! You’re under no obligation to interact with someone in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe.
On Hello Talk, users who are under 18, can only see other users who are under 18. The converse is true for users over 18, they can not see or contact anyone 17 and below.
I feel like HelloTalk handles this relatively well, compared to other apps with the same format. Unfortunately, in a 1 vs 1 situation, it’s easy to get weird people. I got some (see “exact language match” activated) and my JP friends do have some stories.
Anyway, HelloTalk is a platform with more extreme cases, since it’s common to find people wanting to date there. They try to handle this by blocking some functions like:
You can’t share phone numbers or something similar (you get a warning or something)
You can’t share photos before x amount of messages.
It’s easy to report.
The community is more acceptable to be in alert (since the platform warms you several times about it not being a dating place).
As little as I post on the forum, I’m extremely impressed with how quickly this was handled. I’m amazed (happily so) at how caring the WK team is about the people here and keeping WK a good place to be. Kudos to you on every level!
More often than not decency is taken for granted because we can only hope that this is the default action of the majority of people. It is truly a shame that we have to suffer the shock that there is a minority who do not share this. I think this can explain much of the reaction we are seeing. It is certainly a shame.
It says a lot that you care enough to do what you can to prevent this. Good for you and I only wish I could do more to assist.
It’s possible it maybe broke? Or it wasn’t always implemented? I’ve obviously been over 21 the entire time the app has existed.
@koichi You already got a good summary, but I’ll just say I think it’s better than it’s been in the past, a lot of the more overt stuff has been gotten rid of.
However, once I made some throwaway comment on a girl’s moment and this random guy sent me a novel out of the blue about how this girl was racist and hated foreigners because she didn’t like him asking “innocently” (in his words) whether or not she had a boyfriend.
