BuddyPress.org

Hi @djsteveo

I don’t know of a plugin that can do this but if one was to be built, it would need the following parts:

• The button which does the flagging: The most stylish way for the button to work would be through AJAX. Like a toggle button. If the reporting user clicks by mistake then they can undo the flag by clicking again. Would the reporting user be able to submit text along with the flag click?
• A list which outputs all of the flagged users: This should be accessible to admin users only
• Notifications: Would you want an admin user to receive an email each time a user is flagged?

I doubt a custom database table would be needed for something like this. Recording the flags can be done via user meta. I was thinking of building something like this a while ago but haven’t had the time recently.

@djsteveo, @henrywright,

I have just tested that plugin in one of my installation and it looks so promising.

it has a lot of useful functions

1, admin can set the total number of report before the activity go hiding automatically.

2, admin can customize the email to receive

3, admin can manage all the reported users and more.

Unfortunately, some of the functions which fires the report has been deprecated so when you press report it goes to 404 not found.

I could adopt this plugin and add it to the repo but am currently busy building a free buddypress theme which is about 60% finished.

Someone out there may adopt it and add it to the repo because its very useful.

Naijaping

Another, not sure if it’s one already mentioned: http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/how-to-tackle-spam-with-the-buddypress-spam-link-plugin/

@jconti – probably best as a separate plugin rather than bundling too much in to WangGuard.

A modernised version of https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-moderation/ would be ideal, as that plugin already does most of what’s required – it just needs lots of cleanup.

Admin settings interface:

Choose which content types should get a report/flag link (including things like status updates, comments, groups, forums, members, posts, articles, etc).

Customise link text, eg. “Report %username%” or “Flag %contenttype%” etc.

Decide how many reports something needs before an automatic response is triggered. Eg. if 5 people have flagged a comment as bad, person who made that comment should get a customised message and the message should optionally be forwarded to an admin.

The message I’ve set up in BP Moderation plugin looks like this:

%AUTHORNAME%,

Several users reported your content as inappropriate:
%CONTENTURL%.

A community moderator has been notified and will review the content. If it is found to be in violation of our site terms of use, your account will be removed.

%SITENAME%

Front-end UI:

Make HTML as consistent as possible, but compatible with the UI found for the specific type of content.

Ensure there is a specific class on all flag/report links, eg. class=”abuse-button”

Ensure there is a content type specific class on each flag link, eg. class=”abuse-type-comment”

Ensure there is a state specific class on all links, eg: class=”not-flagged” or class=”is-flagged” as applicable.

Use AJAX when user flags/unflags something to avoid page refresh.

Management Interface:

There should perhaps be two management interfaces, one for site admins in the WP backend, and one for forum/group mods in the front-end.

In the backend, see BP Moderation plugin for an example.

In the front-end, it would be nice if say a group admin/moderator would get messages about problem users in their group and be able to deal with it themselves (via front-end UI, I don’t want normal users of my site going in to WP backend). This would reduce workload of WP site admins.

Spam integration:

I assume this is something native to WP but it might be from a plugin, not sure. Anyway, in admin area when you go in to Comments or Topics, etc., and hover over content items you get a spam link in the links that appear:

It would be nice if when the auto-response message is triggered (as mentioned earlier – for example after 5 people report something) it could be marked as spam. When marked as spam, content is hidden from the front-end and moved to a ‘spam’ folder on the backend. This would mean if several people report something it is temporarily hidden while an admin looks in to it – if the admin thinks it’s ok they can un-spam it, otherwise they can delete it.

I have no idea which content types / reply types support this spam thing. It would also be worth checking with whoever implemented the spam thing to see what their future plans are?

Other Notes:

If the new plugin could provide hooks so that other plugins such as WangGuard could hook in to it, that would be ideal. For example, if WangGuard sees a blacklisted word in a comment it could automatically flag it or something like that.

It would be useful if there was a record kept of how many times a user’s content has been flagged enough times to trigger auto-responses. This would enable admins to spot repeat-offenders who are regularly annoying other end-users and factor that in to any subsequent decision making (eg. should I ban that user?).

It would be nice if there was a way to auto-suspend a member account if lots of their content is getting reported/flagged. This ties in with the count thing mentioned above. So if they’ve spammed groups and forums with spammy adverts, etc., and as a result other members have reported those things several times, the offending user would be auto-suspended if they have more than say 3 items moved to spam at any given time.

Two plugins for blocking users. Agree that if flagging/reporting content it would be nice to have option to block the user at same time.

BuddyBlock

https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-you-are-blocked/

The only one I have personally tested is this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-moderation/

It’s clunky but seems to work. I have no idea what mess it might create in the database.

For any community or social networking platform to survive, it’s essential that content moderation can be divested to and distributed amongst the end-users. IMHO this sort of functionality should be bundled with BuddyPress.