

PostSecret Pulls iOS App Over Abusive Submissions - d_r
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/02/creator-pulls-postsecret-ios-app-over-abusive-submissions/

======
prawn
"We even tried prescreening 30,000 secrets a day." and "99% of the secrets
created were in the spirit of PostSecret."

Is there a point where even 30,000 quality secrets per day are going to be too
overwhelming and better off screened somehow anyway?

I run sites with anonymous submissions and lose a lot of time screening some
really offensive crap, but even with 30k decent submissions per _year_ , I'd
be keen to filter those pretty strongly. e.g., if there is no expectation from
users that they'll see everything decent that they submit, just approve the
first x and flag the rest for later or never. Will even the most committed
reader have time to go through 30k a day? As far as I understand PostSecret,
they aren't really localised and probably not categorised, right?

~~~
endianswap
It has been years since I visited the website, but I remember FMyLife.com
simply displaying the "approved" posts to anonymous users. If you register,
though, you can rate posts but also view the incoming queue. It seemed to be
successful because I never saw spam in the anonymous view and the spam posts
in the new queue seemed to already have marks against it. To me it doesn't
seem like PostSecret would be any different, but maybe I'm missing something
(possibly because it's an iOS app we're discussing).

Also, is anyone aware of any websites crowdsourcing moderation through
Amazon's mturk? It seems like that might work and it sounds cheaper than
moderating 30k secrets a day in house (but it would probably be less
accurate).

~~~
akg
Interesting idea to use optionally registered accounts for moderation;
although I guess it kind of digresses from the point of anonymous posts.

Interesting idea to use mturk, it would probably be cost effective but the
turn-around time may not make it feasible.

~~~
prawn
On one of my sites, a higher level of moderator has access to edit/delete
while basic moderators (any regulars, basically) can "sin bin" a post for
review/attention. Seems to work reasonably well in catching the worst posts.

------
akg
This seems to be a general problem with anonymous posting venues. The amount
of spam is often inversely proportional to the effort required to distribute
the spam.

I wonder if the app's user community can fight against it by using a simple
karma/points rule like on HN or Reddit. Too many down-votes and the post
doesn't show up.

------
smashing
Anonymity without moderation will tend toward the profane.

~~~
glhaynes
Especially when there's essentially no cost (time/money/etc) to post.

