tPF authenticator discussion

[JustAgUrL]

I'm not Megs but I can help try and respond:





Hi!
Authenticators don't have mod authority. Unfortunately, our software doesn't allow allowing members to have different privileges in singular threads.

If you are interested, I THINK I know how it could be done.

I'm a mod on a forum that I believe is using the same format, so I think I figured out a sort of work around on how to allow to allow the Trusted Authenticators
to Moderate the AT threads, and requires no change in software, as it is not a technical fix.

That is, if you are interested.

 

[JustAgUrL]

This scares the hell out me. Knowing that anyone willy nilly can go in the AT and tell someone that their bag (they are about to spend thousands on) looks good to them and then find out they are not even an authenticator. I have seen it and experienced it and I will not use this service until something is done about it.

Now there has been some mention of labelling authenticators and legal liability etc… But anyone who holds themselves out to be an expert in a particular field is liable under the law for false, misleading and or deceptive conduct. So it might be better to give the authenticators a title to make them more identifiable so other non-authenticators can be easily identified to people posting requests. Then they can politely tell that person that they would prefer an approved authenticator to give an opinion.

It is my understanding that they can NOT APPROVE Authenticators on tPF,
as then it WOULD open them up to liability issues.

Trusted and Approved are 2 different things.

Trusted just means that they have been around a long time
and have proven themselves over time to be knowledgeable in the bags they are
authenticating.


Approved would mean that The Purse Forum is vouching for the authenticators.
Therefore making tPF liable for those opinions.

sorry if I am not explaining this very well, I am sort of half asleep…


as far as how the Purse Forum works, people are just giving EDUCATED
OPINIONS…. NOT holding themselves as EXPERTS.

It is legal to give an opinion, and not be held legally for it.


This is how all authenticators work. It is only an opinion.

Users of this service
understand this, and it is why when an authenticator makes a mistake,
such as ******************, or Carol Diva, , they are not being sued by the users of
their services.

 

[acrowcounted]

Users of this service
understand this, and it is why when an authenticator makes a mistake,
such as ******************, or Carol Diva, , they are not being sued by the users of
their services.

I think they don't get sued because it takes a lot of time and money to sue someone. It's not a slam dunk case either way, especially in a paid service environment. People can sue anybody for anything. It doesn't mean they will win but even defending yourself from a nuisance lawsuit can cost tens of thousand of dollars.

 

[JustAgUrL]

I think they don't get sued because it takes a lot of time and money to sue someone. It's not a slam dunk case either way, especially in a paid service environment. People can sue anybody for anything. It doesn't mean they will win but even defending yourself from a nuisance lawsuit can cost tens of thousand of dollars.

That is a GOOD point… I should have worded it better…

 

[Longchamp]

I spend a lot of time on the Rolex forum. Women wear luxury watches, but for some reason that forum is mostly men. They call each other out all the time on posted fake watches. They attach each other for bad selling practices. These posts don't seem to get moderated.
Men seem to do better with legitimate criticism than women. Could this gender difference factor into our problems on tPF?

 

[Megs]

So Meg, we can PM you directly without the fear of being blacklist or given a warning? I have earlier asked a new member with a low number of posts to stop authenticating. She herself posted in the thread asking for authentication & said that she is not an expert & learning. However my posts were deleted & was told not to confront members like that which is so so demoralizing. I have been telling that member nicely that we should allow the expert to authenticate but she treated me like I was invisible. If we helping on the thread is making the mod / admin duties so difficult, then pls tell us & we will exit gracefully.

A lot of people on the forum may not like me or how certain things are handled, but I doubt you'll find anyone that says I've blacklisted them or banned them for PMing me. Actually, I think this thread is proof of that - this is a thread with a lot of people sharing their frustrations and not one has been given a warning, blacklisted or banned.

Again, we do not want members moderating other members. If a member is giving a bad authentication, report it and let us know so we as mods can handle it. We can't have members confronting other members - even if the other member is rude, let us handle it. Once you partake in that, it is more of an issue.

 

[Megs]

I spend a lot of time on the Rolex forum. Women wear luxury watches, but for some reason that forum is mostly men. They call each other out all the time on posted fake watches. They attach each other for bad selling practices. These posts don't seem to get moderated.
Men seem to do better with legitimate criticism than women. Could this gender difference factor into our problems on tPF?

Ya, all forums run very differently. I think on a whole men handle things very different than women, we probably all can agree on that!

 

[Swanky]

If you are interested, I THINK I know how it could be done.

I'm a mod on a forum that I believe is using the same format, so I think I figured out a sort of work around on how to allow to allow the Trusted Authenticators
to Moderate the AT threads, and requires no change in software, as it is not a technical fix.

That is, if you are interested.

I don't own this site so I have nothing to do w/ those decisions or the technical side. But I do know we're changing platforms soon, which is probably part of the reason I was discussing w/ M&V some of the issues and problem solving w/ this topic.


No one has ever been blacklisted or banned or anything else on tPF for coming to us in a PM w/ issues. Even members that publicly don't like me have PMd me with issues.


For members feeling slapped for having their posts deleted, please try and see the other side as well. We try and keep as much drama off the boards as possible. I personally think overall we do a fine job of that. If we allow members/peers moderate one another and make the other feel reprimanded by a peer then we get drama. We learned nearly a decade ago here that to simply clean that off usually helps.
If a member is being abusive in any way to an authenticator we need it reported immediately and we really need people to immediately ignore that member. I know that latter part is exceedingly difficult! lol
If we don't respond soon, another report is ok. We don't like any abuse between members.

 

[JustAgUrL]

I don't own this site so I have nothing to do w/ those decisions or the technical side. But I do know we're changing platforms soon, which is probably part of the reason I was discussing w/ M&V some of the issues and problem solving w/ this topic.


No one has ever been blacklisted or banned or anything else on tPF for coming to us in a PM w/ issues. Even members that publicly don't like me have PMd me with issues.


For members feeling slapped for having their posts deleted, please try and see the other side as well. We try and keep as much drama off the boards as possible. I personally think overall we do a fine job of that. If we allow members/peers moderate one another and make the other feel reprimanded by a peer then we get drama. We learned nearly a decade ago here that to simply clean that off usually helps.
If a member is being abusive in any way to an authenticator we need it reported immediately and we really need people to immediately ignore that member. I know that latter part is exceedingly difficult! lol
If we don't respond soon, another report is ok. We don't like any abuse between members.

Ohhh YES… I know exactly what you mean.

On my other forum, somebody will come in and act abusive towards other members, if the
other members would just IGNORE that abusive member, and report the post, it would make life a LOT easier.
But, human nature kicks in, and people will reply to the person acting abusive,
and in an attempt to be evenhanded, the others who replied to the abusive poster,
also get a slight talking to.

 

[devik]

Answering a few questions/points that were brought up over the past few pages:

- Members reporting when another member is combative/rude/breaking the rules is so integral because it helps us see something and act accordingly. The mods here follow the rules that Vlad and I have set up but many times we only see the issue if it's reported.

- When we remove rude remarks, as Swanky said, we often remove the people who quote those and the discussion that follows. If I'm deleting one side being rude to the other person, I'm not going to leave the person who quoted the other one there

- We don't have separate rules for separate parts of the forum. The forum runs under the same rules across the board. I'm not heavy handed and have never been - I believe people make mistakes, sometimes because they are unaware of what's going on and how we do things. Sometimes it's just a bad apple who won't fit well into the forum. They always dig their graves if it's the later. And majority of members who have been here a long time probably know I'm understanding

- If you see someone authenticating and getting it wrong, send me a PM. Tell me what's going on, tell me why they are wrong, and I will ask them to stop authenticating. I have no problem doing that. A PM would be so helpful in that case!!!

- Only mods can delete/edit, authenticators can not

- While I have zero qualms apologizing for not always being right, missing certain reports, and owning up to knowing I could have handled certain situations better, I have always had the backs of the authenticators.

- This community is huge and it's amazing. We have so many forums and so many amazing members. Does everyone love everyone here? No. But I do think for a forum this large we are lucky to have a very good group. I don't want to take away from that either

Hey Megs - thanks for those replies - however I didn't see anything there or since that directly addresses the specific questions that I posted here:

Hey Megs - two questions from me as a new(er) member:

(snip)

Every authenticator is able to authenticate anything they would like at anytime. *HOWEVER* we DO NOT want to allow people to authenticate improperly - to authenticate, one should have a very very deep understanding of a brand. I don't authenticate and I don't at all feel confident to do so. If there are people coming in and giving opinions and you see it's wrong, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE report it and PM me directly - I will handle it. I always handle something like this behind the scenes versus in the thread, that is why maybe you don't see something happening, but I promise if I am told there is an issue, I am on it along with the mod team.

(snip)

Question 1. When you say "report it" do you mean with the Report button at the bottom of a post? Because that feature says something like "only use this for spammers or advertising" - are you saying we should be using it for ANY post that we want to get to the attention of the mods? If so then I think that language should be clarified.

(snip)
On that same note, one of the issues that we run into as admin/mods is seeing members (authenticators included) calling out members in threads - we don't like to allow that anywhere on the forum and never have, so we try to clean that up in the AT threads as well. I think this causes a lot of contention because it may seem like I'm siding with someone other than the authenticators, but that isn't the case. I don't want anyone to mod other than the mods/admins, and I want people to feel comfortable letting me know there's an issue and I promise I will step in to help.
(snip)

Software may fix the format issue; it may not. People may still bump their requests if they want an answer NOW. The flip side of that is this: the reason authenticators respond to difficult members eventually is because it seems no one else will. Moderators/admins' responses to reports has to be faster and it has to be obvious that this kind of bad behaviour is not going to be tolerated. Otherwise, why blame authenticators for finally addressing an ongoing problem in a thread in which they are the most active.

Question 2: I admit that I've been one who - not as an authenticator, just as a regular member - has requested that a new member not issue authentication opinions when they pretty clearly didn't know what they were doing (and I also got slammed immediately back from this person so I can appreciate how much the actual authenticators must have to deal with!). This was on the AT Shoes thread.

I see now that the preferred action is to behind the scenes report the poster - but the problem that I have (besides the fact of presumably a delay - which means that the original requester is likely to go off on their merry way with BAD INFO about their item) is that how will we educate others on the thread? If someone is actually bothering to read the history of posts and they see one person offering opinions based on wrong methods, who gets corrected in-thread, then doesn't that help the whole community and (hopefully) help prevent it from happening again? Or at least reduce the chances. Obviously it does nothing for the gazillions of people who don't bother reading anything. But if the standard response is to just delete posts with bad opinions then it seems like a forever game instead of an opportunity to progress the community.

So the long-winded question is, How do we help new people understand the standards or expectations for who is qualified to be an authenticator (even if it's a self-selecting model) if there is no feedback in-thread when people are clearly NOT qualified?


I get it, that you don't want members policing the place, but sometimes it seems like NO ONE is policing the place... and you know how nature feels about a vacuum. Possibly all this stuff happening invisibly behind the scenes could be perpetuating the problems more than necessary? Dunno, just thinking out loud here.

Oh no now I'm being that annoying member who gets impatient and bumps their post!!

 

[Megs]

Hey Megs - thanks for those replies - however I didn't see anything there or since that directly addresses the specific questions that I posted here:







Oh no now I'm being that annoying member who gets impatient and bumps their post!!

My responses in blue:

Question 1. When you say "report it" do you mean with the Report button at the bottom of a post? Because that feature says something like "only use this for spammers or advertising" - are you saying we should be using it for ANY post that we want to get to the attention of the mods? If so then I think that language should be clarified.

Yes, report a post. I believe the wording for the report button says spammers, advertising, or people breaking the rules. This would constitute breaking the rules. Please use the report button to alert us to a post that needs mods/admin attention with the report button. You can also PM me if needed.

Question 2: I admit that I've been one who - not as an authenticator, just as a regular member - has requested that a new member not issue authentication opinions when they pretty clearly didn't know what they were doing (and I also got slammed immediately back from this person so I can appreciate how much the actual authenticators must have to deal with!). This was on the AT Shoes thread.

I see now that the preferred action is to behind the scenes report the poster - but the problem that I have (besides the fact of presumably a delay - which means that the original requester is likely to go off on their merry way with BAD INFO about their item) is that how will we educate others on the thread? If someone is actually bothering to read the history of posts and they see one person offering opinions based on wrong methods, who gets corrected in-thread, then doesn't that help the whole community and (hopefully) help prevent it from happening again? Or at least reduce the chances. Obviously it does nothing for the gazillions of people who don't bother reading anything. But if the standard response is to just delete posts with bad opinions then it seems like a forever game instead of an opportunity to progress the community.

So the long-winded question is, How do we help new people understand the standards or expectations for who is qualified to be an authenticator (even if it's a self-selecting model) if there is no feedback in-thread when people are clearly NOT qualified?


I get it, that you don't want members policing the place, but sometimes it seems like NO ONE is policing the place... and you know how nature feels about a vacuum. Possibly all this stuff happening invisibly behind the scenes could be perpetuating the problems more than necessary? Dunno, just thinking out loud here.

I would suggest you immediately report the false authentication. Saying to someone, 'hey, I don't think your authentication is right and you should make sure you are 100% sure before you authenticate" isn't breaking our rules.

You could then say, here are the authenticators many people really trust here in this thread or something along that line. I've seen people do this and that is fine.

Sometimes people get more aggressive and the call out of the person is much different than saying "hey, be very careful I'm not sure you are right". If that poster is giving improper authentications, we will remove their posts, issue an infraction, and message them.

Hope this helps answer your questions.

 

[Prada Psycho]

Here's an opportunity for walking the walk and talking the talk. Since the entirely TOO long Prada AT thread has finally been closed and we're starting fresh on a new thread, I'm going test the waters and step back into authenticating Prada.

I'm willing accept the good faith that's been discussed and offered in this thread, but in all fairness, I would expect to be fully supported by the Admins/Mods who have expressed the desire to support us.

 

[Megs]

Here's an opportunity for walking the walk and talking the talk. Since the entirely TOO long Prada AT thread has finally been closed and we're starting fresh on a new thread, I'm going test the waters and step back into authenticating Prada.

I'm willing accept the good faith that's been discussed and offered in this thread, but in all fairness, I would expect to be fully supported by the Admins/Mods who have expressed the desire to support us.

You let me know if anything is happening in that thread that needs my attention, and I'm there

 

[Prada Psycho]

You let me know if anything is happening in that thread that needs my attention, and I'm there

Done and done.

 

[devik]

My responses in blue:

Question 1. When you say "report it" do you mean with the Report button at the bottom of a post? Because that feature says something like "only use this for spammers or advertising" - are you saying we should be using it for ANY post that we want to get to the attention of the mods? If so then I think that language should be clarified.

Yes, report a post. I believe the wording for the report button says spammers, advertising, or people breaking the rules. This would constitute breaking the rules. Please use the report button to alert us to a post that needs mods/admin attention with the report button. You can also PM me if needed.

Question 2: (snip)

So the long-winded question is, How do we help new people understand the standards or expectations for who is qualified to be an authenticator (even if it's a self-selecting model) if there is no feedback in-thread when people are clearly NOT qualified?

(snip)

I would suggest you immediately report the false authentication. Saying to someone, 'hey, I don't think your authentication is right and you should make sure you are 100% sure before you authenticate" isn't breaking our rules.

You could then say, here are the authenticators many people really trust here in this thread or something along that line. I've seen people do this and that is fine.

Sometimes people get more aggressive and the call out of the person is much different than saying "hey, be very careful I'm not sure you are right". If that poster is giving improper authentications, we will remove their posts, issue an infraction, and message them.

Hope this helps answer your questions.

Thanks on both counts, Megs - and especially the second one. I had understood that the action you describe above, about mentioning to another member that I think there may be issues, was specifically NOT allowed in any form. This clarification is very helpful for me.

Here's an opportunity for walking the walk and talking the talk. Since the entirely TOO long Prada AT thread has finally been closed and we're starting fresh on a new thread, I'm going test the waters and step back into authenticating Prada.

I'm willing accept the good faith that's been discussed and offered in this thread, but in all fairness, I would expect to be fully supported by the Admins/Mods who have expressed the desire to support us.

YAY!! Your contributions to the entire Prada forum are immeasurable, nowhere more so than the AT thread. Thank you, Prada Psycho!!